What a Week
So I lost a paint pot.
That doesn’t sound as compelling as it could, let me re-write that. Right when I started this project I bought a paint pot. I bought a few, but this one in particular is Soulstone Blue - a Technical paint from the Citadel line - which is specifically good for giving the general shine of a gem. Honestly, Technical paints are super cool. For example, Blood for the Blood God is a technical paint that makes whatever you paint it over look like it’s got fresh blood on it. It’s great for splatter effects and I really enjoy putting it on blades.
That’s… that’s not why we’re here
So I bought Soulstone Blue with a few other paints, got it home, put it and the others down on my desk, then sorted some of the other paints I bought into my paint rack. And i didn’t need it yet for what I was working on, so I didn’t think about it again until Monday when I got to the step where I needed it, and that is where the weirdest thing happened. Just gone. I have no memory of exactly where I put it, but I‘m like 93% sure it was on my desk to my left.
So you might be saying something along the lines of “why is this a work blog update” and funny you should ask, this is another explanation of why I didn’t work on anything this week. Okay, not exactly nothing. I worked on un-burying myself from the nest.
Let me explain: I have started to notice that I have a tendency to nest when I fall into depressive states. I know there are a lot of different ways to define nesting, but in my particular case it’s this thing that I do when I’m not well where I tend to just not put things away. Partially because it’s just easier to not pick up the thing and put it where it goes, sometimes because I think I may need it, sometimes… who knows where my brain is. The point is that the area around my chair, keyboard, and like a 8” x 15”-ish area in front of my keyboard for whatever Warhammer project I’m working on was just… cluttered. Not seriously immobilizing cluttered - I’m not a hoarder - but it’s just annoying. Monday I decided that I was sick of it.
So I started cleaning.
I’ve been told about a million times that an organized environment leads to an organized mind, and while that may be true in some sense, I’m curious as to whether or not it goes both ways. Honestly I think it does, but again that’s not the point of this. I took a break this week to try and make my area a bit more accessible and to hopefully find that ONE SPECIFIC PAINT POT THAT I KNOW I BOUGHT.
And by the gods, I cannot find it. I’m so confused.
But I can see more of my desk then I have since basically the month I built it and that’s progress. Is my second desk clear yet? No, but it’s a process. It takes time, and I do need to get back to painting Magnus, especially since I’m getting paid for that. Unfortunately at this point, I’m going to need to bite the bullet and go grab another pot of Soulstone Blue, but since I have to get one other paint and some basing material, it won’t be a wasted trip.
Of course, I’ll find the one I already bought as soon as I get home with the replacement.
An Addendum:
You may also have asked why I didn’t just skip that bit of painting and go to the next part. I mean, it can’t be possible that a gem coloration is that important to this paintjob that you can’t continue. And, yeah… You’re right, but I’m weirdly a stickler for step by step instruction, and I put these out in an order and if I change that order what happens?
Ultimately nothing, and I’m probably going to skip it for now since I’d have to leave to get the new paint and I have other things I need to get done. I can adappt to change.
Magnus Did Nothing Wrong
The Crimson King. The Soreceror-King. Daemon Primarch of the Traitor Legion the Thousand Sons. Magnus the Red is my latest commission and one of the biggest Warhammer models I’ve ever tackled (the biggest so far being the Tyranid Norn Emissary, but her tallest bit is only up to Magnus’ glorious hair).
Magnus the Grey, the Plastic King
While playing D&D with friends one of the other players, Lane, learned that I had been not only playing Warhammer but painting minis on a commission basis and asked how much I would charge to paint some of his stuff. I told him my rate and asked what he was looking to get done and he told me he would really like to get his Primarch done, asking how long I thought it might take. As you can see to the right here, Magnus is a big boy, but I wasn’t thinking he was this big. So I gave my “comparative” estimate of length of time based on my biggest model to be around four hours and 20 minutes, but also made sure he knew it would probably be longer than that because I wanted to make sure he got the best quality of work for what will essentially be a center-piece for his Army, and will definitely be the most targeted model any time he’s deployed.
