This week, woah, where to start? The team is very excited to welcome not one, but two new artists (one of which I recommended!) to the Concept Art group. Be it the excessive amount of concept work or the big push our producer is making the team's due dates have been accelerated and my job has been swapped. Nothing surprising there, but that just means more than ever the Art Team needs to keep on top of things.
I have been assigned to creating Elk Warpaints task (for now) and with a little bit of luck, can crank out multiple versions by the end of February for critique. Mara (our director's pseudonym) has given me all of the files she can, but I'll need to fill in the gaps if we want a working model. I already have a few challenges to face (most being relocating the original concept work for reference and the replications of said work onto the 3D model). Not only that, but there's always a catch with converting files back and forth. While most of our team is using Blender and NifSkope for their work, I am using Maya, Photoshop, and Substance Painter. I even had to install special Nvidia plugins to get .dds to open in Photoshop.
- Update on that: The model itself is all rigged and game ready, but I'm on texture duty. If you do not know, games run on no less than four crucial textures in order to work properly. These are:
Albedo/Diffuse (color)
Normal (depth and detail)
Opacity (is there a part that is transparent?)
Emission (does it glow?)
AO/Ambient Occlusion (shading data)
Specular or Roughness (shininess - you either use one or the other)
Height (as the name implies, it gives that extra height a normal map can't)
The maps I get to work with are:
Normal
Diffuse
Specular
Emission
While limited, I find it will be a a unique challenge for me. Stay tuned for the next update!
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