Toby Tinker | 2024 Rookies | Prop Artist for games

Compact SMG 

For this project, I was tasked with making a low poly gun, I was given a reference of an artwork and told to copy the reference as much as possible. Overall the project mostly went well with a couple hitches here and there but for the most part happy with the end result.

We were tasked with making 3 LODs, LOD 0 being 5000 tris, LOD 1 being 2500 tris, and lastly LOD 2 being 800 tris. I really struggled fitting the project into those LODs especially the latter ones due to the reference and mine mostly being made up of around 30 objects and a good number of them being cylindrical which makes it harder to reduce polycount while retaining form. The texture limit was 2k and requiring a Base Colour, Roughness, Metalness, Normal and Ambient Occlusion map. It was hard to get a clean UV space with so many objects and cuts being required but I feel I did about as good as I could with what I was given. With the help of RizomUV I managed to use 68% of the tile which is good while retaining enough spacing between everything. Ultimately this did reduce the quality of the textures compared to something with less objects but it for the most part still looks good.

There were a couple issues with baking which ultimately ended up being unavoidable with some things being rounder and smoother than both the high and low are, as well as some weird baking in some regions, noticeable at worst near the sights. If I had more time I would fix it but that would result in me needing to retexture which wasn't viable within the time frame as well as me spending a good number of hours I needed to move on to make sure I completed everything to my schedule.

Overall I'm fairly happy with my end result but definitely know of a couple spots that I wish I could fix, the reference was definitely a bit out of my comfort zone. Especially with the lack of side views and only being 3/4 so having to guesstimate some regions which I know of parts being wrong, but ultimately some corners had to be cut or else I wouldn't progress.

Maya was used for blocking, basic SDS modeling and LODs. Zbrush was used for adding some more advanced details for the high poly. Rizom UV was used for UVing. Substance Painter was used for texturing and baking. Marmoset Toolbag was used for rendering and creating a viewer. 

LOD 0 - 5000 tris, LOD 1 - 2500 tris and LOD 2 - 800 tris

All Maps at 2048p 

Software used - Autodesk Maya, Zbrush, RizomUV, Substance Painter and Marmoset Toolbag

Reference from Daniel Solovev https://www.artstation.com/danielsolovev_art

Rings of Power Axe

This was a personal project of a dwarven axe from Rings of Power. I got inspired by a concept I found posted by Weta so decided to push my 3D modeling skills to see if I would be able to make it. The specifications I set myself were 1k tris max as well as 1 UDIM of 2k maps, this made sure the project was performant and completely game ready as that is what I am currently studying .

During this project I decided to use Blender as we don't use it often in course but I want to diversify my knowledge in different programs, I also wanted to explore RizomUV which was awesome to work with, this was partly due to disliking blenders UV workflow and running into issues with maya's UV editor which I would generally use. Lastly I got to use Substance Painters path tool which was key to getting the engravings as I'm not amazing at hand drawing.

Overall I ran into a good amount of issues such as UVs breaking, model having issues and a good couple crashes throughout the project, but pushed through them and it all came together and exceeded my expectations, absolutely love the final look.

996 tris single LOD

All Maps at 2048p 

Software used - Blender, Autodesk Maya, RizomUV, Substance Painter and Marmoset Toolbag

Reference from WETA Workshops Design Studio - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1xlrrZ

Astroneer Character

For this project, I was tasked with modelling a character with a maximum of 3000 tris and with textures being no more than 1024p. We needed a diffuse, specular, normal and ao map with texturing being in photoshop allowed only.

I really like the character I came up with, If I were to change anything I would just use flat colours to better suit the reference them as well as no normal and AO map as they would be more fitting for the character and for the game but they were a requirement for the project so I had to stick with them.

3000 tris single LOD

All maps 1024p hand textured in photohop outside of normal map

Software used -  Autodesk Maya,  Photoshop, Marmoset Toolbag and https://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/ for converting image to normal map 

Reference from Airborn Studios https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QrQ9GL (was not going for a 1-1 model)