And honestly, can you blame them? Primarchs can be terrifying on tabletop. I myself have never gone up against one, but regular daemons are kind of brutal and these bad boys are much worse. Unless you concentrate all your fire, but then everything else is trying to kill you at the same time and honestly it gets to be a hassle, and who wants to deal with that?
But I digress…
Magnus’ box art is done in what’s known as the “Heavy Metal” style - which is done by Games Workshop’s in house painters. They’re often Golden Demon judges
A few weeks after that conversation Lane brought Magnus to game and we talked a bit about what he wanted. Initially he told himself he wanted custom colors for his Thousand Sons army when he got to them, and so that would reflect in Magnus, but then he was thinking how that might just be a hassle for painting the army itself and so asked for as close to the box art as I could make him. He gave me a few outs for me to latch onto. “It doesn’t need to be Golden Demon worthy.” and “It doesn’t have to be exact to the box art.” Which is nice of him. I’m obviously not going to be the guy that says “oh well if it doesn’t need to be perfect, you’re going to get a garbage product from me” because 1) my work ethic and perfectionism combined won’t let me do that, and B) I would also like to keep doing commissions and if I do garbage work, I’m not going to get more work. Makes sense right? That said, I am taking some more artistic liberties in this case. I didn’t realize how golden the armor was in the box art, and that’s a tad on the flashy side in my head. There’s also an insane amount of teeny tiny edge highlighting on the wings themselves and honestly that can be muted down a bit and done with dry brushing. While I will work towards a Golden Demon standard, I am not steady enough for that.
I also know when to pull back on the perfectionism, because I don’t want to work on this for 40 hours and have Lane unable to pay.
I started the day after our conversation… I mean… First I took some pictures, and primed and took more pictures, and then started. This paint job is exciting for me, because I get to work on one of - what I think is - the coolest models in the range. All of the Daemon Primarchs that I’ve seen are amazing, but Magnus has a certain style to him that I find pretty fascinating. Dark angelic wings. unbearably large daemon horns growing out of his head. Highly detailed armor and flowing robes. I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of thinking of picking one of these up for myself and doing this whole project over again, and I don’t even play this army.
I won’t because I do not have the space, but man if I did…
Anyway, I am (maybe) about halfway through this project right now, and I’m sitting at just less than 4 hours in. There’s been some things that have irked me, namely trying to paint and drybrush around armor, but since you really do all your drybrushing first, it’s a lot easier to clear up when you’re continuing your paint job. There’s some things, I’m not looking forward to right now, but I think they’re within my capabilities, I’m just psyching myself out a little bit by jumping ahead. We’re going to be fine.
Anyway, just below are some progress pics, hope you like them, or something, I guess, whatever, okay, have fun, bye!
Massive Update
I Know it’s Been a While
The text between the breaks was intended to be posted in April. I didn’t quite get it ready to post…. Hence why it.. didn’t… post…. Yeah, anyway, read on for explanations and such
Apr 14 - Written By Andrew Denike
It’s kind of funny how my attention span works sometimes. I’ll be super excited about working on things and applying to jobs and everything, and then my mood shifts for some reason or another and I drop everything. And then, of course, I come back for whatever reason, and I want to do all of the things, even if those things weren’t what I was working on previously.
So uh… Hey. Here I am.
Things at work have been stressful, and there’s a more than possible regime change coming, and I should have been working on this all along… Doesn’t matter. I came back to work on stuff and work on stuff I have. So, lets talk about them shall we?
The Cyberpunk Environment
Since the last time I posted I guess I have done a few things, but some of them I want to keep secret for the reveal? I may post a picture here to the side by time this post goes up [[[insert things here maybe]]]
Archaia’s Crew Quarters
A while back I found a concept art by Khairizal Rahmat on Artstation. He has a ton of different concept art that I really enjoy, but this piece (shown right) was one that spoke to me most. As you can see (below) I have a lot of the blocking done and am adding details in some spots, while in other spots the blocking isn’t entirely (or at all) done. It’s been a sporadic work in progress, but I’ve been fairly focused on it.
So it turns out I have ADHD. I saw a video on YouTube by Jaiden Animations (Literally entitled I found out I have ADHD) that made me go “huh…” and have a conversation with my therapist and doctor and got me some much needed medication. After fine tuning and figuring out my life a little bit - a process which is still ongoing forever and ever - and fighting off a depression that seems never ending I’m starting to try to get back into the swing of things.
