Finished port models, for now. I have lots more to post.. I’ve been powering through paintings this weekend and I have a lot of ship model UVs done too, I’ll post them when I’m finished.

Time: about 5 hours each

A little less than 5 weeks before we show off our games, it’s time to start putting more finalized versions of the art assets in. This week, I’m going to be working on UI elements - menus, HUD, results screen.

I’m still working on the logo.

Program: Photoshop CS5

Time: 3 hours (quite a bit of the time is going into breaking up the elements into usable assets..)

I’m actually having a lot of trouble coming up with a color scheme for the game. It’ll play a large role in determining the mood of the game, so I want it to look right.. but it’s kinda hard to concept out because in game it’s probably not gonna look anything like the painted version. I guess that’s true of all concept art.. it’s difficult to replicate the painterly effects, if you even want to. The trick is being able to actually envision the game through what you paint. I did these today to try to help me decide on something but I’m not sure I like any of them…. will keep working on these tomorrow or later this week.

At the risk of blogging about every little thing I do… I guess it’s alright to reflect a lot when you’re learning a new skill (which in this case is modelling and texturing). This is a higher-poly palm tree (278 polys).. still just diffuse and alpha maps though. It’s relatively not that high, but maybe a little high for the game since the trees won’t be prominent assets. Just practicing a bit.

Time: a couple hours, I ran into some problems

A ship I modeled this morning.. gonna do a few more for variations later.

Programs: 3DS Max 2012 and PS CS4

Time: 2-3 hours

I forgot to post about the work I’ve been doing for the past week, so here’s a collection.. I modeled the NPC ships and pirate ships with 3 types of sails (for upgrades), and was working on the HUD in the last week. I thought that the HUD would be very easy but it’s ended up being the most frustrating thing so far! Something about maintaining a flat, undistracting, and yet aesthetically pleasing interface is a very delicate process!

FINALLY today, I was able to come up with something I’m really satisfied with. I’m so happy!

We also play-tested the game with some people, and it was really fun! It’s really satisfying to see hard work pay off.

Programs: 3DS Max, Illustrator and Photoshop

Time: For the HUD, this version took me around 7 hours. The models… well, it’s all kind of a blur now.

This week I modeled the two types of ports that we’re going to have in Broadsides - a pirate base and an NPC port. I’m not gonna texture them until I’m pretty sure I don’t have to make any drastic changes, but I’m pretty happy with both. The tricky part of making these was creating the illusion of a town, that didn’t have to exist on a flat surface (because the map is procedurally generated). 

In other news, I have discovered “preserve UVs” in 3DS Max! I’m ridiculously happy about this. I have spent quite a few hours redoing UVs because I found one mistake..

Program: 3DS Max

Time: Around 4-5 hours each.. there was a lot of experimentation.

First real attempt at a UV.. too bad I didn’t put the sails in there since it all needs to be on one UV. Oops. Well, I’m not that proud of it anyway, and it’s for a filler model. Just practicing unwrapping and stuff, but it’s pretty messy.

Program: Photoshop CS5

Time: 2-3 hours

An updated version of the cover.. because occassionally, you have an unsatisfied customer.. hopefully the last version. I think I like this one better than the original now, but I struggled with it a lot.

Time: probably around 11 or 12 hours now…

Some concept art that I did for Broadsides, I did them both today (around 3-4 hours each). The first is too dark but I don’t have time to mess around with it too much… I used a model that I made for the town part. It had normal mapping because I was messing around with crazybump but I didn’t really map the texture well, because I just wanted to use it as a basic structure for concept art.

The third is a screenshot from the game jam this weekend. Robert, Gary and I made a 2d version of Broadsides. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get as much art done for this version as I would have liked, but it was still a fun project and a learning experience.

I’ve also done some painting but I will have to post that when I’m finished…

All the other work I’ve done has been 3D filler models and basic texturing for the game. Will post soon ~