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This is a simple project that I did for a community-run art contest at the Firefall forums. See my entry here. Firefall is a game I’m really looking forward to this year and I recommend checking it out and signing up for the beta by registering for their forums. The game will be completely free, supported by microtransactions for pretty hats and convenience items. So far every aspect of the game is looking phenomenal.
So the scene I created is of some thumpers–an important game item that players use to gather the main resource called crystite. Thumpers are called down to the location you’re at, when needed. When they land, they begin mining, which attracts dumb enemies because of the thumping noise they make. If you’re thinking of Dune or Starship Troopers then you’ve got the right idea.
This is the process I went through to create the image you see above.
Reference, rough model
1. Reference. I need as many angles of the object as possible to help me map out the mesh flow and geometric structure before I even begin. I will use references like this throughout the project and stick as closely to it as possible, but I will not hesitate to deviate from the original design (“artistic license”) for various reasons, be it time, skill (lesser or greater), or just personal taste.
2. Bust out my app of choice (Luxology modo) and begin by roughing out the proportions. It’s incredibly important for me to block out the object in a VERY rough manner in order to get the proportions right the first time. Otherwise I would have to throw away a lot of work because I made a bad tweak early on. Not sure how other modelers do it but this is my way and it works. This phase took me about 30 minutes before I was happy with the shape. I keep this model in a background layer so it only shows as a wireframe while I work on the next step.
3. Polygonal model. The final image will be semi-realistic, so I’ll have to be careful to model the pieces in enough detail. Thankfully this object is pretty simple. So, this is the base geometry that I’ll use for the final model, which I’ll post after I build it. Poly models are “hard” and “edgy”, no curves. Poly models are used in games, while the models you see in movies go one step further, called subdivision models, though there are many other types of models too, but subd is by far the most used technique. (Please keep in mind this is an oversimplification of the process, as there are dozens of steps that I’m not showing.)
Test rendering, med-res/hi-res poly models
1. Test render. I got into a few rough spots, so in order to help me see what was going on I did a quick test render. I setup the environment (it’s an HDR skybox) and lighting (physical sun with global illumination) that I wanted to have in the final image. Doing renders like this give me an idea of how the model will appear in the final composition, which helps me plot out the geometry a little better.
2. Finished poly model. All parts are complete. The method I like is to create a medium-resolution model, from which I can go higher (for renders) or lower (for games). In this case I’m only going higher since this won’t make it into any game engine.
3. Finished hi-poly model. You will notice the mesh is much denser, and if you look closely, you can see the surfaces are much smoother as a result. You’ll notice a lot of repetition of meshes–this made this model pretty simple, since I just modeled one piece and duplicated it in a radial array.
If you look REALLY closely, you’ll see some snags in the mesh flow (“pinching”) caused by poor modeling (look at the thruster shell, its edges). I’m not very good at this stuff yet. In the final composition I’ll be using Photoshop to cover up these mistakes.
Environment, rough pass
I’ve added a few materials to the thumper, but I felt like moving on to the environment before unwrapping/texturing. This is a (partial) screenshot of my workspace as I’m looking at it right now.
Cloudscapes (when viewed from a plane) have always fascinated me, so I wanted that to be the setting for this scene, as we watch the thumpers plummet towards the planet. This is the blocky stage, where I get the proportions and angles I want in the final scene, as well as the lighting. Since I’m using a physical sun for my light source, I just had to choose a time of day and place: 9:53 am on 6/21/2009 in Southern California. modo handles the rest 
I’m putting three thumpers in the scene, one of which is falling through a cloud (the back-most one) in order to get some fun effects that add a sense of motion… hopefully. This is the point where I wish I was a real artist so that I knew how to setup a decent composition hahah
The cloud meshes you see here are point sources for the actual cloud mesh to use as a guide for position and density–they won’t be in the final picture.
Materials and texturing
With the 3d background complete (still have to render it out and paint it up in Photoshop though) I moved back to the thumper–material and texture phase.
1. Materials. Materials are not textures–they’re more powerful because you can pick properties of how you want the material to look in exquisite detail. Yes, exquisite. It’s really nice, easy, and insanely deep. You don’t have to do anything to the model to apply materials either, it’s literally drag and drop (if you have a library of preset materials ready). This screenshot is what it looks like in the OpenGL viewport of modo, which doesn’t show textures, nor represent lighting very well, but it’s just a preview and it works great for that. Most of the model uses materials, and this has allowed me to finish it much faster but still get solid results.
2. This is the UV map for the model–not the COMPLETE model, just a few parts I wanted to paint over in Photoshop. Thankfully the thumper’s textures are really light–the model speaks for itself. So, I pick edges on the model to tell my 3d app where to “cut” so that it will throw down the polys within those edges into 2d. Much like skinning an animal, hence it’s sometimes called pelting, but more often “unwrapping” or “UV unwrapping”, because UV are the coordinate axis for textures (while XYZ are the axis for 3d modeling). Now that some meshes are in 2d, I fire up Photoshop and paint something. Then, back in modo, I link the image I’m drawing on to the model’s UV coordinates. All of this is a whole lot easier than it sounds, I’m just bad at explaining stuff. Sorry.
In games, artists can use a single model over and over again but change its textures to give it a completely different look each time. We call this “skinning” because we simply change the skin of the model and nothing else.
3. Preview render. This is a very fast render (meant just for previewing, in fact) that shows you the combined materials and texture work–VERY close to the final image, but not quite. I’m not done texturing yet either.
Environment, final pass
1. Cloud render. This is part of the background. Little different, eh? I created a single quadball (a sphere-ish primitive) and used that as the base mesh to be Replicated.* I left out a lot of steps, like the base model for the clouds I posted before? That was the first pass and I went through that mesh about 5 or 6 times, increasing the poly count. Each vertex is where a quadball would appear. I adjusted the replicator so that it would vary the size and position of the clones to a small degree, giving me what you see here.
* Capitalized because Replicators, in modo terminology, are different from the other methods of Duplication or Instancing. Each have their own advantages and disadvantages–it all depends on what you’re trying to do.
2. Post work. After everything was rendered out (4 layers total), I did the composite work in Photoshop. I did a great deal of touching up on the clouds, tried all sorts of effects, but finally landed on what you see on the right. To smooth out all those spheres I ran over the whole image with the smudge tool for about an hour. You can see a spot I missed right there in the middle, but it’s covered by a thumper in the final composition so it’s irrelevant.
Fin
That’s it! I added the contrails in Photoshop, and the cloud burst as well.. which looks terrible so I’m actually going to redo it later.. I forgot a bunch of things actually, like the detail texture on the thumpers.. but no time now, on to the next project! (Actually, back to the project that I’ve been working on for the past 5 months…)
I also added a little motion blur to all three, though it’s hard to tell on the foremost one. Subtle effects like that are extremely important. I also darkened the sky a lot and and… you get the idea.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this “making of” and would like to see more, please Flattr this post and/or post a comment letting me know. Prost!
