Baked Head mmmmmmmmmmmmm

I baked out the normals and ambient occlusion for Jack the Ripper and thanks to all the practice I have been doing I got no noticeable seams!!! WOOO :D

I am really happy with this and it has given me a real boost in my confidence. I am actually on my way to making something the way that I want it to look rather than being hindered by technical difficulties.

I am quite happy with the mesh as well, I realise there may still be a few things that I could improve (suggestions welcome for future improvement).

Total of 1480 tris including the eyes using a 1024 texture for both the normals and ambient occlusion. Some space has been saved for the hands... this may change the overall resolution slightly later... but it will not be much work to do this and I don't think it will be drastic enough to change the quality of the model.

Simon is a happy modeller!

Hand Sculpt

Working on the hand sculpt for Jack the Ripper (and because it's fun). Only focused on major forms so that I didn't mess up too much today. I have done quite a lot of adjusting to the low poly also in order that the proportions look more like they are supposed to.

Head sculpt to develop character

I decided to sculpt the head today after tweaking and fixing for a long time. I realised that the head was finished so I thought i would sculpt it to help move me along and have a bit of fun. Low poly is nearly complete also, just trying to figure out a few bits here and there before moving on to UVing and texturing.

I will tweak this a bit more once i have done some more on the low poly. I dont want to get too carried away with details just yet.

The best powercut ever!!

A few nights ago I was happily sitting on my laptop as usual watching a few programs on BBCi and checking my facebook like I always do when suddenly everything electrical in the house died. It took me a few moments to realise that we had experienced a powercut. Slightly confused I went to chat to my parents who by this point were talking to the neighbours out of the window about the situation laughing and joking.

Now this wouldn't seem like such an unusual situation, this I can understand. However, it made me so aware of the amount of social ability we lose due to technology. I could have been spending time with my parents or even friends but I had chosen to sit on my computer for a couple of hours. What shocked me even more was that we don't talk to most of our neighbours and yet the entire street seemed united in friendly conversation which seemed to be so against the way things usually are.

I didn't know what to do once the electricity was off... that is what freaked me out the most. I had no idea how to entertain myself without electricity beyond playing a bit of guitar. I found myself sitting in the garden listening to the trees blowing in the wind, something I had never really sat and appreciated before. It was so quiet! How often in life do we let absolute silence happen? It has made me realise how important it is for us. I felt rested and like I had done something that my body really needed to relax rather than just sitting in front of a series of images hoping for the odd laugh.

Not only that but I went to bed early because my body actually could tell what time it was, bed time! Will somebody remind me why we rely on technology so much? Try not turning on anything electrical one night and doing something else, it changes everything. Whether or not you enjoy the experience, it will definately make you think.

Im gonna finish this one!

Having practiced several things for months, I have not actually reached the end of a project (boo). So after chatting to several people I have realised that I have to actually get something completed rather than learning random skills from all over the place. Thanks for the push guys :)

So I am going to finish my Jack the Ripper like I said I would ages ago. I feel I have really let myself down recently. I have learnt so much about the Unreal Editor, Zbrush and baking textures but I havent channelled this into a project.

I will at least complete this character and then I will move on to the environment if I feel I can complete it with the time given.

Shin Pads

Second asset has been completed to a satisfactory standard. I am actually pretty happy with these. I am learning alot from simply practicing making real life objects. They are 287 Tris each with 512/512 Normal, Colour and Specular.

When I made the straps I simply made the high poly in max. I found it was less fiddly for the type of object that it is and looked less "gooey". I am trying to fight the fact that I keep making bakes that look slightly dodgy around the edges, maybe modelling some things in max will help. Or it may just be a matter of being more careful with my zbrush models.

I had a couple of problems with this model.. I have found that if I render it the straps seem to glow. Any ideas? I was thinking it may be because they are flat planes. These pictures are from viewport.

I learnt alot from watching Scott Eaton sculpting. He uses a very low intensity and its very careful. I have always been one of these people that makes something basically and quickly and then develops it. I am now learning that in order to make a model more effectively I may have to be more careful along the way without worrying too much about the details. Turning down the intensity of my brush should help me do this.