Lord Beritra - AION 4.0: Dark Betrayal

So naturally while I'm supposed to be working on this months art challenge set by Polycount forums, I decided to veer off track today with a strange urge to create a model of 'Lord Beritra', the 'Forth Dragon Lord' from the MMORPG, Aion. Probably because I was listening to the games' soundtrack. 

Considering I started it today, I have gotten quite far with it. It already has most of its normal maps from ZBrush as a first-pass. They haven't been detailed or cleaned up at all yet. I actually built the model over Xiahou Ba's body, retopologising the hands and face once the rest of the body was built to match the lower polycount.

Here is my progress so far. This render is done in Marmoset Toolbag 2, as this is my goal for this project I think.

2D Artwork

I've been doing some random drawings since coming back from Japan and not having time to draw for a month. Here's two examples:

This first one is more of a finished product. Its very manga-esqu as you can see, but I have been reading manga a lot lately.

This second one is much more of a quickie, done using one of Photoshop's pencil-style brushes for a natural look.

Maya 2016 Normal Map Bug

Technically this is not a bug. It is just a different default way that Maya 2016 now loads textures compared to all previous versions that can be frustrating when you don't know what's happening. Here is a demonstration on my State Alchemist project when I first brought in his normal maps for testing:

Beta normal maps applied to a Phong Shader in Maya 2016. Viewport 2.0 (Default), DirectX11 Render Engine. (OpenGL Render Engine produces the same results.)

As you can see, on the left the normal maps do not evaluate as expected. If you simply went through the paces of adding the maps on in Maya 2015 or below, you would immediately see the result shown on the right. 

At first it is not entirely clear what is wrong with the maps, but luckily I had seen this before in Unreal Development Kit a few years ago while in university, and so had an idea of where to start looking.

You can see the thread on my university project here to see the same issue in the UDK game engine:

http://catburglarsgame.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/udk-normal-map-research.html

Essentially the maps have been forced into a colour-managed environment, thanks to all the new viewport colour controls introduced in Maya 2016. As a result, the colours of the maps have been slightly altered internally, and so do not render as expected.

Luckily there is an easy fix!

Above is the issue. You may notice that the texture panel in the attributes editor to the left looks a tiny bit different to Maya 2015 now. Here's what has to be changed:

Changing the colour space to 'Raw', we are telling Maya not to enforce its own colour management on this texture file, and therefore it will work exactly the same way as it always used to in previous versions. However, it is still somewhat annoying to now have to remember yet another extra step during material setup....

Now you can see the problem has been resolved. As far as I am aware, there is no option to make Raw imported textures the norm unfortunately. Let me know if you find a way though!

State Alchemist Progress

I've continued to develop my State Alchemist project. He is now full UV mapped and has been brought into ZBrush, where I am creating his high resolution mesh bit by bit. After this, he will be textured in a combination of ZBrush and Photoshop. 

A State Alchemist - Fullmetal Alchemist

I've been working on three projects at a time lately, as much of a bad idea as that is....

So I've finished project Xiahou Ba finally, though I'm looking to get a small animation of him rendered out at some point, so will wait until then before posting his final renders. Since then, I have started a torso sculpt using Xiahou Ba as a base. The final outcome however, should look nothing like him. He will also be a simple sculpt, nothing more.

Alongside this, I have been recreating my old Jo White project, mostly to address her low quality yet high resolution texture issues. However, when I started to look at these issues I found a bunch more with her general design that I will now address too. These were all problems caused by not spending enough time on parts of her, especially towards the end of the project. 

My third project came to me while watching the original 'Fullmetal Alchemist' anime, as well as seeing what Koei have been creating with toon-shaders: 'Arslan Warriors'. This is the subject of this post. 

This is my 'State Alchemist' model so far. The end result is a hope of a reasonably low resolution model that makes use of toon shaders to look like anime.

The above image shows some design ideas behind the model, as well as future corrections, and a quick paint-over to figure out details later on. Many of the details will be achieved through texture maps as opposed to geometry to keep polycount down for this project. 

The first image shows blue arrows following the extended cloth areas. They signify that on the final model, these parts of the model will be rigged up to be dynamic cloth. They are modelled spread open like this to give them more surface area, allowing them to crumple and fold more realistically when gravity takes hold over them. 

The second image shows areas that need correction after studying the design I'm going for.

Zaffina from Blade & Soul Artwork

Continuing on with the artwork of my characters in the up-coming MMORPG, Blade & Soul (in NA/EU), I have drawn my main character. She was originally from Aion, but has translated surprisingly easily to Blade & Soul with its detailed character creator.

This is the colour version of the image. All of these pieces have colour versions and were filtered using Reticulation in Photoshop CC to get this effect. The warmth the noise brings helps to blend the tones together more coherently, producing a more realistic feel.

Blade & Soul - Cao Rui

I did a different portrait first. This is or will be 'Cao Rui'. Again, he originated from Aion as a Gladiator class, and will be my Blade Master in Blade & Soul.

Blade & Soul BETA Artwork

So I tried out Blade & Soul, an MMO that has already been out for 3-odd years, but is only now making its way over to the west. The game was great, and I highly recommend it!

With it being in its BETA phase at the moment, I could really mess around with the character creator and not have to worry about buying plastic surgery tickets later on when I decide that my characters look wrong. I made a Force Master, taking on the name of my main avatar in Aion, 'Zaffina', and a Summoner, taking on the name of my Elyos Ranger from Aion, 'Zact'. 

This is my Summoner in-game:

I decided to draw a more realistic version of his character where I tried to bring out the role he plays as a character I originally created in Aion. He is a young man who is too naive for the world of war that he lives in.

Next I plan to do a similar portrait of 'Zaffina', bringing out her character colours. This is her in Blade & Soul:

Love my 18-300mm Sigma Lens!

Though I had had this lens a while now, since going on holiday to Venice in September in fact, this was the first time I set it up properly to point it at the night sky. I managed to snap this lovely picture of the moon, though in future I may look into getting a telescope with a camera adapter for it to take even better photos!

Splendours of China Books Coming Soon!

After about 4-5 months work, these books will be ordered tomorrow from Blurb! I've ordered several tests of various aspects of the books the company creates, allowing me to gain a better understanding of what I need to do to get the most out of the service. One such book was the 'Art of Aion' book posted a few posts below. 

These books all tell the same story, but in different ways. Centre-stage is the photobook, which also includes an abridged version of the journal text alongside 440 pages of photos! Then there is the story book, which covers the entire journey in detail, and is also accompanied by a few photos. The last book is a plain text book printed in black & white, and is the entire story, including more thoughts on different subjects and more ramblings on. 

Hardback Image-wrapped, Standard Semi-Matte Photo Paper, Full Colour printing.

Hardback, Bleach-white Standard Paper, Full Colour printing.

Softback, Black & White printing, Economy Cream Paper.

Hopefully everything goes well and they all come out just as expected! When they truly are finalized, they will be posted up here as interactive .SWF books. I have not decided yet if I will try to sell the photobook through Blurb though.