So the gryphon is finished! Huzzah! They're one of the main forms of transportation in Ahkranox, and a safe way to get from town to town (when the town has an aviary)
One of our more recent additions to the team, Ian Atherton, has been working on the 3D model for the gryphon in the game, and just to give a re-cap on the process behind making Kevin (I'm calling him Kevin - not in the game, but just behind the scenes. I think it's a good Gryphon name) here are the development steps for creating an in-game character:
First, we had our lead artist, Rachel Birchnoff, design the concept art for Kevin:
Then, once we had that, one of our 3D team, Ian Atherton, started work on a hi-poly model (about 250mb in size!) as a base plate:
The trickiest bit was getting all of the feathers detailed:
Once the hi-poly character was done, Ian then went on to make the low-poly in-game version, which he used to hi-poly version to normal map, and create the final version of Kevin:
Then the textures were applied:
Pretty amazing process, don't you think? We're super happy with him!
Kevin's looking pretty good! The wings look a little too low poly-ish IMO, but I think that is on purpose because of the 'bones'? Considering the high poly version also has that low-poly feel at the wings. I hope I'm making sense here :/
haha unfortunately since the game engine for Malevolence is hand-made, we can't handle as high a poly-count models as more AAA titles, so many of our models have to conform to a certain poly count. We just try and make it look as good as we can within the limits :)
Yeah... and with too low polygon count normal mapping breaks apart as in this example. The high-poly step you could have skipped as the normal map doesn't connect at all. Drop it to save rendering time and using it for more polygons in the low-poly model. Better use of scarce resources than a normal map that doesn't work/show.
We left it in the hands of our capable animator Ian :) keep in mind that a model shouldn't be judged too closely until it's been seen in the actual scene with all the correct in-game lighting and environs!
so kevin , uh? give him some fire spell, and you'll got something funny :3
KEVIN BACON!!!! (oh god, i can't believe i said that XD)
But Kevin Bacon already is in the game :O Well, kind of.
Haha no relation, but he DOES have a cousin called Peter who's had a very successful comedy career!
He also has a half-manticore uncle called Steven.
that's it, what about....well, whatever...