I have made no progress on either of those mentioned projects, but I did start a new 3d project on a whim (what a vicious cycle that never finishes a thing…) that I’ll talk about below, as well as working on a commission (which inspired me to paint again as well as post again), that I will also talk about below.
Tiny Toy Trains
You remember those little wooden trains from when we were kids? The ones with little magnets that you would push around on a little wooden track with like… puzzle connectors? Like the one on the right. Just… right there? >>>
I was browsing Reddit and I found someone who was asking about how you would go about modeling those. I thought about it and I was like, “well lets find out” and I started modeling some of the pieces. It’s a good exercise for me. I’m getting more practice with little weird pieces and I think I’m going to enjoy this project when I get back to it.
Funnily it just so happened to be the first day on my Adderall and it was so intensely strange to be focused on a task and not distracted by a million little things that were happening (either of my own design or not). I had Netflix on for background noise, but I wasn’t watching it, I was just entirely focused on working. Instead of taking maybe five to seven hours on a normal day (or more) I found that the piece to the left (one of the harder pieces in my opinion) only took me like… 3 hours? And I think I went about part of it in a weird way I’ll fix later.
It is by no means perfect. I probably could retopologize (notice I don’t have the wire frames on in the picture here….), but it was a start and it was eye opening. I’ve not worked on the project long since June but it gave me an excitement for working in 3d again. I’m definitely going back to it.
A Commission!
So story-time, kinda. Ryan, a buddy that I’ve been playing Warhammer with messaged me on Discord asking how much I would charge to paint his Stormcast Eternals Spearhead. I didn’t know off the bat, but I did some math and got back to him with a price, which we agreed upon and we came up with a color scheme that he would be happy with. Blue cloaks, Black armor pieces, metals galore, white details, and a blue-green fire effect that was interesting to come up with.
I uh…. I feel weird talking about my process I guess? Warhammer has two standards of painted: Battle Ready or Table Ready, which is where the model is painted in at least three colors with a wash and basing; and Parade Ready, which is where the model is painted, highlighted, and based. Basically just a little bit more work, getting them to a higher level of doneness for people who would be looking at the model within like a foot. Ryan was only looking for his army to be Table Ready, so it was a little easier. The Dark Blue from ProAcryl was a great color to work with, and honestly I might start switching away from Citadel paints because dropper bottles are really nice. Or just switch all my paint pots over to dropper bottles, but that sounds like a project in itself.
In total the commission took just shy of 20 hours and Ryan was super impressed with how everything turned out and said he’d probably hit me up for more in the future.
All my work in progress photos are posted below. Stay tuned after those for a short something.
A bit of the palette I used, from the Brushrage app. I highly recommend it.
WIP of the Lord Vigilant on Gryphstalker
Marble basing was a new technique for me
WIP of the shield on the back of the Knight-Questor
The Knight-Questor himself
WIP of the Lord Terminos. The little white stripe is where Ryan was like “dude, how are you this good?”
So I Had A Realization
I’m not a fantasy wargamer and I’ve only played one game of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar in 2019 - though I do have my own recently-ish purchased Spearhead army that I haven’t finished building (and that I bought for an idea for my d&d campaign) - so it’s funny that my big push to me painting my Warhammer 40k armies (yes, that is plural, no, I am not proud) was to paint something else. I think that’s going to give me a weird thing where I start saying to myself “ah yes, I’m going to start buying non-sci-fi armies to make sure I don’t get burnt out on my sci-fi armies.”
But maybe I could just also paint some of the other stuff that I have. Little bits of scatter terrain and d&d minis to… not necessarily tide me over but to break the monotony? You would think that switching between my different 40k factions would be enough but, we’ll figure things out down the road.
Okay, this novel is long enough, I’ll post again in the future. Maybe in about a month? That might be a more sustainable timeline. But… we’ll see.
Short, Sweet, to the Point
I apparently forgot to update two blogs two weeks ago. Woops
Even stranger, this one was supposed post last Friday… So, I guess here’s to late posts?
