#31b Insect

[BiG ToE-3DT]

Game Art Contest #31b
Subject – Insect Swarm



Thread Naming: Your Name – Insect
Keep all questions in this thread

Something is about to happen to 3dTotal and the swarm of insects coming this way proves it. They eat anything and everything they land on. No bigger than a normal man’s fist, these creatures can easily eat 10 times their body weight. Not to mention they defecate just as much as they eat, if not more. They come at night and are gone by day break. You know they where here because of the smell they leave behind. Something like rotten eggs mixed with 2 week old dead bodies, and broccoli. Makes me sick just thinking about it. But that isn’t what scares me. Nope, what I’m afraid of is what they will do when the basic food supplies run out. Will they turn on each other, cannibalizing one another till there is only one left? Or will they feast on the human flesh?

Judging:
You will pick what you believe is the top 3 entries. First place gets 3 points, 2nd place 2 points, 3rd place 1 point. The person with the most points when the voting is over wins. Remember, if an entry does not fill the requirements, do not vote for them.

DUE DATE: September 27th, 2 weeks and a few days from today! 11:59 pm GMT - SUNDAY

Idea:
Create one insect that looks like it could eat its way through anything. Not limited to earth.

Poly limit:
1,000 Tris Total. You can do whatever you want with these, just don’t get carried away and exceed the 1,000 Tri Limit. Remember, the limit tells you where to stop, there is no minimum, so use as much of the limit as you see fit.

Textures:
(1) 512 x 512 texture. This means (1) 512 for color, (1) 512 opacity, (1) 512 spec and that’s it. That is all the texture you need. You can chop it up into whatever you want, but you still need to go all out in your texture.

Textures can be hand-painted or you can use photographic sources. Do what you do.


Pedestals/Stands:
You do not have to create one, but if you do, understand that there is no texture or tri limit. You can go as crazy as you want, or keep it basic.

Final Pictures:

Required In The Final Post (1 post per entry):

- 1 x Winning shot. This image should consist of your character depicted in its most awesome angle.

- 1 x Beauty shot of your character. Feel free to put multiple angles of your character or just one big version or your character on this page. Even better, try to composite a nice art piece similar to the ones in the Winners' Gallery. Be careful how you do this though, simple is often better. It’s up to you.

- 1 x wire frame shot of your character. Feel free to put multiple wire frame shots or just one big wire frame shot on this page. It is up to you. Must have polycount included.

- 1 x texture sheet that includes all your used sheets squeezed into "one" sheet.

- Concept Sheet (if you have one)

A Final Entry Thread will be up and waiting around the end of the third week/beginning of fourth week. Don’t forget to submit your work by posting it in the final thread.

Good luck everyone!
BiG ToE.

[Tank[NL]]

great subject. already got some idea flaoting around ^^

[Oniram]

interesting. sounds fun.

[Raul]

so, are we allowed to sculpt so that we can still use zbrush for texturing and stuff?

[BiG ToE-3DT]

yeah, thats fine. Infact, baking your normal map into your diffuse is a good thing.

[Raul]

WOOOO! I know, im very used to doing that! Yay for normal maps!

[tompa]

Originally Posted by BiG ToE-3DT

yeah, thats fine. Infact, baking your normal map into your diffuse is a good thing.

what? converting normalmap to occlusion (xnormal)? use highpoly for cavity?

I need at least 2 channels for normalmap and my diffuse only have 4 channels (leaving only 2 color channels)..

are you guys dividing channels?? think I might have underestimated ya all in that case... (I've only done that in experiments)


*confused*

[BiG ToE-3DT]

what do you mean two channels?

as for the normal map, just convert it into a lightmap or AO map then apply it to your texture as another layer.

[Tank[NL]]

erm, with the risk of looking like an even bigger geek then i already do, are we allowed to use arachnids or mix and match between arachnids and insects?

or can only use insects?

[tompa]

Originally Posted by BiG ToE-3DT

what do you mean two channels?

as for the normal map, just convert it into a lightmap or AO map then apply it to your texture as another layer.

phew, I understand... thanks

yes, a "good" normalmap uses 3 channels as you of course know. yet you don't really need the blue or Z. The length of a normal (blue channel) only "enhance" X and Y value of a normal. my point, red/green suffice good for angles up to about 70degress (give or take) no need for blue = 2 channels for normalmap.



here's a pic that may cast some light. brown is the normal effect, red normal angle, blue is z length in 0-255 value (fantasy values but effect is real)

no need to take this to heart, I'm just explaining myself.

[Nappa]

Originally Posted by Tank[NL]

erm, with the risk of looking like an even bigger geek then i already do, are we allowed to use arachnids or mix and match between arachnids and insects?

or can only use insects?

i was wondering that to seeing how most if not all are considered mammal

[SR_6274]

Ok, now I'm gonna sound like the complete noob here, but what do you mean convert your normal map into an AO or Lightmap? How do you do this? I use 3DS Max and Z-Brush if that matters.

[dark_maggot]

Sounds Fun, I might join both at the same time if time permits.

Cheers.

[Tank[NL]]

Originally Posted by SR_6274

Ok, now I'm gonna sound like the complete noob here, but what do you mean convert your normal map into an AO or Lightmap? How do you do this? I use 3DS Max and Z-Brush if that matters.

i've used a very dirty trick on my graduation project. when we heard from our coder any kind of shadersupport would be out(along with about 99% of what he tolds us we could get, the d*ck), i already had my normalmaps.

in order to get some of the detail we promised our client and with no shadersupport, i took my normalmap, desaturated it and overlayed it onto my colormap.

gave a tonne more detail and the time it took was next to nothing. a better, more accurate result would have been achieved had i been able to use AO maps, but i didnt have anymore time.

[xxxcubanxxx]

I'm definitely in this one seems like a fun one.