Polygon Pilgrimage - Episode 2 - The Tale of Two Brothers

Chris Tate (website)

Ben Tate (website) (under construction at the time of this writing but the tutorials are still accessible)

Greetings all! This week we get a 2-for-1 deal with the introduction of the Tate Brothers!



The collective genius of these CG artist brothers is clearly evident in their clear, concise, and easy to follow video tutorials. What makes a good tutorial great is the time and care taken to show the viewer every step in the process and to further, explain why it is important. Here you will find many a great tutorial that will expand your knowledge and your bag-o-tricks.



These are not your typical 3-5 minute “here-is-kind-of-how-I-do-this” tutorials; these average 4 hours long each! Not only that but tutorial comes with the required reference images and any additional files such as custom checker maps for your convenience. With great care Chris and Ben have taken the time to show you the exact steps needed to create awesome assets and uncanny unwraps. I don’t think it is possible to recommend these guys highly enough.



Along with learning how to use the “basics” such as 3DS Max and Photoshop the Brothers Tate show you some of their (and my) favorite 3rdparty tools that can shave HOURS off your workflow. Several of the tools that they recommend are now staples in my personal pipeline. (Next week we will discuss Tools so stay tuned!)

You can view even more of their tutorials on CG Tuts+ where Chris is a co-editor. There are several tutorials there from the guys that were created exclusively for CG Tuts+.





QOTD (Quote of the Day):
"The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity."
Alberto Giacometti

I hope you enjoyed Episode 2 of the Polygon Pilgrimage. If you like the series please be sure to subscribe and follow the series on twitter (@PolygonPilgrim). Cheers~

39 - Back In Action

Back In Action!

Whew, it's been a while since I've been able to post something for you guys. My time has fallen prey to that thing we call Life lately. For a while there both my wife and I were sick with upper respitory infections and we were out of town for a bit. Anyway, enough about all the boring stuff, back to the art!

GraveYard Gate Update:

So the GraveYard Gate is done! I got a chance to sit down tonight and power through. I really didn't have that much left to do it was just finding the time to do it. This was a challenging one. I had to learn how to make effective low poly trees and do some serious detail balancing. Fortunately there will never be more than 2 characters in this scene at a time so the rest of the team won't have to worry about balancing like I did. The lead informed me that we needed to hit between 4k and 5k for this scene. The final count came to 2,900. Given the fact that I still have almost 1500 polys worth of wiggle room I think I may suggest some unique detail and a second pass at the trees to add more braches or smooth out some of the curves. Once more for a refresh here is the original concept followed by the final image that is currently under review. Should there be any desired changes by the lead I'll post an updated final.

Concept:



Final Submitted:





A thought about Trees:

What I found was that trees are not terribly difficult to do, save for when you need to make them super low poly and still look good. The trick is to think of the tree as a series of tubes or cylinders. (See Fig.1)



After you establish where the "meat" of each tube is going to be the rest is just welding the ends together and then tweak for branch or trunk shape. (See Fig.2)



I tried to create a quick base mesh in ZBrush but the geometry created that way was messy and did not lend itself to branch instancing very well. (See Fig.3)



Ultimately I decided it was faster, more efficient, and it gives me better control to do it "manually" with cylinder objects in Max. This way I can create one branch, twist it and make it very natural looking and then copy it to the next location and in the end, weld the resulting ends together. (See Fig.4)



Next week I will be on travel for work however when I return I will be working on the first episode of my Polygon Pilgrimage. I've been brushing up my material skills as well as getting my feet wet with Unity for an upcomming project.



Until then thank you very much for your time. As always comments, suggestions, ideas are welcome.



Enjoy!



Cheers~

38 - GraveYard Gate

Greetings all! I apologize for the delay but I have been rather busy with real life stuff and sadly there hasn't been time to post an update. I have some new Imagineer art for you today to make up for it! :) My newest assignment is the GraveYard Gate. This is the entrance scene to the GraveYard that I've already completed.

Concept art:

As you can see there is a lot of detail in this scene! I've got the detailed wrought-iron gate, the stone walls, the massive door with complex mechanics, and the ghoul statues to either side. It's going to be tough to meet the budget this time as there are many moving parts. What you will not see in the render I have for you is the tree that I have been working on. Low poly trees are quite difficult as there is a balance between the right amount of geometry to get the shape and too much geometry spent on that shape, thus pushing the budget. At the moment I have most of the scene, percentage wise, complete. All that remains are primarily the trees and the ghouls (as you will see in the image) Speaking of the image please see below and enjoy! The objects in the blue-ish semi-transparent material are all of my "block out" meshes. These are temporary objects designed to take up the approximate size and shape of the object that will eventually be there. This helps me to determine how large other things are in relation to one another.

Current WIP:

Lastly you may notice that the camera angle and distance does not match the concept perfectly and to be honest it never will, but that's ok. The concept artist has the ability to draw in such a way that the "physical" model can never achieve the exact proportions and camera distance shown. There will always be a little bit of creative license involved. :) I have accounted for this by extending the set a bit further than the camera can currently see in order to give the lead some wiggle room in his placement of the camera's final position.

I hope you've enjoyed and I thank you very much for watching. As always your feedback is encourage and appreciated.

Cheers~