I’m still slowly working on textures for the cyberpunk environment that I’ve been working on. This is one of the worst parts for modeling for me, so I’m going slow about it and trying to avoid it by doing other things (anybody else been playing Palworld?), but here we are. So, here are some pictures, woo!
To the right here are the UVs for the signs out front and center. The red areas are currently place-holders for where the signs are going to be. You get how it works.
Below is the current scene and where we are with the scene right now. There’s a few things that I’m unhappy with, but I’m working on it.
Or will be working on it. I think I’m going to model some Pals (maybe a Pal) next week.
Not terribly happy with the fencing, or the supports for the signs, but we’re going to work on that.
Slow Week
Didn’t really work on any projects this week. Sometimes you just have those weeks where other things get important and your mind wanders. Whatever, no excuses.
What I did do this week was start and scrap two projects. Or… I guess it was actually one project twice. A weird little character design project of a homebrewed D&D baddie from my friends campaign. Strange little garden gnomes that appear differently when traveling between plains. In ”our world” - the world that the main campaign takes place in - they’re like any normal garden gnome, save for a small bit of weirdness. seeming to change position, moving from place to place, that kind of thing. But in their own world, they look… well, I guess they look the same but fleshy, and a little taller. The interesting thing about them to me was when they got angry at one of the other players (he had torched a few of them in our world for being kind of creepy) they opened their mouths weirdly unnaturally wide and had rows on rows of of needle like teeth. This captured the imagination and I had to draw it.
Uhhh…. No… No photo of that drawing.
Anyway, I also had this thought (and I might have had it last week? idk, maybe I should read these): rather than waiting until everything is UV’d and textured and ambiently lit, just starting to upload a thing as I hit milestones. Demo it after its fully built, then again after all the textures, then again after so on and so forth. I think, in the long run, this is going to be better for me to not get caught up in one thing and when it starts becoming a chore burn out and not even want to finish it.
Therapy is great isn’t it?
Alright, back to the artistic grind
Okay, So I’m Getting Used to This Again
So it turns out, when writing a blog and scheduling it to update on it’s own, you really need to make sure you finish it… I should know this, being that I run another blog. That however is a short story (found here, if you’re into that sort of thing) that updates every other week for the most part while this is a work blog that I’m actually updating every week.
That said, I uh…. I didn’t work this week.
Okay, lets re-word that a little bit. I didn’t do any work in the 3D space. I didn’t model, UV, texture, or light anything. I did however work a little toward my texturing. Planning one might say and I made a list. As you can see in the concept art, there are signs facing front. they don’t have a lot of interesting design to them, just outline sketches of a woman or a tank or whatever, and while that’s cool for concept art, I have better ideas. And not like “oh Coke and Pepsi” or whatever, I had the idea to use made up companies from video games.
So I went and made a list of every single fake brand I could think of off the top of my head. Currently this includes brands from Grand Theft Auto, which I’ve been playing a lot of lately; Saints Row, one of my favorite franchises of all time (at least the first two games, but that’s a post for another day); Mass Effect, which I almost overlooked; and of course Cyberpunk, because that’s where this one starts. Funnily this coincides with another idea I have in my head for a series, but that’s probably a conversation for when I don’t have a lot going on in my working.
So… Anything left to talk about… Oh, yeah, drew a funny little guy the other night at D&D based on a set of characters my DM was talking about and I decided I want to model it. That’ll start at some point
And I think I’m going to take what I currently have in my modeling and add it to and update my demo reel regularly as I finish phases of things I’m working on…
Ayy, we did it. Another update.
Working on my Portfolio: Part 2
As the title mentions, I’m working on my portfolio. Continuing in the vein of last weeks update (which there will be weekly blog updates, I’m holding myself to that) I’m still working on the cyberpunk-ish environment.
Sunday was all about making sure that my models {{{{{MORE}}}}}
This is a project that I’ve been having a lot of fun with. So fun in fact that I don’t even mind doing the UV’s (traditionally my least favorite thing, followed closely by texturing). At the point of writing (Sunday the 7th) I have most of the UVs finished
So I Started Working Again
I’ve been feeling Impostor Syndrome for a while since I graduated, and I decided that it was time to start working on my craft again. This came after especially stressful days at work (in a job which should not be stressful in the slightest) and an overwhelming feeling of being over it (tm).
