The Ant Project

As Lead Modeler my main goal was to reproduce Antman and in particular my responsibilities were:

reference research -  evaluation and list of changes of the starting character model gave to us - management of staff and asset division - review of the assets produced - composition of the character by bringing together the various assets - helmet and suit connectors modeling;

My second goal was to help the texturing:

creation of height maps - surfacing of the suit;

Work Organization

Before starting my modeling tasks I reasearched all the references and organized the workflow for the creation of the character, asking to each member what they felt more confortable to do, trying to split properly all the assets.  I organized everything in a Pureref, let's take a look:

THE HELMET

my first contribute to the group thesis was the model of the Antman's Helmet.

Here it is:

Reference

The reference I took to organize the project have been usefull for the modeling of all the parts, I tried to focus on the shots of the film and on the 3D models of other artists, in this way I had a clear view of each part and asset. 

Modeling Steps

The modeling phase was leaded by a simple method: watch the references, imitate the references and make it become the reference. After a quick block out I started diving deeply into more levels of details of each single part and step by step, the modeling was done. To complete the task, I did the UVs thinking about the texturing phase, trying to help as much as possible my collegues.

Turntables

THE SURFACING

my second contribute to the group thesis was the surfacing of all the character.

Let's see it:

Reference

once again the references leaded my work, this time I tried to put all my attention to microdetails, scratches and differences of materials.

Process of Surfacing

After studying properly the references I jumped into Photoshop to try to come up with some simple b/w maps. All the process of surfacing has been done in Substance Painter, using different levels and applying the maps I created on Photoshop directly on the UVs.

Turntables

I take this chance to thank all the people involved in the process:

- Jianan Xiang: Supervisor, 3D model of the cuffs, UV’s of the suite;

- Samuele Giunta: Lead Previz and Lighting, 3D model of the gloves and the head of the character;

- Alberto Baldazzi: Lead Texturing, 3D model of the belt and back device;

- Andrea Sperta: CG artist, 3D model of the shoulders device;

- Marco Boscarin: CG artist, 3D model of the suit, boots and pipes of the connections of the devices;

Let me say that I’m very proud of the work we did and once again thanks to all for the huge dedication. Thesis done under the wise advices of Mauro Baldissera and Chiara Rovoletto at Skyup Academy.

The Ant Project marks another milestone in my newly begun training in computer graphics but just like ants, capable of feats beyond their measure, we have been able to achieve goals that were apparently insurmountable at the beginning. Once again, cheers Antboys.