First Desktop of Summoner 7

This is exciting to create this poster with 14 characters in the demo

The Demo Screenshot of Summoner 7

Finally, all characters are in the demo!

First Elf in Summoner 7

Chuck Lin designed this character.

World map is done!

There are six big stages and 5 small stages in each of them.

Human Archer

My favorite character in Summoner 7.

December 01, 2011

Great models I did in 2011 (theBlu project)

Ya, if you go to http://theblu.com and request a beta invitation, you are going to see lots of my work.
In fact, building aqua lives is really interesting and also a good practicing method to be a good 3D artist.
Here are some works that I like better.





















































August 25, 2011

Spotted Eagle Ray wip






July 12, 2011

Tutorial: The process of creating a new fish from a template using ZB and Maya

Hello Makers,  
If you are already a senior artist, please skip this tutorial. This tutorial is for students and entry-level artists as Wemo makers. 


Author: Hugo Shih, Digital Artist in Wemomedia


First, to be a Wemo maker
get the template from our maker site. I choose to make Blue-ringed Angel fish  


Although, there's a photo on our maker site for you to image what the fish look like, just remember: it is not for your model reference. 
Try to find enough reference photos for you to see all details of the fish, and find a photo as your main guide to build this fish.






Here is my main photo.  
Second, the new model
modify your model LOD0 in the template to fit this fish.  
For this fish, the biggest difference between Queen Angel (template) is dorsal and anal fins. (really easy, huh!)  
So, just to manipulate those fins in the template to mimic the new fish.    
For me, I just delete some polys from the template and extrude some new polys. 


After modifying your polys, don't forget to modify you UV map.   


As you can see, I didn't modify anything from body. That implies that I can utilize some texture from template (Queen Angel). 
In this case, I'm going to use the normal map of Queen Angel's body. 
Also, I can utilize the specular map from Queen Angel to be the mask map to draw scales on the new fish.   
Remember, to save your UV space, just unwrap the half of your fish and overlap the other half.




Third, prepare to go to ZBrush
If you are ready and sure about your LOD0, you have to make another version of your model for ZBrush. 
There are two things you need to modify in this model. 
1, For the entire model, delete half of it. 
2, For fins, you need to add edge loops on your borders of those fins. And press "3" to see the smooth results. If the result is really similar to your non-smooth model, it is ready to export as obj file to ZBrush.  


extra edge loops on fins and on the border of the half body

Beside the model, we need some guide maps to help us to draw diffuse maps in ZBrush.  
For me, I did a color guide map and scale mask map. The color guide map is a tweek from my main photo reference. The scale mask map is a tweek from the specular map from Queen Angel. 

Notice that, we do not encourage directly using photos as the diffuse map, but we encourage you to use those photos wisely. 


Forth, the normal map
As I mentioned before, I would like to use the old normal map from Queen Angel. 
However, we still need to draw our new normal map for fins. It's easy to draw that in ZB. 
(I'll skip how to generate normal map in ZB here)  
The tip is which brush should I use?  For me, I use slash 3 in Zadd mode plus lazy-mouse


The final normal map 

Fifth, draw diffuse map
This part would be pain in the ass if you stick with photoshop and you UV map. However, it would be a pleasure, if you go with ZBrush. 
1. import your color guide map and turn it into polypaint in ZBrush.  
    When you draw diffuse color, remember to use flat color material. 
    Note: when you import your model into ZB, remember to flip your UV map vertically
2. Follow the color guide and mesh while using polypaint tool to paint whole fish body.
Ignore the scale when painting. After finish all color, import your scale mask map onto the fish,   and apply the function: mask by intensity. It will auto apply the mask from your texture map. Then you can paint the scale onto the body and fit the normal map.  After that finish painting fins to connect the body well.
Note: you should draw fish eyes on the body (because LOD2 doesn't have eyeballs.)

3. Export the map, and fix some inconsistent color (because of smoothed UV layout) in Photoshop.  

Final diffuse map 
Sixth, drawing specular map
For spec map, here's only one thing I want to say:  
you can have colors in specular maps. Our shader supports colorful specular on models. 
For this case, those blue rings are really shiny, so I draw them as light blue in my spec map. 

final spec map 

And don't forget check all maps in Maya. Please turn on the high quality rendering to see your normal map and the specular map.

The End.   
  










July 03, 2011

Wip of a Sardine fish

using: Maya and ZB 




April 11, 2011

Modeling Tip Sharing

As a junior modeler, I always had hard time when I don't have enough reference pictures (up, side, front view)
This time, I only found this up reference picture as image plane. But I also found several photos as reference.   

So, I decide to use a lazy way to make a well-topology model.  











First, from the image plane, I build a base model for sea turtle.  
 And export the model into ZBrush to do a quick 3D sketch  


Using polypaint tool to do the topology plan

then re-topology the model 

Now, I have a well-topology model, but I need to unwrap it. 
Also, I use a lazy way to unwrap it.  
After exporting back to Maya, I extract the model into arms, legs, heads, mouth, body and tail.  

After export the model back to ZBrush, I use the UV master to unwrap the model.

In a second, I got the great UV layout (of course I need to adjust the layout in Maya)







April 08, 2011

My poly tool set in Maya feature preview



I finished the prototype of mirror tool
Although it's easy, lots of people did it before.
Also, when you had hard time to select the half of the mesh (cause there are too many polygons)
However, before mirror instance, my tool will reset the scale pivot to make sure the mirror result is correct (without huge gap)

Also, when you had hard time to select the half of the mesh (cause there are too many polygons)
My edge to poly tool can help you easily select that.(you don't have to unwrap first)

Thus, you can easily mirror complicate models, and fix mirrored models

March 31, 2011

My poly tool set in Maya feature preview: Border alignment



This small tool will be one feature of my own polytool set in Maya.
I'll release everything after I finished entire tool set.

March 21, 2011

My Reel