Inktober Concept by Allesandro Rocco on ArtStation
So I started working on a character design. In eight minutes flat I hated it, decided to focus on an environment concept I would like better and went from there.
And I lost myself in it. I was having fun modeling, trying to remember things that I had forgotten since graduating. Trying not to bother my friends if I didn’t absolutely need to (turns out some of the information in my head was less fresh than the rest), and every once in a while just Googling “how do I…”
So I made some progress (shown below), and by the time this has posted I’ll have made more progress and will have some detailed looks at things I’m focusing on. The chain link in particular is something I’ve had fun with, but even it may need tweaking.
Anyway, check out this rough block render
Early rough render
New Beginnings
It’s sort of funny what happens to a person in the course of a year and a half (or so). Looking at my last post - egads, from 2022… - I had thoughts on what I would be doing with my life at the time. I did continue working on that short story (next part posted here on Friday morning) and I did continue applying for jobs (more than 360 in as many days), but instead of working on any modeling, I decided to let that take a back seat for the summer. It was nice, and right when I decided to get back into it in August, I lost the access to the programs.
That sucked to be honest. It really crippled my momentum and I had to work hard at a job that was feeling more and more like a dead end to afford the computer I am sitting at now. A big beautiful gaming computer that only rises above a hum when rendering something bulky. It’s lovely. I’m happy.
Anyway, I’m starting to buckle down on myself a little bit. I’m working on an environment (the process I’ll start talking about here soon) to start bolstering my admittedly lacking demo reel.
This is the year I get into the industry at some level. This is the year I start to make use of my degree.
Being Antsy After Graduation
I graduated what was in reality five days ago, but in my head it feels like it was simultaneously minutes and years ago. A whirlwind of graduation weekend, the ceremony itself, not getting my cap and gown on time (it worked out), lunches, dinners, parties, short film premieres, not being sure if I was actually going to get the grades to graduate (I did), and crashing a Lime Scooter (which hurts more than you’d expect), and now I’m sitting here wondering what to do with myself. I’ve been looking for jobs, which is good. I’ve been working on my demo reels, which is a thing. And I’ve been working on this website, and relaxing, and gaming, and to be fair, it is the first time since maybe the late 90’s that I haven’t been stressed out, and it. Feels. Weird.
So I have a few projects in mind that I’m going to start working on. I’m in the middle of writing a short story still (I had the idea to maybe start posting that here) that will eventually be a comic or graphic novel (depending on how big it gets). I’ve got a few character and small asset modeling ideas on deck as well as an environment that I think is going to look really cool. It’s possible I lose my access to the school computer system soon, so I’m starting on these projects sooner rather than later. I’m sure that the link Chris sent me to keep my access intact will work, but I don’t know when it goes into effect.
Anyway, stay tuned, we’re going to actually work here.
Looking at Halo Infinite, and Trying to Stay Unbiased
Halo Infinite came out in two parts over the last month, and it’s caused a lot of upheaval in the gaming community, especially in Halo community. There’s a lot good about the game, and to be 100% it’s going to be my game of the year for 2021. Not that there were a ton of contenders in my world, what with school, but being honest there’s a lot bad with the game as well. But I’ll get to that a little lower in the post.
So we’re going to start with multiplayer, since it came out first. Honestly, this is where the nostalgia hits me hardest. Up until this week there were only 3 playlists in which to play in: Quick Play, Big Team Battle, and Ranked. This of course does not include the one week during the Fractures: Tenrai event where they added Fiesta Slayer into the mix. Every playlist had three or four game modes in it (minus Fiesta Slayer) and it was impossible to pick what game type you were going into. And interestingly that didn’t bother me at all. I’ve never been one to play objective game types in the past, for some reason they just never appealed to me. However, I think with the upgrades added to the game it makes them different and exciting enough that I actually kind of enjoy them. With different ways to maneuver through the world, press the attack, and surprise the enemy its enough different that I’m not only having fun, but occasionally actually scoring. I didn’t score a lot in previous titles, but then again, I played more Slayer than any of the objectives. The forced game types helps me play different ways, and I’m loving it.
