Mathew's 3D blog

3d Character for Pool Studio

This is a character created for Pool Studio software. He is nearly 3,500 pollys. He’s in swim trunks because he was placed in 3D Pool software though he looks like he could be a boxer. This was my first professional character I have created other than a few statues I modeled.

Later I had a good friend/co worker create normal maps for him. At the time I didn’t have much Z Brush experience so I gladly handed over the character, and Aiden did a great job with the normals.

I posted a little while back about the great game I had the opportunity to help make called Tightwire with the fun team over at Wasted Pixel. We recently just shot up the Top Free Apps chart to #1 most downloaded app! It has 500,000 downloads and counting!

We also have been as high as 8 in the overall Top Paid section of iTunes and #1 in the Action as well as the Arcade section too! If you haven’t already, check out the great review it got at appcraver.com,

“The graphics are classic ‘video-game realism’ and the sound of whipping winds is a nice touch. Also — considering how quickly and often our daredevil will die — I appreciate the thoughtfulness TightWire’s developers have taken with the falling scenes. Players are less likely to give up because are several variations to his crashing demise and they can look forward to watching him tumble over and over again.”

or the review at iphonefreak.com,

“I would recommend this game for those of us who are a fan of the accelerometer or is at least familiar with it’s use. For the price of just $.99 it’s a great game to pass time.

Verdict: 4/5 Stars”

Also, download the app on your iPhone or iPod Touch (or at get least the free one) and shoot me an email to tell me what you think! MathewStowell@yahoo.com

Here are some condiments I created for Pool Studio. I created these soon after making a lawn gnome. The gnome was such a big hit that he kind of be came the un-official mascot of the company (as you can see in the Structure Studios 404 page and employment page)so I added him to the textures.  The textures were created completely in Photoshop as well as re-using existing textures in the software. Check out the ketchup  amount and how much the mustard weighs.

These are another set of objects who’s poly count could have greatly benefited from normal maps, but they were still kept low poly. I think the ketchup bottle was the highest poly count and it was around 64 polys. Here is a quick Max render I did while looking over the old 3ds Max files.

Within my first 6 months at Structure Studios we needed more columns in the software so my art director had me create them. I liked how they turned out. The poly count could have greatly benefited from a few nice normal maps, but at this time in the engines life we didn’t have normal maps. I think the highest poly count on the columns was for one of the round roman style columns.

I recently had an opportunity to work with a great team on an iPhone game. It’s called TightWire and it was really fun to make. I got to animate everything and model the buildings for it. I was really pleased with the results of the game.  It was published by iBright Studios and developed by a fun, small team called Wasted Pixel.

TightWire iPhone game screenshot

Anyway check out the great review it got on frapstr.

“The animations of your character seem to be motion captured (or else incredibly well animated), so they’re extremely fluid and natural and bring to mind the sort of thing you’d expect to see from Pixar.”

That’s my favorite part!

By the way if your looking for an animator or a modeler for an iPhone project or any project shoot me an email MathewStowell@yahoo.com

Michael Jackson continuing coverage fullscreen graphic

Here is a full screen graphic I made about 2 weeks ago while filling in at KTNV Channel 13. I can’t take complete credit for this, but I really like how it turned out. The “continuing coverage” template was mostly already created and the Michael Jackson photo and stars were from another graphic and masked by a friend/co-worker of mine. I just laid it out assembled them in Photoshop. With the media circus surrounding Michael’s death here is my artistic contribution to it.

This was the first thing I created at my job at Structure Studios. It is a vendor package of about a dozen items for the Riverflow company. They are all low poly, and at this stage in the SE3D engine there were no particle effects for the water so we had to show the direction of the water flow with 3D arrows. Not the greatest solution but it was the best one we could come up with and it got the job done for Riverflow.

Here are some of the other items I created for the Calise Outdoor Kitchens in Pool Studio and Viz Terra.  The Fire pit with the chimney is my favorite of all the products I created.  It was the most fun to make and it turned out very close to how the real thing looks. The refrigerator in the picture with the black background was also fun to make. They are all low polly and share about 6 textures total.  At this stage in Pool Studios history we did not  have many texture options. There were no specular, bump or normal map options and the engine could not handle a lot of textures so I kept the texture sizes to a minimum. The stove with the steak on it is from the previous post. The fire was added in the software.

By the way… The Kegerator is the sweetest idea ever. Who was the briliant man to come up with this because I want to salute him. A waste high refrigerator that is just big enough to place a keg in with a fancy spout on top!? Even the name is friggin cool… KEGERATOR! “The Kegerator” sounds like the name of the next sci-fi Vin Diesel movie. You know a man dreamed this invention up too. No woman would be standing around in the garage thinking, “You know what? Ice isn’t doing the job here. No ma’am! This needs to be placed inside its own refrigerator!”

Calise stove

Here is a Calise outdoor stove I created a long while back when I first started working for Structure Studios in Feburary07. This stove top was apart of a Large 40k+ dollar (I think) project that I did for Calise Outdoor Kitchens to put just about everything they sell in Pool Studio. It was quite the learning experience making it, both with the innards of Pool Studio and in 3d Studio Max. I’ll post some screen shots of how most of the items turned out in Pool Studio in a bit.

So eventualy I am going to start posting things that I have made and try my best to post them in the order that they were created – freelance and all – but until then enjoy a Starcraft digital painting a buddy of mine did.