Who of you do 3D / CG?

I am always wondering how much people work with 3d in Sonic community, since they are quite scarce and I don't know a lot of then. It is good to have people with common interests to talk to and sometimes do help others. Almost everyone in here works with 2d, so I ask: who of you do some serious stuff in 3d (modelling, rendering, animation, SFX, cinematics, others)?

And a extra question, to make the best use of this topic:

"is anyone interested in work with:

a team in a 3D game with high end graphics or a team of developers making a next gen general gameplay Sonic Framework?"

Who already say my posts and topic here, or my work in other foruns or youtube will know what these 2 are about, if you curious, fell free to ask. In the game case, it is not necessary to know 3d, other skills like graphic design are good too : ) . The game team work as we go, not issuing orders or bossing around, neither putting deadlines, everyone help as much as they can/want.

 

(First to start off, it's worth noting I've not been on here in over a year lol, but this thread sparked my interest)

I myself have experience in 3D artwork and animation.  Conveniently, I've also sparked an interest in learning UE4 which I've been trying to do during the end of the summer (only got about a month of playing around with it).  your portfolio convinces me and your idea of a Sonic Framework makes me more genuinely interested in what you have to offer.  To answer your question about 3D activists in the community, I consider myself one.  I've been using Blender for about four years now but have been very inconsistent with my use because school is something that is taking up most of my life at the moment.  I don't have a "certified professional" banner to show off like you do  :blush:  but I'm always looking for projects where I can learn as I go (in this case, UE4). I don't have an online portfolio of any kind, nor do I have any up to date works to show off other than something I've been working on I started two days ago:

(Ignore the funky ear lol)

Basically it's a gender neutral body (head at the moment) that I'm working on as a base for any human characters that I plan to make in the future. It's based on a few reference faces I photoshopped and morphed so I can get a neutral look (looks more female at the moment, but it's only been two days and I don't have much time on my hands).

Other than that, that's all I've been doing with 3D recently.  When I was learning Unreal over the end of the summer, I mainly focused on material and animation blueprints (my knowledge on the two still very limited lol) but I've pulled off some fairly convincing animations that blend well ingame, but I'll show those when I have time to get screen recording software.  Other than that, all I really did was make basic assets like this spring:

Complete with normal maps and all, and 100% custom.  Not much I know but that's all I really have to show at the moment.  



And a basic environment I whipped up in a day with unbuilt lighting and material trouble in the background lol (also ignore the incorrect rotation of the sand texture and the very obviously tiled cliff texture)



Things like the bridge and the landscape textures were 100% custom (only borrowed landscape texture being the sand because I'm not near a beach), and things like the boxes were made with new original highpoly meshes and and repurposed textures.  I attempted to make water with what I knew about the material editor, but all I have is a refraction (no depth or reflection).

Now here's the thing; being busy and all, I don't know when I'd have the time to even help out with something like a Sonic Framework.  I'm just here to show my interest and let you know that there are 3D activists in the community (I haven't met many on here but that could've changed while I was gone).  But I'm here to express my interest, and if things settle down for me and I have more free time to do what I want, I'd happily help out in what you're trying to get started here.  I'll definitely let you know if I'm available to help because I see how much potential your project has.  Hopefully it becomes more successful than Sonic GDK. Other than that, good luck  :smile:

 

​Wow, you really looked at my stuff, thanks a lot for the attention!!!

Well, yeah, I started the engine for ue4 and all that, but the real reason is because I have a team working on a game, and we needed it. Also there is another team with a known project using it. So, my real focus is on the game project, and not on the framework. We already have a good number of people working on it, but the more popular the better, people can get blueprints and expand the project with things we didn't really planned to put on, we just planned the necessary things to make every kind of gameplay possible, the rest is others work.

So, in case you be interested, you can get my contact on my site, if you want to talk more about UE4, I have a lot of resources and almost 4 years of experience using it since UDK., Maybe I can help you on something. You can also participate on the game doing one or two things if you wish, since it is good for learning (I also made high poly boxes and other gimmicks from 06, lol). Also, feel free to get the HDK source and play with it on UE4.

 

​I'll get in contact if I have time.  If I were to contribute, it'd be mostly artistic assets instead of blueprints anyways lol (and possible environments but I'm having trouble with the materials and stuff so maybe you could be of help to me with that stuff). But yeah I'll get back to you.  May not be for quite a few weeks and maybe even months if things don't settle down, but I doubt this whole thing will be near finished before that though

 

AdelTheQadi, that is some real nice work there. Although what is that little white spec on the top of the spring? =P

Also, polite notice, but do not quote the post directly above when replying like you did in the above post. Thanks!

 

The little spec on the spring is the reflection of the light source (also known as specularity in the 3D world), in this case being some random sun that was automatically generated

 

People like a spring?


​What about four springs?

These are my custom spring models, fully functioning. 
​

EDIT: Off topic? Everyone was talking about the spring model up there, but... Meh, I give up.I'll go away.

 

Alright, fell free to do it if you want when you want. I help with anything I can.​

Good advice, I try to reduce the quotes deleting everything but the start and finish, but I will remember and apply this rule on foruns.​

​Sorry man, but you didn't commented anything related to the topic. It is really no problem to show your work that is related to the point, as long it had a reason for expressing your opnion on the topic title.