On December 8th, in honestly the worst timing for me to pass classes (I think I’m doing alright catching up, but it’s been a grind) the Halo Infinite campaign came out, and I love it. Spoilers will follow, and my criticisms will come after. I’ll post when spoilers end.
[SPOILERS FOLLOW]
There’s a lot of mystery happening in the story that makes me want to play it again, and keeps me chomping at the bit for more. Master Chief waking up after 6 months of being declared dead after the Banished attack on Infinity is a way to start the campaign, but the fact that I don’t have answers for why Atriox attacked makes me need more. I haven’t found an audio log yet that explains it, but I continue searching for one. Skirmishers have made a return, which was a surprising revelation when I saw the first pair in campaign. Where were they for the rest of the Human-Covenant War? I don’t think I’m ever going to get an answer to this one in game or in the extended lore, but of course I want to know.
In addition to the return of the Skirmishers, we have new enemies in both the Skimmers, a better replacement for the Drones from the previous games; and the Harbinger, a recently released member of the mysterious new race known as the Endless. Nothing is known so far about the Endless, but I have heard things about upcoming DLC that will expand on them and on what happened with the Banished, especially after the reveal at the very end of the game. I will buy the DLC just for the chance to find out what is going on and why we’re here.
[SPOILERS CONCLUDE]
So, here’s where I get critical. There is a few main things that bother me, and if you’ve played any of the game you probably know what they are. The main things that bother me are the Shop, and the Armor Cores. Everyone has issue with the Shop, because the items up on offer are a stupid amount of real money in order to buy in-game armors and colors.
That’s right, you heard me, they’re selling colors…
The problem isn’t that they’re trying to make money. They made the multiplayer free to play, which was smart on the side of 343, but the prices for the items being sold could be considered highway robbery. But I’ll expand on that in a moment.
Armor Cores are the worst sin in this game. For those not in the know, Halo Infinite released Armor Cores in an attempt to keep different armor piece with other armor piece that go with that Core. 343 has said that Armor Cores were the attempt to make sure that pieces of armor don’t clip through one another. This makes sense, but there are armors within certain Cores that clip through each other, so that doesn’t track.
I can be okay with the armors being locked to their specific Cores (though I do have some ideas about the Yoroi helmets with some of the Mk. V(b) armor pieces), that’s not that terrible of a sin to me. The real issue with Cores however is that Armor Coatings (the way you color the armor of your multiplayer Spartan) are locked to individual Armor Cores. This is a problem, because there are three different versions of the exact same color, locked to each current core. Specifically the one that stands out to me is the Mk V(b) Armor Coating “Noble Defender”. For the Mk VII Armor Core the Coating is called “Noble Portal,” and in the Yoroi Core, its known as “Noble Loyalty.” Now, here is my biggest issue with that. “Noble Defender” and “Noble Portal” can be unlocked via the Season 1 Battle Pass, and only about 2 ranks away from each other, however “Noble Loyalty” is only available for a limited amount of time in the store.
And don’t get me started on the 7 different colors of blue.
Anyway, totally non-biased opinion, buy the game for the campaign, and if you want a fun multiplayer experience, it’s free to play.
So you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about this on my professional blog, and honestly, it probably doesn’t need to be. But I am proficient in creating textures for 3D models. Assuming that each of the armor coatings coincide with the same pieces of armor in each Armor Core (which would be smart), creating cross-Core Armor Coatings should not be that hard. 343, please, give me a call, I’ll fix the Armor Core system for you. For cheaper than a salary too. Hit that Contact tab up top.
A Subject Matter Expert (and Why Do We Need Them?)
There’s a saying that one must work 10,000 hours in any one thing in order to master it. Does one have to go through a similar amount of work in order to be considered an expert? Is an expert higher or lower than a master? Does it really matter? My real question is probably this: if your industry has an expert, do you embrace their expertise or do you defy it in order to become your own type of expert? Well, here’s your answer.
Yes. Yes to both.
I like to think that the industry experts, like most things in the world, are there for a reason. Sister Mary Corita Kent, a pop artist from the 60’s, created the Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules. Rule 2 is to “pull everything out of your teacher and to pull everything out of your fellow students.” Be a sponge, learn everything about your art from anyone who knows anything more than you. That’s the best way to grow
And then she immediately says to get everything you can out of your students. And maybe being an expert is learning everything you can from everyone all the time and just creating art. And honestly, I think that’s just what being an artist should be.
