Lighting Artist pt.2

Hey all,

Welcome back on the blog and I'd like to continue with my "special" on the job function called Lighting Artist. Last time I showed some color simplifications to visualize more of the color tones that are being used to set a certain mood in game environments. I haven't learned anything concerning color usage and composition during my study, but as I am writing these blog posts I am learning to understand these topics better. It's not a professionally written post but more or less the findings I discovered and my interpretation of artists' their work. If I'm wrong with any statements I make during these posts, please leave a comment!

Intro

Before I go any further with the lighting artist special, I just wanted to tell what I've been up to lately. This weekend I've been polishing my online portfolio. Mainly adding some extra screenshots for projects and adding some description. Also optimizing jpg's is a big thing! The smaller the images the quicker the site loads, I kept this in mind but of course you don't want your high poly mesh showing up as pixel art.

Another thing that has been on my mind, one of the biggest game stores in the Netherlands shutdown all of their physical stores and is only going to sell games through their web shop. I'm somewhat disappointed this is happening. I can't imagine any more game stores disappearing because of the economic crisis.

One last thing, I wanted to wish all the people at Trion Worlds who got laid off last week, the best of luck. I think it's a bit of a nasty move to lay off 40 staff members just 2 weeks before Christmas, unfortunately lay offs are a common trend in the games industry.

Lighting Artists pt. 2

The following examples show off how crucial color contrasts and silhouettes are to make a believable and good looking scene. With the example that I showed off last time, concerning Tomas Lidström his work, I took the liberty of showing the differences between the edited and original version. The color contrast is very noticeable at this point but also the importance of silhouettes are becoming more clear.

Halo 4

I'm a very big fan of the artwork in Halo 4, although I haven't played it myself (yet). The environments are highly detailed and has an incredibly awesomeness of varying atmospheres. Most of you have already read the article on the Environment Art on Halo 4 but here is the link anyways.

I used several screenshots of the game and took the first example a bit further. By adding some orange lines I'm pointing out one rule of composition. It's referred to by some as "edge flow" or "lines". This means the eyes are being drawn towards the point of interest because of all the edges that lead the viewers eyes to this PI (point of interest).

In the screenshot with the hallway, all the piping and  paneling is hinting the viewer towards the door at the end of the hall. Maybe it's even luring the player/viewer to let him explore what's behind that door.


With the organic/outside screenshot I added orange lines to landscape, I'm pointing out the necessity of having enough positive and negative space usage and the interest of shapes. For example the rocks have a very interesting and organic look and feel. From a distance it's already noticeable that the objects are rocks, that's why we're using silhouettes. Having shapes of objects be as clear a possible to the viewers eyes, e.g. the rough figure of rocks are very easily recognized -> makes the scene more believable.

You're probably asking, why the grey scaled images? Colors can be very distracting at times, by making them grey-scaled, I made it visually more understanding for myself. It helps to see where all the shadows and light sources come from, another important aspect is the sense of depth. Objects from far away become desaturated/blueish tinted.

The contrast becomes lower the further you look away from the "camera", the grey scales are your visual evidence it works. Of course this rule is mainly applied for outside environment/landscapes.

This blog post turned from just Lighting Artist also towards a few rules for compositions haha. I'm gonna end it here, I'm out of writing material even though I haven't discussed everything yet, but feel free to leave your thoughts down below.

One last line, "Happy Christmas and a happy New Year!".

Have a good day!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Freelance 3D-artist

I do not own the rights concerning the work of Tomas Lidström nor 343 Industries, I am just sharing my thoughts and interesting artwork to other artists out there. This blog is used for educational purposes and/or tracking of Stefan Groenewoud his personal work.

In the desert

Hey there,

Soooo, I'm back again with another blogpost that I'm writing during lunch time. It's not so much of an impressive post like last time though, concerning my personal work. I did try to make a matte painting, it's still very work in progress.
And I took the liberty of starting on a new small environment that is taking place in the desert. The shader is pretty basic but it was fun to try out several setups and creating a basic atmosphere. I do need to make a paintover so I can figure out a good focal point that will pull the interest in the scene. Ah well, as an artist you always have a shortage of time, unfortunately. Please leave some crits if you have the time to do so!

For this post I was looking for a different type of artist, not an environment artist nor weapon artist, no this time I looked for a function in gaming that isn't very popular. Lighting artist! As far as I know, there aren't that many of these guys in the games industry.

Lighting artist job

The main task for an lighting artist is, of course, lighting up the environment, duh! Kidding aside, besides that post processing is also one of their tasks,this means keeping the color key of the environment in mind, LOD'ing, optimizing assets, (re-)UVing secondary UV-sets and creating paintovers to try out different atmospheric ideas. For some it might sound pretty easy but I do think it's a pretty challenging job, it's not just dumping in a few dynamic lights and calling it a day. A good lighting artist knows how to flesh out his environment with lighting and keeping the environment readable for the eyes.

