Adam Carroll

Just thought I’d take a moment to go over my creation process for Zryais in case anyone is interested.  I started with this sweet concept by Raox which i chose because i liked the sense of character and over all form.  I also have been wanting to do some more stylized pieces and thought he’d be a great choice for my first attempt.

I box-modeled a very basic base mesh in Maya, only worrying about the rough form and trying to keep everything as quads for Zbrush.  Usually I do a good amount of building in Maya before turning to Zbrush, but wanted to try starting with less.  I also planned on using the Transpose Master tool to change his pose into something a bit more neutral.  

I then took my mesh into Zbrush and broke it down into polygroups to help with hiding and sculpting certain areas.  I’d never really used the poly groups all that much in the past, but boy was it helpful and will definitely be something I continue to use in the future.  I also went ahead and bulked out the proportions a bit as well as changed his pose to something a bit more neutral.

 

I sculpted away, working to achieve the overall shapes and silhouettes as well as the details necessary.  After a bit of sculpting I realized I’d forgotten to add Zryais’ antennae to my original base, so i went back to Maya to make this change (left image).  If you’ve ever used Zbrush and had to make changes to your base mesh, you know it changes the vertex order and will destroy your levels.  To get around this i was able to use the “project all” function which will transfer sculpted detail from one base to the next (right image).  I’m looking forward to Go-Z (in zb4) which will allow closer integration with traditional 3d apps and solve this problem.

After i finished my final sculpt i exported out a medium range mesh with enough detail that i could make out all my landmarks.  I used good ole’ Make Live in maya to use the sculpted mesh as a base for my low res mesh.  You can also use Zbrush or Topogun or Nex to do this, i just stuck with the original in this instance.  Once the low res mesh was finished and UV’d, i baked out my normals and AO using a great free program that most people have heard of, xNormal.  I created all the rest of the maps in photoshop using basic tools.  I did however use the polypaint tools in Zbrush to get the long straight green lines on his skin and just used Maya to transfer the maps.

That’s pretty much everything, so i’ll just end this blurb with a little turntable of Zryais.  Let me know what you think, and be sure to check out the rest of the images in my Gallery!

I spent the last few weeks working on a character designed by the great concept team of Raox.  They’re a duo out of Spain working on the 2D end of the CG spectrum, and were nice enough to let me use their character concept for my first attempt at low-poly work (if it can even be considered low poly).  Having never really concerned myself with poly counts, or the limits of modern game engines, this was a bit of a step in the dark for me.  I stuck to the guidelines of Dominance War IV for my limitations and learned a lot along the way (especially when it comes to what normal maps can and can not do).  I’m definitely going to be working on some more game art in the very near future.

 

I decided to post some work I did with a new studio that started here in Columbus, Ohio called New Fuel.  The work here was all in-house stuff we did in our spare time.  I modeled and textured the helmet, did the details and textures for the horns, and the textures for the head.  All other modeling was done by one of the other guys working at the studio. 

Just before the end of the year I finished updating my demo reel.  It’s got some of my personal works for the past few years.  I went back through some of my older pieces and tried to update them some using new tricks I’ve learned.  The pieces can each be found individually in my gallery with some explanation of the creation process as well as more still images which may not be on the reel itself.   Although it’s nice to go through and bring everything I’ve done to a final presentation, I’m glad it’s over so I can start on some new pieces.  Go check out my 2008 Demo Reel and let me know what you think!