Author Archives: john

Character Pipeline 6: Visual Coherence

Posted on May 9, 2012 by john

This week I’d like to talk about how to design iconic characters using the concept of coherence. A coherent design is one in which all components work together to convey a single idea. Here are a few extremely coherent designs: … Continue reading →

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Character Pipeline 5: UV Mapping for Artists

Posted on April 24, 2012 by john

In a previous post I’ve detailed what makes a UV map good. Now I’m going to actually show you how to make a good UV map through proper use of symmetry, uniformity, and logical seam placement. Here is my workflow … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Modeling, Art, Character Art, Maya | Leave a comment

Character Pipeline 4: Advanced Animation Workflow Part 2

Posted on April 17, 2012 by john

This week I continue where I left off with more important best-practices for 3D character animation. Class is in session, so prepare to be schooled: Rule # 5. Work in small files Don’t make all of your animations in the … Continue reading →

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Character Pipeline 3: Advanced Animation Workflow Part 1

Posted on April 11, 2012 by john

I’ve compiled a set of seven crucial workflow guidelines and best-practices for animating 3D characters based on my experience working on Card Kingdom over the last eight months. If you are serious about character animation and you want to be … Continue reading →

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Character Pipeline 2: Iterative Workflow for Game Assets

Posted on April 3, 2012 by john

Today’s post is going to outline my process for handling asset workflow in a group that is comprised of the three main disciplines in game development: artists, engineers, and designers. The main distinction between interactive and non-interactive art asset workflow … Continue reading →

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Character Pipeline 1: Affordance in the Visual Design of Game Characters

Posted on March 27, 2012 by john

As the team’s character artist, it is my responsibility to see each player and enemy character through from the concept phase all the way up to the final animated mesh you see in the game. This quarter I am going … Continue reading →

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Tutorial: UV Shell Padding in Maya

Posted on March 21, 2012 by john

So I found something out that every pro or semi-pro texture artist worth his salt should know, and I thought I’d share it. First, a brief intro: I was on Polycount the other day and I stumbled across a really … Continue reading →

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Johnny’s Winter (Beta) Post-Mortem

Posted on March 14, 2012 by john

My Part For my own part, I worked on character asset-related tasks this quarter, which included death animations and related logistics, implementation of the new enemies and their variations, and heavy iteration on the existing Goon and Player textures and … Continue reading →

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Progress Report: Calm Before the Storm

Posted on February 25, 2012 by john

Right now, we’re hard at work getting everything ready for the Game Developer’s Conference which is, at the time of this writing, a little over a week away. Let me fill you in on what’s going down. Last weekend we … Continue reading →

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Progress Report: The Game of the Game

Posted on February 4, 2012 by john

Most student projects consist of about 99% game and 1% game. What I mean by that is that we spend virtually all of our time creating the mechanical components of the game: the renderer, the models, the interaction systems, the … Continue reading →

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