Like I said, this time I'll show some work of lighting artist Tomas Lidström. He has quite the list of gametitles on his name already! Especially Gears of War Judgement and Bulletstorm are the titles that I admire. Although Bulletstorm wasn't a bestselling game, I do love the environments and unique atmosphere in the game.

Tomas's portfolio: http://portfolio.tomaslidstrom.com/

By the way, I'd like to thank all the artists out there who gave me the permission to use their work for this purpose!

I'd recommend to open the images in a new window to see the full resolution.  

Small color study, I extracted some colors to have a better understanding how lighting artists use their colors wisely to create a certain atmosphere in their environment. Lighting is very important to steer the viewers eye around in an environment/screenshot/painting. In the high contrast images the viewers eye is constantly drawn towards the lightest/most intense light source. Proper lighting setup isn't the only thing that makes an environment complete, the silhouettes are making the shapes of the environment way more interesting.

Matte painting tryout

Tile test

Desert starting point

Tomas Lidström his work:

Some color testing for one of Tomas's personal projects.

 

Thanks for reading the post and please share this if you can. =]

Have a good day!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Freelance 3D-artist

I do not own the rights concerning the work of Tomas Lidström, I am just sharing my thoughts and interesting artwork to other artists out there.

High poly artdump

Hey there,

Well it was pretty busy for the last few weeks, been doing a course and some freelance work! This weekend I took some time off to relax a bit, playing some games again and it was time for another blog post. Another highlight of the week is, I'm considering to go back to school for a Bachelor diploma in Game-Architecture. I already got in the selection for this course last school year but my last school didn't send the paperwork in time so I got removed of the candidate list!

I'd recommend to open the images in a new window to see the full resolution.

Off-topic: Windows 8 was released recently, what are your thoughts about this? Are most 3D/2D programs compatible with this new OS?

Here's some work I've done the last 2-3 weeks:

The artist that is being highlighted this time is Brian Burrell. He has done some amazing work on Homefront (as art supervisor and senior artist) but also has very interesting personal work. Don't forget to checkout his website, this contains all the in depth information concerning his art supervising work. Personally, I loved the game Homefront, the weapons really caught my attention, unfortunately it wasn't a big commercial success, which led to the shutdown of Kaos Studio.

Bryan's personal work:

 

Work on Homefront in collaboration with other artists:

Thanks for reading the post and please share this if you can. =]

Have a good Sunday!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Freelance 3D-artist

I do not own the rights concerning the work of Bryan Burrell, I am just sharing my thoughts and interesting artwork to other artists out there.

Playing with compositions

Hey readers,

It has been a while since I've done my last blog post. As you might have noticed I was very disappointed in the way (some) game companies have treated me over the last few months. I took some time off to evaluate myself as an artist and look at ways to improve myself. Also, I have received an email from another (entry level) artist which was very helpful for me to continue making game-art. This email also made it clear to me that I'm not the only entry level artist that is looking for a job and is having a hard time finding one.

In the last few weeks a lot of things have happened and (strangely) enough I got contacted by several studios. Not sure if it had something to do with my outburst blog post?

Besides that, I wanted to share my update with you guys (and girls?) for the post apoca environment I'm still working on. I'm still figuring out the composition a bit and just tweaking here there some assets to make the scene feel more alive. I also did a quick paint over and I'd love to hear some feedback on this.

Paint over of one of the main screenshot. I'm not much of a concept artist but it's very helpful to establish my ideas rather quickly.

High Poly Wall Render

Also, this section of the blog hasn't been done for a long time. But I've decided to take some time for this and do my research again! It's time for the artist of the week (or of the blog post?) not sure how I should call it.

Polygoo a.k.a. Alan van Ryzin is a freelancer 3D-artist and he makes weapons, vehicles and assets. Alan has worked on a lot of game titles like Hawken, Rage, Homefront and the list goes on. As you can see his work has an incredible level of detail and believability. His textures show off, in my opinion, one of the most inspiring and best texturing skills I've seen.

Don't forget to checkout his portfolio.

I love those terrain textures, they show off so much detail just awesome.

Thanks for your time and please share the blog with other artist and friends!

Have a good weekend!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Junior 3D-artist

I do not own the rights concerning the work of Alan "Polygoo" van Ryzin, I am just sharing my thoughts and interesting artwork to other artist out there.

Hunting for a junior position

As an entry-level 3D artist it has become a bit hard for me to land a job. You probably can imagine that it's very depressing for a beginning artist if you get rejected by companies for without a reason or you won't get any feedback after some art-tests. So at least I know what I should be improving to become a better artist. And if a company would give me a chance for an art test, they say "if you have any questions you can always contact us" but I found out the hard way it doesn't always work out like that. If a briefing is very vaguely described it's a bit hard to follow up to the expectations of the company. I didn't get any replies after I asked questions about a certain art-test but I've already lost 2 days out of my 7 days art test.

At the moment I'm just a bit sick of the games industry, on the one hand other artists say I have a decent portfolio and on the other hand companies don't even seem to bother and have a look at my work. I'm really having doubts if I should continue to pursue this "dream" I had for a long time. I mean, how can I improve if I don't get any feedback?

I've always tried to be nice and tread all these companies with respect since it's a small world. But it doesn't seem to pay off for me any time.

Cheers,


Stefan Groenewoud

Dressing the bar interior

Hey all,

It has been two weeks already since I've posted the last blog post! I just have a quick update for you guys about my post apoca scene. Filling up the bar took a bit longer because I was experimenting with several ways to light up the interior. I got inspired by a book I'm reading about setting up proper lighting setups in 3D-rendering (mainly focused on Mental Ray or other non real-time rendering) but it's very helpful, for me at least. It goes from the basic lighting tools all the fancy light baking processes with GI. So for environment and lighting artists this can be quite helpful too.

Anyways, for now I'll call the bar interior done. I'll revisit the bar later when the exterior is more dressed up too.

That's it for now if you have feedback, don't hesitate to contact me! I think I'm going to play Counter Strike Global Offensive, just to clear my head for a moment.

Thanks for your time and please share the blog with other artist and friends!

Have a good evening!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Junior 3D-artist

Post Apoca Update

Hey readers,

Right after I was done with the art test I got back on my post apoca scene I'm was working on. I wanted to fill up the bar first so I could get a decent part of the scene ready. Reason why I'm doing this is, it keeps me motivated and since it's a large scene to work on but also I can make a good screenshot already for in my portfolio. Normally I'm not a big fan of work in progress screenshots in my portfolio. But this time I really want to show off I'm capable of doing environment art, this can be modeling to texturing and set dressing efficiently. This is a huge challenge for me since I've never made a big outside atmosphere before.

Besides that, I'm also looking forward to make some camera materials in UDK. Like a vignette effect and chromatic aberration effect within the engine.

Well I'm off again, it's way too hot here in the Netherlands.

Thanks for your time and please share the blog with other artist and friends!

Have a good evening!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Junior 3D-artist

Facial update

Hey readers,

I know it's a bit early for the Sunday blog post but I had another small update. Last weekend I've worked on a head that I had laying around. During my graduation project I started working on it but never really finished it. This time I added a bit more detail and made the head anatomy a bit better too. It's based on one of the character design sheets from Brink, you might recognize it from its distinct caricature way the face has been made. Feedback is welcome guys!

Btw. It is a high poly render in Zbrush, no low poly whatsoever.

Thanks for your time and please share the blog with other artist and friends!

Have a good weekend!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Junior 3D-artist

Small update

Hey Gamers/artist and a like,

I'm doing a small post this week since I've been busy with the art test. So I haven't done anything on my personal projects just yet. This week there's a small overview of the work of Paul Pepera. He's (coincidentally) also a 3D-artist at 343 Industries, like David who we've discussed last week.
Anyways, Paul also does some photography in his spare time and looks promising. Be sure to have a look at his photo folio and his 3D portfolio.

Portfolio
Photo folio

Artwork:

 

 

Recently I've bought the art book of Gears of War 3 and I happened to be one of the first hundred customers! At first I didn't know if I'd even receive it but it turned out to be a small surprise. Now I just need to find a decent frame for it!

Thanks for your time and please share the blog with other artist and friends!

Have a good weekend!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Junior 3D-artist

I do not own the rights concerning the work of Paul Pepera, I am just sharing my thoughts and interesting artwork to other artist out there.

Week of the art test

Hello readers!

Time went by very quickly the past week or so it seemed to me. I have to keep this blog post rather short because I have an art test to do! Hopefully I'll be able to land a job this way at the company. I'm really looking forward to work for a game company again and expand my knowledge concerning 3d-art even more.

I also wanted to show a small update for my post-apocalyptic environment, where I've made a modular floor system and I started retexturing the foliage. Reason for re-doing the foliage was, if I'd look at it from a mid-distance the hanging Ivy would look like one green smudgy stain. At the moment I'm focusing on my art test and I'll revisit it as soon as possible 'cause I'm really looking forward to dress up the post-apoca scene more. I already have a list with assets I think that would fit the scene and could enhance the atmosphere.

The artist of this week is David Lesperance. Currently he is working as a Senior Environment Artist at 343 Industries. As far as I know he (unfortunately) doesn't show off real-time 3D-art on his blog or portfolio but I really do love his artwork. It has a lot of detail and always feels believable. You should really checkout his blog and get inspired by his work. It's worth your time.

That's it for now, I'm going to get back to work now and try to make this art test as awesome as possible. So please keep your fingers crossed for me ;) haha, have a good Sunday y'all. =]

David's blog
David's portfolio

Thanks for your time and please share the blog with other artist and friends!

Cheers,

Stefan Groenewoud
Junior 3D-artist

I do not own the rights concerning the work of David Lesperance, I am just sharing my thoughts and interesting artwork to other artist out there.