Modelling and Texturing Portfolio

Monster Bike - University Asset Integration Assignment

For this assignment we had to integrate a hard surface asset, with an emissive element, into the moving backplate provided.

I was inspired by the French Hill Climb Championship, where each rider designs their own bike which they ride up an extremely steep muddy incline. I referenced bits and pieces I liked from different bikes and came up with this design. My favourite parts being the 4 cylinder engine and the slick racing tire with spikes. This was my first time collating references together into my own design, bearing in mind mechanical functionality.

I used this project as an opportunity to learn Mari to expand my texturing skillset and software knowledge. 

Final Comp

Naming Conventions and UVs

Although I didn't need a whole lot of resolution for the context of this shot. I opted to have more than I needed, as I have plans to do some close up renders in the future. I tried to layout my UVs in a way that that would make selection masks a lot easier in Mari. Looking back now I realise that I could have optimised my UDIMs a lot more, as I have way to much empty space.

Pureref

This is a screenshot of my main reference for the design of my bike, they are mostly screenshots from YouTube videos of the hill climbing competitions I took inspiration from.

Texture Breakdown

This was my first time using Mari. I loved using the node workflow and its flexible projection tools. I found that maintaining good colour management throughout the entire project was a lot easier with Mari.

Comp Breakdown

This was my first time rendering out separate light groups from Arnold. I love being able to control each light and shadow separately, allowing me to create a much more realistic result.

What I learnt through this project

I learnt so many valuable things during this project, one of them being the importance of colour management. I learnt how to view my colours in the same colour space and viewer LUTs throughout the project, which saved me many headaches. Previously my textures would look different in Substance, Arnold and Nuke, this was because I was viewing them in different colour spaces.

I now realise that I definitely could have optimised my Mari node graph better. Towards the end of the texturing stage, I found out about the material workflows in Mari. This would have made creating the secondary maps a lot more straight forward I believe.

This was a month long personal project I created along side my assignments last year. It was the first asset I was happy enough with to call it a portfolio piece.

I started this project to further improve my subd modelling and texturing skills. I also stepped into Houdini for the first time to make some clouds, which was an exciting venture. 

Thank you for reaching the end of my submission! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated :)