3d Artist application

[ndragu]

Position:3D Artist interested in the new 0 AD series focused around the Bronze Age Mediterranean

Do you understand that Wildfire Games is a non-commercial project, work for 0 A.D. is volunteer, and work is done for free?

Yes

Do you agree to distribute all your work for Wildfire Games under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license?

Yes

Name:

Nick

Email:

nick.dragu at gmail.com

MSN Messenger:

None

Location:

Romania

Availability:

10-20/week

Age:

26

Occupation:

webmaster

Skills and Experience:

I have architectural experience and I am familiar with the modeling software used in the industry, 3ds Max, ZBrush etc.

Motivation:

hobby

Interests and Hobbies:

3d design, environment design and concept art

Staff:

no

Favorite Game:

Diablo series

Portal

fps

Work Examples:

http://nick-dragu.bl.../p/3d-work.html

[Jeru]

Thanks for applying, Nick! Someone from the Art Department will be with you shortly.

Work Examples:

http://nick-dragu.bl.../p/3d-work.html

Wow! I think you can be a great addition to the team and will fit in very nicely.

[Enrique]

Hello ndragu!, bine ai venit!

Nice work examples you have there!

For starters, I recommend you a quick read of the Artists Design Document. There are things outdated like the polygon counts etc, but there are other things that you may find interesting: http://trac.wildfire...tDesignDocument

Question:

Are you only interested working in the Bronze Age Mediterranean Mod pack?

We have currently moved our Art department forum to public and there you can see an approximate roadmap our Art Dept Leader made some time ago: http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=16220.

There are several things already done and it has to be updated but you can get an idea.

As you can see, you have a ton of gaia/flora assets to choose as well as some remaining buildings to do for our last civilization included currently in developement: Mauryans. (next will be ptolemies but we are still collecting references)

If you are interested, you can try with a small asset to get the workflow to get it into the game, and after that jump to whatever 3D asset you want to work in

[ndragu]

To start with a small modeling task, I was wondering if anybody knows whether this asset had been modeled by anyone. If not, I will try to model and texture it in the next couple of days. I believe it is an Iberian venerated monument. Please let me know, as I would like to start working on this. If anyone from the Art Team would like to assign something else to me, that's more than alright by me.

-Nick

[zoot]

It has:

[Enrique]

Hello Nick,

Unfortunately, that model has been already redone. We may need some variations for the statue other than the bull, but it's low priority I think.

Would you like to give a try to the Mauryans fishing boat? here's a good reference of what we're looking for:

http://bharatdiscove...1/15/Lothal.jpg

Another thread with even more references here, but the narrow curved ships of the first picture would be perfect. If you prefer buildings, you can give a try to revamping the iberian corral or choose another thing from the Mauryans here http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16901&pid=261442&st=0entry261442. It's up to you

[ndragu]

Thanks Enrique,

I'll work on the boat. Should it follow the image as is? Meaning do I model just the boat, or a couple of props that go along with the boat, such as boxes etc.

-nick

[Enrique]

Yeah, some boxes/props as you see fit. You have some artistic freedom, as long as it follows the general lines of the references and is historic accurate

Later we can even add a unit in the boat. Here are some already in-game fish boats from other civs:

[ndragu]

Perfect! I'll post something tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow.

Thanks

-nick

[ndragu]

Hi,

This is what I have so far. I used the painting as a reference. The model has 186 polys. I can probably reduce that number a bit. Please let me know what you think.

[Enrique]

Hey Nick! that's a very nice start! I like it

I guess you can use some more geometry on the hull shape to make it rounder and make it a little bit more thick. Now It looks very thin in my opinion.

Other than that... looks great. Did you make the textures yourself?

[Kimball]

Clutch.

[quantumstate]

That looks nice, a great start. A couple of things to be aware of are that the game uses triangles so make sure that you use triangles when giving the poly count. Also the water plane will just intersect your boat so you have to make the bottom unrealistically thick. Otherwise the water will show inside of the boat.

[ndragu]

Thanks for all the feedback! I'll make those changes and reupload an updated version.

As for the textures, I modified some images I had to get the type of wood I wanted. Should the texture be hand-painted? I can definitely do that if need be. For this type of asset, would a 256x256 diffuse texture suffice? Should it be bigger/smaller?

-nick

[Enrique]

As for the textures, I modified some images I had to get the type of wood I wanted. Should the texture be hand-painted? I can definitely do that if need be. For this type of asset, would a 256x256 diffuse texture suffice? Should it be bigger/smaller?

-nick

For the textures, they don't need to be handpainted, but they must be licensed under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA 3.0 or from a public domain source. (or if you are the author of the texture and you want to share it with that license)

Here are two sites where all the textures are licensed that way:

http://texturemate.com/

http://agf81.deviantart.com/gallery/

We have permission of both sites to use them under that license. The sites are not not huge, but they have some good material to choose

EDIT: 256x256 texture is ok. If you think using 256x512 you can make it look much better, then go for it. If you have downloaded the game, you can take a look to the already in-game textures if you want to use some pieces or for props or whatever

[ndragu]

For the textures, they don't need to be handpainted, but they must be licensed under CC-BY or CC-BY-SA 3.0 or from a public domain source. (or if you are the author of the texture and you want to share it with that license)

Here are two sites where all the textures are licensed that way:

http://texturemate.com/

http://agf81.deviantart.com/gallery/

We have permission of both sites to use them under that license. The sites are not not huge, but they have some good material to choose

EDIT: 256x256 texture is ok. If you think using 256x512 you can make it look much better, then go for it. If you have downloaded the game, you can take a look to the already in-game textures if you want to use some pieces or for props or whatever

Ok, Thanks. I'll make an update tomorrow morning

[Enrique]

Ok, Thanks. I'll make an update tomorrow morning

Oh I forgot to tell you the following:

The engine only renders one-faced triangles, so if you want the triangle to be seen from the back (i.e. the sail) you'll have to duplicate them and invert the normals.

[ndragu]

That's useful to know. I'll probably make some mistakes along the way until I figure out the workflow and production requirements.

-nick

[ndragu]

I made the changes you guys suggested. I duplicated the rope and sail to make them visible in the engine, I modified the textures a bit and made the bottom part of the boat thicker so that the water is not seen inside the boat. The red line in the image below indicates where the water should be. Triangle count is 376.

[Enrique]

Hey Nick,

The overall shape is looking good, but I think you should use more geometry. I think we could use up to 800 tris easily, so feel free to make it the hull rounder or make it more details.

I made some ugly indications in paint:

Red line in left picture could have some geometry to make it more interesting. Blue stripes could be actual geometry too. I made a slice of the front view, to make the hull look a bit "fatter".

[ndragu]

Hi Enrique,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely add more geometry to make it look better. I'll post an update as soon as I make any progress.

-nick

[Ludo38]

Good work ndragu! I like your model.

I agree with Enrique for the improvements.

[ndragu]

Thanks Ludo38!

Here's a small update for what you guys suggested. The hull is more round, the sail is smoother and a couple of the ropes bend in a bit more. The triangle count is at around 550 right now. I could possibly add a bit more geometry, but I believe the gain in quality to be insignificant, so I decided to leave it like this. Please let met know what you guys think.

[Enrique]

That's looking better Nick!

For the shake of perfection I'll ask you to lower a bit the deck or "floor" of the boat, now it looks too near to the edge of the ship. Other than that is looking great!

Keep up the good work!

[ndragu]

Ok, thanks again for all the help and feedback. Tomorrow morning I'll upload an updated textured model

-nick