 

​

B*TCH FIGHT ME

Jk though yours are pretty much better than mine by default because they are functional  :happy:

 

Pfft, heh.
That makes me feel a bit better, but yours have more lighting effects. (Must be that you're using a newer engine than 2005 stuff.)
I wish I could make my things in those larger and more fancy engines, but they keep crashing because my computer is too old.



Textures are placeholder, I would be willing to offer it out for project usage



But, being so old in engine...


Top that in the epic scale, in-game! 

 

I do feel that we're getting off topic...

 

I am going to ask openly because I feel others can benefit from the answers:

Excluding the characters, would you rather have people make 100% custom content (spring for example) for all this, or is it ethical to just modify things that exist in other sonic games and make them look better

For example, the original texture was 256x256 and the model was just a simple cube.  Here the texture is 1024x1024, and the model has actual depth so it's definitely improved, but still technically not original.  Would things like this be acceptable?

 

Normally I try to do modification to make objects better and high res. I also add geometry to express some details better.



You can see I made complex materials for each box to make they look better than the default texture. The wooden box for example got that wood plank added as geometry, and the last bomb box too got their edges extruded.





In these cases I made the objects custom (Sonic 1 and 3 Monitors, and others). In the second one I carved more details on existing objects. Made the wood box from wood planks were you can see inside. Put screws on the electric box, and carved a lot of details and changed the material structure of the dash ring, so I can use solid materials of metals and high res textures on smaller parts and made holes on the back for particle systems to kick some effects.

Besides that, we really off topic, but at least this is serving as a 3D topic, which is already something.

 

​Well the topic is of 3D models and they are posting 3D models so I don't see how they are off topic.

 

Actually LuigiXHero, I was asking who would make 3D and computer graphics, since they are scarse on comunity. What I want is know these people and get their contact because it is good to know and talk to people who have the same interests. Also is possible to help mutually.

But since it also become a 3D screenshot topic, I will post some new ones.

 

Well if this will serve as a 3D topic, I'll give a sneak peak of what I'm trying to work on:



ICE CAP!!!

Currently creating HD textures (4096px overkill) for an attempt to make an environment in Unreal Engine 4 that will look like Ice Cap from Sonic 3 at first glance.  Once I make more textures and models, I'll show off more.  But for now, here's a sneak peak

PS: The texture is not final; it's just made so I can save the method of creating the texture.  I used a cheap tiling method so it does not look proper at the moment, not to mention that you can still see remains of the 16 bit chunk in the new texture lol

 

This texture is amazing, and it is not overkill 4096. I myself use a standard of 2048 (was 1024 on UDK) for my game, but when possible, I can use 4096 or 8192. What is important is the quality I think, you not doing a game for consoles. Even though some pc might not run today with the high quality, in some time people will be able to run this and more.

By the way, have you heard of this guy: https://www.youtube.com/user/meinukey . He is a friend of mine who on his channel you can see he is working on a Unreal Engine 4 version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Maybe you could make some levels with him?

I can see you sort of mapped a low resolution image as reflection of the texture. Have you done this texture in a procedural texture generator software like FilterForge, Genetica, DarkTree or other?

 

No, I used a fake reflection for the front of the ice, and had the ice refract the original texture.  



The background wall is tiled with the original Sonic 3 chunk, and the brighter foreground wall has a custom shape to match the original chunk.  After that, I added a refraction node to the wall to distort what's behind it while still maintaining the fake reflection.  It gives a much more convincing result than things like Filterforge or related programs (I always feel that programs like those are somewhat "cheaty" if you will. I don't condemn them, but I'd much rather do things on my own, and that's how I better myself as an artist.)  All that's really left to do is make sure that the foreground wall is tillable with the mesh (before tiling the texture) and do something to get rid of the filtered pixels of the background wall (Maybe I can finally fix this faded normal map too which is bugging the hell out of me lol)



Also with me saying it's overkill, I usually tend to standardize my textures to 1024px or 2048px, but 4096px is still rather high for a game even in this day and age (The model is smooth enough to render a 32,768px texture without consequence, which is inarguably overkill even for CG :biggrin: )

And I'll check out your friend's youtube and message him if I'm interested in joining his project

 

So quick update: Completely redid the texture so it is MUCH MUCH cleaner and smoother (Also it now tiles evenly on all sides  :biggrin: )

Post processing is needed to match the color of the original texture, but I thin it's a step in the right direction



BEFORE AND AFTER

Also fixed the normal map



There are certain elements that I think would do good in the new version (like the inward bevels instead of the diamond ones sticking out.  Maybe I'll post my stuff on a different thread for more feedback later on, but I'll do that once I get more content ready such as a snow texture, actual level geometry, etc.

Speaking of other assets, I did make this: very rough and rigid, not nearly done, but I attempted to recreate the orb that throws spiky ice balls at you (original for comparison)  

And that's pretty much that so far

 

To be honest, I prefer the ice texture on the left more than the new one. It actually looks like ice at the first glance, whereas the texture on the right reminds me more of metal than anything.