getting into PBR and procedural stuff

so recently I just had to start learning all the new big boy toys, PBR and Procedural texturing and after 2 months of RnD as well as actual work for a client I managed to learn a lot. here is some progress

Basically it was texture set up for the actual object texture map masked by a procedural damage map and that mask influences the transition between those two textures in color and bump information, it was an interesting learning process, if you want the node set up drop me an email or comment. after I learned that I thought I had enough learning on the PBR texturing and time to move to substance painter and it was a very interesting learning experience. this video tutorial was a massive help helped me understand the complete process through a proper example instead the usual information over load that comes with any tutorial now days, after a little of trial and error I got to those results ( the client's work )

after learning a lot through these 3 Characters I challenged my self in creating one of my own character monster within a single day because...why not! XD

it was a really interesting experience and am really looking forward to producing my own designs usuing this pipeline. this whole process started at March 14 where it begin with playing with blender nodes procedural texturing and masking as an RnD for a coming project and ended May 3rd including the 3 characters ( each took 1 week plus ) cause each had a damaged version and I had to work around the technical issues that came with that. those technical issues I face where when I tried to seperate body parts from the model to replace them with damaged parts, rigging, deformation, normals breaking, A LOT of issues. I resolved the rigging and deformation issues by seperating parts AFTER rigging and paintweight was done and making sure not to play around with the areas that had seams, duplicating those limbs maintaining their rigs and modifying the model with the texture map to create damaged versions. second issue was the normals and that was a bit of a headache and I think we still need better tools for that, when I seperate a mesh from the model the software (Blender) adjusts the normals of that seam which breaks the normals direction. so I solved that issue by pain stackingly duplicating the regular model as a reference point, copy the normal of the vertex ONE BY ONE! and pasting them to the verticies of the body parts, there is no batching process for this as far as I know, if there are any tools that can do this better, please do inform me. anyway, that is the latest update here, Good Knight is still going and soon will be at G-Core show offline gaming evening in Beijing with the help of our lovely publishers at DoubleThink Games. massive updates to GoodKnight coming soon. if you got any questions feel free to comment below or email me. wishing you a fantastic day ahead. ps : you can check these works on artstation as well

MK 12 character building system suggestion

SO since I have been playing a lot of MK11 and really fell in love with the Krypt's Traverler character and how he is collecting those items that are the Krypt's key items and carries it with him a thought came to mind, memories of MKD and MKA how Deception helped us built through the Journey of Konquest this new character that was the back bone of the store and how MKA helped us create our own ultimate fighter ( Broken mechanically ) but ours!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! so I instantly thought why they did not make the traverler as our own created character, and whatever he finds in the krypt apart he can actually wear and we can make him MKA style

but another thought popped in saying " nah it might be fun but pointless as playings won't allow him in compatitive play " so is he going to be just limited to local play? another thought popped in maybe he learns the art of other fighters and can fix to a certain style of a character fighting art while special moves and can be customized based on what that specific style has, the MK11

so the player can completely controls the way the character looks but still the character is mechanically intact and can be used in compatitive play, Imagine the next MK tournament is all complete custome characters players built with their own names but play as they should without being broken. to make it simple : 1- you create your character MKA style with all the stuff you find in the Krypt or Konquest journey and he learns styles of characters on the way (Scorpion, Subzero, JK, Jax, etc) 2- when it comes to choosing the fighting style ( you choose a character from they original Roaster ) so let's say he will choose Scorpion, he will have that exact same set of moves, same everything like copy the exact thing but can customize the special moves like MK11 allows us to do to create our own flavor of combo linkers. I think this will be Sick! just something I wanted to get our of my system, I hope people might find it useful!!!

Happy New 2021 and UMK11 made the end of the year Cool!

Hello everyone! I hope you all survived the shitty 2020 and let's prepare our self for 2021 we are still on the grind until this whole covid thing goes away!!! a small update about my self, we have been burning the midnight oil for 2 years and 3 months now working on Good Knight! and been working on a table top called loot and glory for 2 years as well on the side and those projects will be a wrap for this year so YAY!!! I can not wait to start making the new ideas am having into games. This is also not just to talk about UMK11 but a message to Ed Boon man! cause the broskie is chill, loves us all and we love him back! I know my last message was heard before for MKXL PC, thank you Boon man! So the first time I got MK11 on release thanks to my buddy Corey pre-ordering the game for me at the spot it dropped on steam, freaking floored me! played the game on release day, went through story mode, did some matching and played a bit of the krypt, got a local tournament happening which total hours MK run on my PC was around 20 hours, sadly after all of that got really caught up with work and needed disk space and had to remove the game,but something that did not make me go through the effort of re-installing the game, the fact knowing that to go through the krypt that I had to grind in the towers of time, and I know this are important to the game mechanics but never wanted to touch it cause I was even dare I say afraid of it even knowing that it was patched and all good. fast forward 2 years passed, 2020 christmas and new year are here, installed it man that huftty fat 100GB OOOOOUUF! the game is big!

bought the UMK11 edition as I never got any of the DLCs, I wanted it for -The Aftermath- story line and I am doing this whole streaming thing now with RavenSkullGaming, nothing series just for fun and be with friends online while I experience my games, so started the aftermath story and man....ouuuuhhhHHHHHH!!! MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! the story, the acting, the sequences, the reaction, the interaction! I was not playing a game!!! I was watching a movie!!! the micro expression IN A GAME!!! on Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa preformance it would bring you to tears to actually spot that in a game!!! I WANT MORE! I am not going to complain about the length cause to be honest, if you ask me? I wouldn't know how to make it longer, I love the open possibilities and I wanna see where it goes! this is interesting, got my coins, hearts and souls all collected from the aftermath and went back into the krypt, this time on a mission to get it done, so I played and played until I quickly ran out of everything, I thought hi! am going to stream I never went through the classic towers so I started going through characters one by one going through like half of em on a stream and I realized this is not gaining much coins, souls or hearts, my eyes are looking at the Towers of time, "should I?" I wondered... so I went it, completely un-educated and started playing got few towers in, not that bad but the rewards were Good! but... not enough until I came across a tower key and it was test your luck! and am hi! wow! old school stuff?! so I went in and was mildly disappointed I thought it was the mini games but hi! we can't have everything,the game is really massive so am not complaining, I started fighting, am maining Kung Lao and man... I got my ass kicked real bad, like I was getting through the fight but being butchered got passed him and now nightwolf and I found out lots of my moves are not connecting because of the modifiers that I had to adjust to kick combos to actual be able to pass that fight, I tried for hours and barely reached the Kollector's fight! ONLY ONCE! after 2 hours! that is no joke! so I decided to shift characters and move to a character that has better leg combos and Jhonny Cage was the best pick! I played, got used to the combos and feel of him and still not having much of an upper hand but having better reach rate to The Kollector, I thought there has to be a better way man! so I went online and got educated about the augments and I was like OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH that is what those are for!!! I still did not have enough of the augs to get me through through all towers but I did get through the first one and man it was brutal but I got through and it was a F YEAH! moment! Baraka....and he had no chill bro! got my as on a silver platter like nobody's business. so I said hi! I need to find the other Augs that the walk through talked about which is here so I started grinding in towers until I got some serious issue of the Bor-idous, it got boring after a couple of hours, but I was happy that I have enough now to go through the krypt more and I advance, unlock and find secrets and do stuff until I got the Ermac power and now I can get that bring! what is in there?! another area?! what?! and I go there and it asks for 2000k souls and am like yeah I got that!!! and I unlock it and it felt great and I spend that skeleton key and see a heart box and...I do not have enough hearts so I go back to the towers grind hearts through fatalities, unlock the box....and it was just a bunch of gears for Kabal... I was disappointed cause I spent so many souls and a skeleton keys and 250 hearts to get to that and to me the reward was close to nothing. now I need all the sweets souls to unlock the souls monks things and the containers and am like where the hell do you grind for souls like that!? we need so much!!! my first thought was the towers of time but still I do not want to do that! it it Boring man! I still bit the bullet and went back played until I discovered A.I. battle and with the augs I had...LMAO! the A.I. was kicking ass everywhere, challenge tower pffff! character tower? no problem! like I only helped in task specific towers and was grinding hard but realized what am I doing? is this how the game is? the COM is playing for me cause the game got boring and am wasting my holiday time grinding to play the fun part of the game? why? those feelings and ideas started to build up. got enough stuff to go through the krypt again and the more I unlock areas and see all the easter eggs and fun in there I was almost in tears man but those feelings and ideas where in the back of my head and I know for a fact that I might not be able to bring my self up to do the towers of time again cause I see no point in them. I missed MKDA,MKD,MKA,MK9 AND MKX Flow, you play the story and the klassic tower and you are almost through the krypts just with a bit more grind you get there, for MK9 and MKX you got through those CREATIVE challenge towers that every level has a story tid bits that made it feel satisfying to play and finish, felt like pretend with friend that you can not do that and now fight! it was so much fun!!! and you earn well to unlock... that was not MK11, I think apart from having challenge towers like MK9, it could have been the Krypt it self, to earn in there and play and have fun to unlock, it could have been lots of mini games of test your might, test your sight, test your luck, and hunting for clues, but who am I kidding deving these cost money and LOTS of money! and the boys probably deved the towers and found out it had an issue and got the A.I. going to solve that cause they spent time and money and just can not scrap that whole thing, I know this has to be what happened, the system was already in place and they discovered the fatal issue and came up with the A.I. mechanic cause they can not scrap the whole system and flush it down the drain ( this is me spekulating by the way!!! do not take what I said as something written in stone ). MK11 and UMK11 is a fantastic package of a game, the fighting mechanic that EVERYONE CAN ENJOY!!! which is very hard to do in a fighting game and MK always does it right! and do justice, but what makes MK a full package was the secrets and the sense of discovery, feeling like and explorer, I hope this will be for the next project, I still need to get my self to finish that krypt, but I got to grind those towers :( I don't want to waste my time cause I gotta work and family. maybe for the next project you guys at NRS will do it better, even add a photo mode to the krypt so the player feels like he is going on a Disney ride in the MK univese, the player IS the traveler and by the end of the krypt just like MKD but with a twist, you are the traveler that you spent time to costumize, you get to play him as a fighter and use a chunk of the unlocks to make him your own fighter like MKA, maybe not move set but like the MK11 system and you chose a character let's say scropion and this traverler will take scorpion's move set and adjust the style like what you guys did in MK11 customization so he won't be a broken character and even playes will use him in tournaments!!! no towes of time, no A.I. just game play, actual game play and fun!

