Laura Swift - Rookies 2021 Entry

CODENAME APOSTROPHE 

A Lovecraftian Cyberpunk 3D dungeon crawler. Codename Apostrophe follows the story of a young antique shop worker dragged into the sewer system of his cyberpunk hometown by Lovecraftian horrors. Whilst these monstrosities debate the viability of devouring him before searching his person for an artifact they assume he has, they are taken out by the healer and tank. Throughout the rest of the game our hero fights through the labyrinthine sewer system, and through dimensional portals in other planes too.

Currently Codename apostrophe consists of the core sewer system dungeon built within Unreal Engine 4 and the tank, Hubert, modelled, textured and rigged. The sewer system is made up blocks with a hand sculpted tileable textures. The wall and ceiling textures are combined with UE4 material nodes such as world position, noise and panner to create an ominous constantly changing emission within the environment.

The concept art was provided by one of my team members Kyle Jaxon Blaize, and the music within the videos below were created for this project by Duncan Vecchiarelli.

MINECRAFT MOB MODELLING

These studies where created to see gain familiarity with the way Arnold renders flat colours, and how models can be textured exclusively through assigning faces materials. I wanted to keep the topology as clean as possible and as consistent as possible considering the geometric nature of the source material. The bee and the cow are both found within Minecraft currently, and as such reference was not hard to come by, however both the owl and ‘mob A’ only exist as concept art. 

GUARD MODEL

For a previous class we were tasked with modelling and texturing a guard character from concept art provided to us. This was the first time I had used a really utilised Maya’s smooth preview to such a degree. Almost all pieces where modeled extremely low poly with smooth preview on and then subdivided. Modeled UVed and rendered in Maya and textured in Substance Painter. 

CAMERA MODEL

Hard surface modelling completed in a uni class. Modeled UVed and rendered in Maya and textured in Substance Painter.

LOW POLY BATTLE AXE

A relatively low poly battle axe created for a uni class. The model is my own concept and modeled in Maya, details were sculpted in Zbrush, the Zbrush model was then retopologized and UVed in Maya, textured in Substance Painter and then rendered in Marmoset Toolbag. We were tasked with limiting the poly count as much as possible at the retopology stage, despite the dragon skulls the poly count is 2228. 

ZBRUSH SCULPTING STUDIES

STYLISED VILLIAGE

A stylized medieval village created within UE4 for a two week intensive topic. Each component was created with the intention to be used as a level creation kit. Geometry was modeled and UVed in Maya, surface details were then sculpted in Zbrush, textured in Substance Painter and then imported into UE4.

INSECT STUDY

A bee sculpted within Zbrush. This was my first time using fibermesh and polypaint, as well as my first time rendering out of Zbrush.

GUITAR MODEL

A guitar modeled in maya, textured in Substance Painter and rendered in Keyshot. Based on the Indian Raja guitars. 

WORLD OF REAL-TIME DISCOVERIES

My entry for the world of real-time discoveries. The original entry can be found here.

My entry was based around the concept of insect physiology. The unique foliage I created for this environment was the moth feeler ferns, scorpion fly bamboo and the giant wasp leg grass, which was plugged into the landscape material.  Quixel assets rocks were used but every other asset is handmade in Maya, Zbrush and Substance Painter.