Current Trends in the Industry (or: Let’s Talk About Unreal Engine 5, but Not Say a Lot of Anything)
There’s a new standard heading our direction in the computer graphics industry, and I feel like I’m in the right place at the right time for this.
Unreal Engine was released in 1998, specifically made for the Epic Games title Unreal. The engine was primarily designed for first-person shooters and has since been used in other industries, including film and television. The latest version, Unreal Engine 5, is packed full of new features and improvements for those existing features. Unreal now supports larger file sizes and the use of higher quality textures. More realism comes partially from higher quality textures. With a higher quality texture, you could see a well textured brick wall, and when getting closer to the wall those details actually become sharper and more minute.
In addition to large files, Unreal Engine 5 also brings realistic scene lighting, virtualized geometry systems, shared rigs across characters, increased flexibility for managing audio, and a better way to create open worlds. And this all sounds great, even if you don’t know what any of it means.
So what does this mean?
Nanite, the virtualized geometry system, for example, saves you time when designing detail. It eliminates the task of loading in LODs allowing you to import film-quality art. LOD stands for Level of Detail and using LODs reduces polygon counts so that items don’t have as many faces when they’re further away. This means that your graphics won’t lag, no matter what your scene looks like in the distance.
This is a good thing, since Unreal Engine is great for making large open worlds. Now, with the new World Partition system you can create and manage large, complex levels that load and unload as you cross the landscape. This reduces overlap by saving data as external files (however this uses a high performance version of the control system).
Lumen, the new lighting system, quickly adjusts to any changes made in the scenes time of day and additional sources of light. The lighting system was great in Unreal Engine 4, but from what I’ve seen of Unreal Engine 5, this is going to be so much better.
Now, perhaps my favorite new toy in Unreal Engine 5 is the expanded animation toolset. With Control Ride, you can now create and share rigs over multiple characters, saving time onrigging multiple skeletons. Additionally now there’s the Full-body IK solver, giving a creator greater control and creating more natural movements.
Unreal Engine 5 had a trailer launch in May of 2020. It is currently in early access and has a full launch expected for early 2022.
How I Build a Professional Case Study
I’m fairly new to this, and honestly, I’ve never really thought about building a case study before starting this website. It was always something that either A) was sort of thrust upon me, or B) was sort of fluid as I worked on whatever piece I was in the process of making. I Guess in my past projects I’ve figured it out just a step at a time. In the Past Projects area of the site you’ll see (probably obviously) some past projects that I’ve worked on. But what you won’t see is the beginning processes. Most of those projects being related to school, I was given a prompt, like most things that one would work on, but in some instances I’d also be given the tools needed to create said project. But also, enough rope that I could hang myself with it.
Let me explain.
If you were to look at the project entitled Sci-Fi Thingy you would see a piece of concept art (shown right) from Halo 4. This concept art (for an item that changed drastically in-game) was given to the class by a professor who said, “okay, make it a thing.” Paul is really nice like that.
This was to practice a skill that he said would be vital to us when we eventually joined the industry: taking a sketch and creating a fully realized model out of it.
Conversely, one of the other projects given to us was a Storm Trooper helmet (shown below). The precise measurements and shapes (and even a walkthrough) were given to us in the hopes that we could make an exact, realistic replica of the helmet. And I think it’s funny how that can be stifling, yet so much better for the psyche, because you know what it needs to look like, and what little pieces need to go where, and exactly how best to connect it all together.
Now, what does all of this have to do with building a Case Study? That’s a great question, and to be real, I wish you wouldn’t ask me things, because It’s really early in the morning and I’m not big on questions, but here we go. I approach making a case study the same for anything that I’m working on, whether it’s something I’ve been given specs for or just a sketch. I go and find inspiration. I find other things that I want the model to have the feel of, or textures I want it to have. Depending on the project I’ll also watch something that inspires me or that might relate to the project in some way (I’m on a time-traveling kick due to the short film I’m working on for our capstone course, but you can read about that in the other blog.