I plan to start modeling again this weekend during my Christmas break.
I'm going to practice creating models from scratch in Blender and then doing some test baking high poly to low poly. After that I will do some test imports into UDK and see how my models & normals look.
I have been paying a lot of attention to games and their assets. No matter what game I play (Far Cry2, Wolfenstein, STALKER, Legendary) all the assets still have seams. The best models I have seen so far are ironically in Unreal Tournament 3. But I admit, Assassins Creed models are very nice too.
As I develop these assets, my goal is to learn how seams can be hidden so the UV mapping isn't so obvious. Also, I have learned that normals retain display how lighting falls across surfaces, specially sharp edges and can make objects look less "perfect" and "computer generated".
First I will be working on some simple crates and revolved pottery. Then on to architectural elements like doors, roofs, walls, steps, etc.
I would like to complete several assets to scale that can be used in Hells Reach custom maps.
