Final

Officially done with the game. Ok, no, not really, there's always tweaks I can make, it's a never ending job but in all, It's complete. It's been a rough couple of months with a lot of work, but I managed my time well and even finished a bit earlier than I expected. In the end I had a lot of performance tweaking to do which had me research a bit about LOD's, removing meshes, deleting/adjusting particle effects, downsizing textures and including resolution settings in the game in case anyone wants to play it on their own PC. Also below is the 1-page design of the game:

Final Cinematic Screen

Screenshot of the game composed for the final cinematic and splash screen. Close to the finish-line with the game. Should have all game-play video by next week. I am also working on the one-page design of the game and documentation for cooking the game and putting it together for the final executable file.

Aztec Plataformer Gameplay pt.2

Guest appearance by Melanie Seiderman-Morillo's character model as the questgiver! Still working out some kinks and bugs but for the most part, the meat of the game is finished, currently working on the ending of the game, and the aprt I am working now is a part that is safely implemented through map loading, just in case i don't have time to finish.

UDK Plataformer Gameplay pt.1 [WIP]

This is the platformer level I've been working on this semester. Everything is still work in progress.

The beginning section of the game doesn't have as many gameplay mechanics as the rest of the game does, so i will post the rest once i get further along in

Boss Battle

The grand finale of my platformer will include a dramatic reveal of this ship. Yeah that's right, a spaceship lands in this Aztec world.

Plataformer Screenshots

Weapon 1-page design

Finished with the weapon model. 1 1/2ish pass on texture. Cool glowing material. Going to work on its particle effect.

Plataformer Assets for Portfolio

Currently updating my portfolio in my website. Take a look over at ignacioguajardo.com

These assets were all done using the Zbrush-> bake AO and Normal map in Xnormal-> texture in 3Dcoat and photoshop workflow. Combined some normal information from crazybump into the maps as well.

I am in the process of lighting and set-dressing my platform as well as incorporating more game-play mechanics at the moment so those screenshots will be released later this week.

Final Character for Best of Ringling.

EDIT: Here are the final portfolio sheets for my character

So I got this character in to best of Ringling. Touched up a few things and here is how it turned out. 11,940tris, 2048 diffuse, specular and normal maps. Separate materials for the jade and gold as well as the skin which uses DX11 sub surface scattering to give it that final touch. Also, i have to say, there was a lot of trickery done to get all the small pieces in for the character which would have been impossible otherwise. My tricks involve using a lot of alpha planes (with stacking uv's ofcourse) as well as some cheap planes with an extra edge for depth. I spent a lot of time optimizing this to be under 12,000 triangles while still keeping the silhouette and all the elements of my high-res model. Things like the frills in the skirt use carefully painted alphas. So does the necklace and jewelry.



Please watch in HD.


I am now in the process of animating an idle, walk and special animation for this guy for my plataformer level which I will also post progress on soon, which I've been holding off on showing to get game design issues out of the way and then move on to set-dressing.

Aztec Vase [WIP]

Vase made to be used as something you can break to get a special item in my platformer game. Spent a decent amount of time modeling and texturing this. Credit goes to http://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/ for his vase picture I used as reference.

Finished Low Res

11,998 Triangles. Still need to touch up the lighting for the renders and a few things in materials and textures, but for the most part it's finished and ready to rig.

Progress on the low poly and mushrooms!

Finished another mushroom. The big mushroom is going to explode through fracture and going to work on a particle effect for it.
On the Character side, I am done baking my normals (although some need to be re-baked because they came out kind of funky). I am now in the process of texturing in 3dcoat. Being my first time texturing in 3dcoat and so used to zbrush/photoshop texturing I am still trying to find the most efficient way of texturing in 3dcoat. 3Dcoat is very powerful i am finding because I can adjust normal maps and occlusion maps really fast and the switch between photoshop and 3Dcoat is seamless giving me less restrictions than my zbrush/photoshop workflow (not to mention zbrush got really slow at times when texturing highpoly tools).

Late Night Mushroom Project

Made a mushroom to be destructible for my plataformer. Also played around with sub surface scattering on the underneath of the mushroom. Used the new complete workflow learned from our character class to complete this even faster! High res in zbrush, low res/UVs/ and base texture in 3dcoat, to finish texture in photoshop and combine a detail normal map into the xnormal normal map to finish it off.

GDC and packing UV's

So over spring break I went to GDC where i met a lot of incredible people ranging from college students to indie developers to lead artists and CEOs. One thing I found to be common is that they are all in general, very friendly people and easily approachable. Just because you are a student doesn't mean you cant go up to a big shot and start a conversation.

