Eirek's Zbrushing Commences

Here's Eirek with a bit of zbrushing underway. The face will have additional texture as soon as I get a diffuse sorted for it, and the coat needs a lot further work. It needs more sculpting and the detail work is just a preliminary test.


Matt Aldridge

Environment work update

Heres a render of the 2 story house fully textured. Will need dirt maps over the top like blood etc just to bring it to life.

Daniel Grandpierre.

Environment work

Heres a shot of the environment with one of the buildings exported into crysis.

Daniel Grandpierre.

If I never see another rosary it'll be too soon

Euugghggghhhhhghghghghhhhhh. Done it. Was it worth it? No...

The beads hanging off his hat swing when he moves his head...or they will do as soon as he CAN move his head. The rest stay static...out of necessity really. It was hard to enough to position it all correctly without bringing shoddy physics engines into the bargain.



Matt Aldridge

Vampire Bat Diffuse texture Update

Bit of a late update but this is how the Vampire Bat will look in crysis hopefully. All that is need to be done to the character is the rigging and skinning for the pre-rendered scenes, and to skin the character to the crysis rig which should be fun!.

Daniel Grandpierre.

Eirek's Sword

Christ what an irritating bit of modelling. The crossbar with all its swirly decoration is one mesh and took quite a bit of hairpulling to do. Not too happy with it but it's consumed too much time already and I'm itching to finally start Z brushing



Matt Aldridge

Vampire Bat Diffuse texture

Still unsure on the overall color of the skin. Will be creating a spec map for the blood and specific areas of the skin.

Daniel Grandpierre.

Eirek nearly finished basic modelling

Getting the crossbow attached to his back was a massive pain in the arse but I finally got a solution that works. The crossbow has a spike on it that fits into a loop on Eirek's sash. His coat is torn around the loop. This means he can very easily pull the crossbow into his hands. All his weapons are proving very bulky and cumbersome but then we never envisaged him moving too quickly or agiley anyway. You have to trade off between speed and firepower, and we chose firepower. The fact that the game is an FPS also supports this choice, as, with the exception of Mirror's Edge, FPS's don't really involve fast movement or gymnastics.





Matt Aldridge

Vampire Bat finished zbrush sculpture

HEre is the finished Sculpted zbrush character. I will upload the texture shots in due course as the character has uv issues that I am currently fixing and cleaning up.

Daniel Grandpierre.

Crossbow WIP

Started the crossbow today and am this far. The metal work on the top was particularly tricky and isn't complete enough to allow for a proper render, but I'm pleased so I'll post these wires.

In other news we have a new member who will be working on environment and assets and posting to this blog.




Matt Aldridge

Eirek's pistol

Here is Eirek's pistol as it stands before any Z Brushing. It's a cross between a flint-lock pistol and a volley gun. Because these types of guns took so long to reload, they were often given 2, 4 or even 7 barrels. I'm not sure if the barrels fired simulataneously or consecutively, but we're taking some artistic licence and saying that Eirek can fire 7 shots from each gun before having to reload. It will be a game mechanic that once he has emptied his pistols and crossbow, he will not be able to reload quickly, so every shot has to count and the hordes of vampires have to be despatched efficiently.




I find hard-edge modelling of this sort very difficult. Using crease edge and turbosmooth gets you only so far if you want to export to Z Brush but still keep low-poly base meshes, and chamfering the edges doesn't yield that much crispness and is a complex chore in itself.



Matt Aldridge

Vampire Bat Zbrush update

Here is pretty much the finished product of the character. I will be adding another layer of detail to help define muscle strands, veins, scars etc and will then texture using zbrush.

Eirek Havard Update

Added a lot of small details such as the rivets on his armour, the boot covers, the rags around his neck and hat, and a hell of a lot of straps. If I never make another strap it'll be too soon. Thank god for the FFD modifier.








Matt Aldridge

Simulation Tests

Taught myself very basic reactor rope in Max in order to make the various swingy bits Eirek has, such as the bible swinging on a rope around his waist, and the rosary beads hanging off the edge of his hat. Also included in this video is the early cloth test I did to see how his lower coat would work.


Simulated Animation Tests from Matt Aldridge on Vimeo.

And here is a picture of his face finished:





Matt Aldridge

Matt's pics for "Show n' Tell"

The base body of Eirek is complete, and once I have the head modelled and a few secondary assets fleshed out, I can start Z Brushing




Matt Aldridge

Stave Church

These are a couple of renders for the 'Stave' church building which the big bad wolf jumps down at the end of the trailers, for the Blood remnants Crymod, No textures as of yet jus models

Big Bad Wolf Updates

These a few hair tests for the pre rendered segmants of the trailer for the Blood Remnants crymod. Click to enlarge




The following are Sculting updates for the normal map for the BIG BAD WOLF for the trailer for the Blood Remnants Crymod :D
At the moment the surface detail is a bit superficial like a tatooe i need to bring it all out so it looks like muscle groups but its getting there.

Vampire Bat Zbrush

Quick update on the Vampire Bat character, been working on the torso and back and I think its coming along pretty strong. The ribcage was giving me a few problems as it didnt look correct with the rest of the mesh so I sculpted in some detail between each rib to add more interest.

Daniel Grandpierre.

Eirek Havard has a coat...sort of

Just some progress shots of the coat. This part has been a bit of a bitch to model because of the overlapping lapels but it's looking spiffy





Threw in an AO pass for good measure, just 'coz they look cooool. Also made a rudimentary light set-up



Matt Aldridge

Eirek Progress

Here is a progress shot of Eirek, with wireframes. Some of the elements are turbosmoothed, but I do have all the low polys to make it all easier to unwrap and possibly rig. It's been a steep learning curve figuring out the best ways to create his armour but I think I've got it pretty sussed now. Can't do anything about the mistakes I've already made but I've learnt a lot and my workflow is improving.






Matt Aldridge

Moonlight test

Quick Light setup for pre-rendered environment scenes.

Daniel Grandpierre.

Big Bad Wolf Base Mesh

Big Bad wolf Base Mesh, for the Game trailer for the Crymod 'Blood Remnants'

Bat_Grey_Box

These are the Final grey box base meshes for the Vampire creature in the final Game trailer for the Crymod Blood Remnants.

Daniel Grandpierre.

Updated Animatic

Blood remnants 3d pre vis from Joe Sargent on Vimeo.

This is the updated animatic for the Crymod Blood remnants, its alla little to fast and needs to be slowed down, all the action is there, but jus not slow enough

Current development on Eirek Havard

My current work on the main character of this game for the fully rendered scenes of our game trailer for the Blood Remnants Crymod. 7,244 polys so far, lucky it's not going in the game engine!



Matt Aldridge

Eirek Havard T poses

I've had a hard time deciding how to divide up the main character, ELrek, for the Cry mod Blood Remnants in order to model him most effectively and still allow for smooth rigging and skinning. I drew the various layers of his armour in one Photoshop file, and then dived straight into modelling. At the moment I've nearly finished the gorget (neck armour).



Matt Aldridge