Iron Glaxy Art Test: Breakdown

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    For this project I was  given a great opportunity to take an art test for Iron Galaxy. 



 Day 1: Reference and Blockout

    The first step in my process was to gather reference and get an understanding of what I am modeling. During my reference gathering phase I set up a few questions to ask myself:
  • How old is the asset?
  • What was the primary function/purpose?
  • What materials were used to create it?
  • Where is the asset located?

    With these core questions in mind, I gathered a small pool of reference. My reference covered my core questions as well as a quality benchmark examples for my final deliverables. (By the end of the project my mood board will be broken down into sub sections depending on detail, story telling, and presentation)


    For the blockout phase I wanted to get a feel for the scale. The initial size felt too large so I scaled it down about 35%. With the scale reduction the structure still feels imposing without compromising the structural integrity.

Blocking out scale and shape language

    With the blockout completed, I took some time to get my pieces set up in Zbrush and do a first pass on materials. I wanted to have as much versatility as possible by keeping the parts separated. It will allow me to sculpt each piece individually with ease when I start re-topologizing.

Exposed pieces
    For my material first pass, I  started with the gold and lichen materials first as they will be the grounding elements to the stone structure. Getting a first pass on the base materials will help me get an understanding of how light will interact with the surface of the textures.




Gold First Pass



Moss First Pass



Day 2: Highpoly and Materials

    A new day, more progress! Starting off with a second pass on materials. Getting a look with fresh eyes will help me see what works, what doesn't, and what is needed. The moss felt a bit too dark so I did another pass to increase saturation. The gold was a bit yellow as well so I toned down the hue and saturation. The stone statue I made was based off of basalt stone. I applied my materials to the Unreal Mannequin to see how the materials would be affected on curved objects.

Gold



Moss


Stone


    During the sculpting phase, I wanted to breakdown my work into stages:

1: Fully constructed (new)
2: Aging/ Weathering
3. Overgrowth


Final Sculpt




     Keeping the materials and location in mind I wanted the statue to feel smooth but hand carved. After the initial construction, the next phase would be to add natural weathering and aging. In the amazon there is constant rain and I wanted to present that with pitting. With water dripping on top of the statue as pitting would eventually form.



Water damage from build up


    The statue needed a bit of aging which is done by adding cracks and pieces of stone that would eventually fall off over time. 



    Lastly I wanted to focus on overgrowth. During this phase I constructed the vines to lock the statue in place. The goal was to have the vines and roots intertwine with the statue and create a natural grip at the base and in certain damaged areas.



Vines Front



Vines Back


Day 2: 14 hours


Day 3: Lowpoly and Foliage

    Today I wanted to retopologize my highpoly and make it an optimized game asset. For this process I used Maya's quad draw tool to manually retopo the statue. With my 4k poly limit, I wanted to use majority of my polys on the statue. Any additional polys would go into the root structure retopo. Initially I wanted two root/vine system but, the poly count was over submission guidelines. My solution for my dilemma was to use the vines that were visible, pleasing to the structure, and pleasing to  the silhouette. 



Lowpoly (left) Highpoly (right)


After retopologizing my asset I turned my attention to the foliage. The asset was completed but I wanted some grounding elements at the base of the statue. Having the foliage at the base will allow me to set dress my asset, tell a story, and break up the transition between the base and asset.

Leaf sculpt

I didn't want anything too complex so I modeled 2 leaves to be baked into substance designer. Time was beginning to be very limited so I focus on large noticeable shapes. After baking down the texture, I created a grass map to buildup around the base of the statue.


Atlas Map

With my atlas map created, I took my textures into blender and created a foliage kit. The foliage 
Foliage Kit


Day 3: 12 hours

Day 4: Baking and Texturing


To kick start the texturing phase I wanted to do a test bake in marmoset. The test bake allowed me to look for stretching, artifacting, and any errors in the bake.

Test Bake from Marmoset

With a bit of trial and error, I managed to get my bake to a good spot to export to substance painter. I also imported my custom textures into my painter file to start a foundation for my texturing process. With my textures imported, I assigned my materials and started working. Looking over my reference, I started with adding some dirt buildup at the base and crevasses. 


Dirt Buildup

Next, I focused on the gold areas. After applying my material, I added a "grunge layer" and a "dusting layer" to do a wear pass.

Gold wear

Lastly I did a moss pass in crevasses and areas were rain would not wash away the moss.










Day 4: 12 hours
Day 5: Documentation

    Last day of the challenge! For my last day I fixed any noticeable errors in my asset then gathered the files needed for this project.I also wanted to fully assemble the asset for screenshots. The roots were not grounded and I wanted to add a base with a smooth transition. One thing that popped into my mind for a possible solution were the dioramas from  Star Wars: Battlefront.


Display Reference

To fully show the asset was located in the jungle, I created a base for the asset to rest on. The base would be a masked out jungle floor material with some height variation. Another element I wanted to add were a few mud puddles and dead foliage.

Initial base set up

  


Foliage and Base



My lighting choices varied from time of day and direction. Once I had the ambient lighting established, I played around with the light direction to play with shadow shapes and rim lighting.


Lighting Test

With all my hard work I took the final screenshots for submission






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