Character Head

I started on this yesterday, and have thus far spent around 6 or 7 hours on it. My, how time flies when you're having fun. Or maybe I'm just slow at this.

I used the "side outline" method to model the head, at least at first. It's where you make a polygon outline of the head's side view, and then extrude piece by piece. I find it makes it easy to keep edge loops in check and is more manageable than starting from a cube. The eye sockets, ears, and hair were started much the same way.

Speaking of the hair, it's all attached to the head. It may come back to bite me later, but looking at it now, I can't help but just be relieved I won't have to worry about stupid transparency issues! The eyebrows and eyeballs are the only separate pieces on the mesh so far.

I'm much happier with this mesh overall than my last character attempt, which was supposed to be a shot at realism. I think I like the nose most here. It came out really well, and is more "realistic" than the nose on my realistic female model. On the female, she lacks creases around her nose because I left that until last and couldn't get it to look right. This time, I put the creases in as I went, and the result is much nice.

I would say this character's chin is a little small, but it matches the artwork almost perfectly so I'm gonna roll with it.

Catching Up

Settling back into things has proven somewhat difficult.

I moved back out to British Columbia to be with my parents for the summer, and I shipped my computer over here via courier. I just received it this past Friday, and the weekend has been more or less a drain on my psyche, fixing computer issues and spending gratuitous amounts of money.

I have tried to use Unreal, but the all-too-familiar freezing reared its ugly head, so I'm thinking I'll put the level on a temporary hold for now. I can't use Unreal for more than 20 minutes before it freezes my entire machine.

That hasn't stopped me from modeling stuff though. Even if it's just trees and stuff like that. With Unreal being so difficult, my personal drive to make stuff has been dampened somewhat.

I'll continue to post here, however. If not actual content as least some means of progress reports. The character design I showcased some time ago would be a prime project to get started on now.

First Forest Mill Shot

Yeah, it ain't much right now, but I wanted to at least show I've been making some actual progress on the level. This is just a small lake, and there will probably be a lot more to it once I'm finished. For example, I plan to include a building and a water wheel nearby, and the cliffs around the level will most certainly get a different texture. Some grass here and there would be good, as well.

Also, it occurs to me that I haven't posted a direct link to my demo reel here yet. While it is posted on this blog, the video is tiny.

Here is the url to a larger version. Note you'll need Quicktime or something else that plays .mov files:
http://www.rphaven.org/thalzon/Docs/DemoReel_CoreyHallberg.mov

Foresty Goodness

You may be wondering what that odd, green, umbrella-shaped thing is next to this post. Well, you would if you lived in, like, the desert or the antarctic, maybe.

This post was originally planned to have a nice little shot of the level as it stands now, but my computer was especially vile and cranky today and crashed twice on me. So screw it, we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

I've noticed I've become somewhat more efficient since I started on this project, able to make things easier for me down the road. For example, when UV mapping, I used to just use RoadKill, cut it up, organize, and texture it... And that rarely went well unless the mesh was simple. Now I know better, and use the scaling tool to make all the points line up in neat and tidy right angles.

I realize the above mentioned technique is probably incredibly obvious to many. I spent three years in game design school and never once thought of it. I must be a slow learner.

Small Stuff

By far and away some of the easiest things to model and texture are cylindrical things like pipes and pillars. In fact, it's often so quick and easy it often feels like cheating to not attempt to go the extra mile, especially if you'll have lots of them in your environments for whatever reason.



These are pipes that will be placed throughout the Forest Mill. No rust or leak spots yet, since the exact locations of all these pipes haven't been thought-out yet, and if my last level is any indication, sticking in rust before that just makes the rust look like orange, splotchy paint.

It feels a little silly to be focusing on something so minor, since these pipes will likely be in places the player won't necessarily look, like ceilings. In fact, before I wrote this blog entry, I was content to say these pipes were as good as done, but now actually writing it up has made me think harder on it.

Anyways, yeah. Woo, pipes. Maybe I'll show off an awesome BOX or something tomorrow. You never know!

Forest Mill

The level is coming along slowly but surely. Nothing's remotely presentable yet, but I have been putting in meshes such as trees and bridges, as well as one small building so far. Right now I'm just playing around with things to see what works well and what doesn't, both aesthetically and gameplay-wise. Though I admit I'm less concerned about the latter than the former for this particular piece...

The plan is to have several small buildings and one or two medium-sized buildings that a player makes their way through as they explore the surrounding forest. We'll see how that pans out, especially with my computer being relentlessly cranky.

Character Concept

In addition to the forest area I'm planning, I'm also constructing a new character. He's done in a more cartoonish style, with larger eyes and hands, a slimmer waist, and brighter colours planned. He's got a whole history mapped out and I've been redesigning him for a number of years.

This is actually my favourite style of character. Stuff like Team Fortress 2, or Pixar's characters, are incredibly expressive. Though I realize my design looks somewhere between that and some really generic anime.

While I do love more cartoonish styles, I made the female character in my reel because realism sells better than a cartoony character to many studios. But I figure I need to make this one character before I get hired and tied onto a project that will devour me whole.

Current Reel and Work

Currently I am working towards making a new environment for my demo reel. This new environment idea is a forest, growing around an old mill of sorts, with ruined houses and a graveyard. It'll probably be a while before it gets done, but I'm confident I can make it work. And unlike the first level in my reel (the mechanical prison), this one doesn't require gameplay elements; it just needs to look good.

Below is my current demo reel, which contains mostly characters. There's also the aforementioned mechanical prison environment, and a few sketches I made before modeling the demon eye monster. I do enjoy drawing, so I hope to put more in my reel soon, but I also want to avoid going too far over the 2-minute mark.

The level displayed in this video may be really, really grainy due to the video being compressed. Regardless I hope you enjoy it.

Greetings!

My name is Corey Hallberg, and I have started this blog to share my works in 3D modeling, game development, and drawing. I graduated from Durham College's game development course this past year, and as such I am looking for work! I currently live in London, Ontario, Canada (do not let the email address fool you! I am a Canadian citizen.), but plan to move back out to British Columbia pretty soon. I'm a huge videogame nerd, and also enjoy drawing a great deal. I hope I'll have lots of great work to share here.