I love you guys, I love MK and I wouldn't be where I am standing in my life without MK cause it really changed my life and helped me make LIFE ALTERING CHOICES! and no regrets! I might sound seriously dumb but I do not care, hire me for ideas! LMAO! no... am dumb LOL! anyway, this is my impression of UMK11, it is on sale until the 5th on steam GET IT NOW! NOW IS YOUR CHANCE! the game is eyecandy and fun! apart from those towers! love you all I hope you guys will have a better 2021 and Ed Boon man... I love you man, keep up the fantastic work! ps: I was not hired to do this, am just a fan who wanted to share his feelings about the game, might not align with other fans, might express others, but this is just my personal view.

Texturing Method for stylized texture

 

Disclaimer : am not a tutorial creator, I do not have professional sound equipment or proper editing softwares I just used what I have to create this video.

This is not a beginner tutorial this is totally methodical for advanced users as it explains the method and that method can be applied in different 3D and graphic software combination of the user's choice. This video was a request from some people to showcase how I textured a previous character I did for a class.

I will try to make a write up when I get some time for further details

and yes I know, the UV map is a nightmare fuel but that is not the focus of the video

 

PS: watch the video first to have an idea of what am talking about. 

 

 Process Break Down : 

1- Creating the model and putting as much details as possible ( even using multi res modifier for sculpting details will help a lot if needed )

2 - unwrap the model ( Clean unwrapping is very important.

3 - Bake an AO Map and this will be the most important map that we will generate almost everything out of it

4 - Sketching the rest of the details with a brush inside blender right into the model on the AO map we made before (Note : keep a clean version of it separately in case it is needed) , simple sketch (note the tighter the sketch the cleaner the details will be ) details like stitches, lines, designs, whatever is in the concept that you see your model needs to have

5- take that AO to any editing software, I used CSP

6- use image editing Level tool to increase the contrast value
7- using image editing Binarized ( basically creating hard black and white image )  (Note: if it looks grainy use blur to soften those grains before applying binarized. here you will have your "lineart" later that will be on top with Multiple mode

8- that same AO sketch layer we take a fresh one and use the same process but this time instead of Binarized we use Posterized in CSP or Cutout in Photoshop, adjust the values to the desired result.

9- selecting each area of a different color, basically just breaking down the texture to different layers (head, hands, legs, hair, etc...)

10- select what you want to color and apply image editing gradient map tool to it and adjust the colors to the desired result 

11-Back to Blender Duplicate the model , unwrap it based on view ( select front view )

u will have a messy UV for the duplicated model now but it will serve its purpose, apply a gradinate color texture to that model ( Dark values at the bottom, light values at the top ) select the duplicate model and select the original model, go to Bake window in the render section and choose texture and hit bake, take that bake and lay it on top of your texture with multiple mode with 29% opacity. 

 

and you are done!

PS : ( you can take that lineart layer and add as much details lines, cross hatching shadows to your hearts content )

if you are interested on how I came up with the character design there is a video of a stream on facebook in the following link : https://www.facebook.com/ZaidSkeletalRaven/videos/3156005564431430

the character design sheet : https://www.facebook.com/ZaidSkeletalRaven/posts/3156271217738198

for more stuff you can follow me on twitter : https://twitter.com/DarkZedo

Shameless plug : am currently working on a game called Good Knight it is a Filipino indie bullet hell game Set in a Gothic steampunk Philippines, a Spanish Knight sets his foot in this unique hell.

Good Knight FB : https://www.facebook.com/gaming/GoodKnightGame/

Good Knight Steam :https://store.steampowered.com/app/1281400/Good_Knight/

https://youtu.be/dur8G81S9D8

Good Knight Bullet Hell Buttclenching Action is out as Early Access demo on Itch io!

Good Knight Bullet Hell!

#ButtClenching Action

"Philippines' Best Desktop and Console Game" - GDAP GameOn 2019 Awards

"Philippines' Most Innovative Game" - GDAP GameOn 2019 Awards

"Best Indie Game of ESGS" - GG Network, 2019

"Most Popular Indie Game of ESGS" - GMA Network, 2018

"A game for the community, by the community" - Gosh Darn Geeky, 2019

Download the early access here: https://tinyurl.com/GoodKnightGame
Its free don't worry no need to pirate! Heck even if you did we would still help you out, all fans are welcome.

COME JOIN US AT DISCORD XD
discord.gg/k8JXm3Z

But we appreciate donations if you guys enjoyed it. As filipino devs we're really having a hard time even paying our rent.

We'll reward everyone who has donated ala crowdfunding (see page).
You don't have money but you want to support? Share it with your friends!, spreading the word is enough.