In all I got a lot out of it, made some good connections and learned an insane amount about the industry and what I have to do to improve my portfolio. There were a lot of inspiring talks such as Quantic dream's Kara demo which displayed their new engine's amazing capabilities of motion capture to portray emotion. The art of Uncharted's Art presentation was pretty incredible as well, talking their game is not a documentary, it's an attempt at a better rendition of real life, so don't just copy real life, make it better in the game, adjust colors, move things around, add new things etc.

After spring break I packed my UV's as tight as possible in preparation for baking. We are given 4 days to do this, and then another 4 to texture and create materials (along with all my other classes) so I am not expecting to get much sleep any time soon.

Aztec Environment

Progress on an Aztec environment I am working on for my plataformer level and also as a possible portfolio piece before GDC.

13 Hour Challange - Plataformer Assets

13 Hour Challenge.
Done with character early, decided to make some assets for my plataformer.
Everything you see here was completed in a total of 13 hours.

Finished High-Res Sculpt

Aztec Staff

This is the work in progress of the weapon for my Aztec character. Pretty much done with the high-res. Using a lot of things I learned from modeling the character, so sculpting this weapon took me no time at all.

Character - Progress on the Color

This is the color only so far in zbrush. Going to start texturing soon.

Character - Finishing High-res sculpt

Pretty much almost done with the high-res sculpt. The hair is getting re-done through hair planes for use in-engine in UDK. Working on his weapon to take a rest before giving this a few last touches.

Finished Ball Contraption

Completed Ball Contraption. Worked on some cool fire and ice particle systems and shaders to finish it off along with tweaking a few mechanics. Was very fun to work on. The particles follow the ball to compliment the complex shader i built. Since performance in the game affects the physics i still had to be smart and keep them low in number of instructions when working on the shaders in order to keep performance up.

Also added some impulse actors on the ice tornado contraption in order to consistently move them to the center.

Character high-res detail [WIP]

I am currently enjoying my detailing method, it's fairly modular, so I make one good detail piece and I am able to re-use it across the model. The headdress I am probably going to to give separate feathers instead of just making it a flat sculpt. Moving on the be belt, further refining that helmet, wristbands and finaly, giving the body another pass with more detail.

Ball Contraption [WIP]

UDK Physics and Programming test. This is all work in progress. Music by killertracks. I created that quick ice shader. Particle effects by Epic Games.
Got really frustrating at one point, but I am solving a lot of the issues.

Character - starting to detail [WIP]

Working on getting some detail in there. Going in for getting those shoulders down, they look to be pretty critical since they play a big role in the silhouette of the character. For now this is my head area detail.

Multiplayer Level Greybox Design [WIP]

Blocking out space for my game design class. It's a challenge to get everything balanced while making sure everything looks grounded to real life. The map was based on the back alley of the "Colombia" restaurant in st.Armand's Circle in Sarasota. Further edited to achieve a successful multiplayer level.

Sculpt Progress

Character blackout. Detail is in there just as a test. Some of the block-out is even a block-out for the actual block-out. So far this has allowed me to get a really good feel for the character.

Quick Concept

Went to Dipsy today, but my laptop ran out of charge. I sketched this up in about 15-20 minutes. I think it has a lot of potential if i were to go back in and finish it. In retrospect, I think I've come a long way in digital painting, I've managed to pretty much understand all the steps to make my way to a decent painting.

These have been my findings: ALWAYS start off very loose, even scribble in abstract form at first to get a feel for the painting, then work composition, loosely throw in some light and value, move things around, flatten image, work your foreground, midground, background, go in with a color overlay getting reference from a good color palette, run out of ideas?: scribble or throw down a texture to paint over. Then once you get the main composition down, then maybe start rendering.

Working in three other major projects, so i needed a quick outlet in painting. Will update with some of my other projects over the weekend.

Base Model

Here is my base model so far. Pretty happy with base proportions, might move on to smaller detail once I am done tinkering with it some more. The hair is placeholder at the moment.

2D Character Turnaround - Montezuma III

So I will be modeling an Aztec king this semester. The basic story is that Montezuma III takes over after Cuitalahuac after Cuitalahuac dies from a brain injury. In this alternate time, the Spanish go south of Mexico, thus bringing peace to the Aztec civilization and a golden age commences upon the rise of Montezuma III.

Aztec King Thumbnails

Some thumbnails for my character design. Just getting the silhouette down and adding some details with white on top.

Cambodian Inspired Temple - Personal Winter Project

In the end I came to one realization: It's amazing how much you can create out of just a few pieces.

Space Egypt Final - updating from last semester