The Art of SketchUp - part 2: Sci-Fi

ken28875 · 21 Jul 2014, 17:52

@unknownuser said:

Modular!

Merci, Pilou. Bonne journee!

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

Here's a couple of other buildings for Cities of Tomorrow.

Take care,

_KN

TK0001 · 28 Jul 2014, 18:00

Ken,

I want you to know that I pop into this thread whenever I want to see what is really possible with SketchUp (maybe not humanly possible....have you been tested?). It is tremendously inspiring to see your work, as well as humbling when going back and looking at my own.

If I could one day model something half as cool as what you could put out in half a day, I'll be a happy man.

ken28875 · 4 Aug 2014, 08:48

@cotty said:

Great designs!

Thanks, Carsten. I am glad you like them.

@pbacot said:

enjoying it all Ken! Love the little red space ship and the futuristic buildings. thanks for sharing.

Thank you very much for your kind words, Peter.

@tk0001 said:

Ken,

I want you to know that I pop into this thread whenever I want to see what is really possible with SketchUp (maybe not humanly possible....have you been tested?). It is tremendously inspiring to see your work, as well as humbling when going back and looking at my own.

If I could one day model something half as cool as what you could put out in half a day, I'll be a happy man.

Thank you for your kind comments, Mark. Very happy to hear that my work can be an inspiration to you. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. And no, I have not been tested, but if I were, you would find out that I came from a galaxy far, far away...

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a terrific weekend.

Here's a concept I did using one of my droids.

SketchUp + Lumion3D + Photoshop

Have a wonderful week!

_KN

andyc · 4 Aug 2014, 09:08

More great stuff Ken.

Would interested to know how much of the scene is 3D and how much is comprised of 2D elements. Love the tilted camera-angle and composition

cheers,

A

ken28875 · 17 Aug 2014, 16:05

@andyc said:

More great stuff Ken.

Would interested to know how much of the scene is 3D and how much is comprised of 2D elements. Love the tilted camera-angle and composition

cheers,

A

Hi Andy, Thanks for your kind words and interest in the making of my art works.

As you can see in the images below, I'd say 90% 3D and 10% 2D.

SketchUp changed my life as a concept artist. And the day I found out about Lumion3D, it was a game changer in the way I do visual developments.

Besides these programs mentioned above, I also use E-On Software's Vue for natural environments (see some of the older concepts from the The Art of SketchUp - part 1: Fantasy - e.g. Gods and Heroes concepts).

Anyhow, back to this current image. The techniques I used are very similar for all of my visual developments.

I combine/compose all the pieces in SketchUp or Lumion3d. Working in 3D allows me to move elements around quickly to see if the composition works. I can also play with lights and shadows. That would be impossible to do in the old days (just using Photoshop only).

I have a library of tons of 3D models that I use in my work to save time. I only build some of the unique 3 assets or things that I don't already have.

When I am satisfied with the overall composition and mood lighting, I bring it into Photoshop.

Paintover: FX (fire, smoke, dust, muzzle flash, shells, etc.), color correction, hue/saturation, contrast, etc.

I hope this helps. I will post some more concepts soon.

Have a great week!

_KN

ken28875 · 24 Aug 2014, 08:27

Hi guys,

It has been a while I have not posted some of my military vehicles.

These were done whenever I have some free time for a span of several months last year. I will eventually render them like I did for the other vehicles that I posted earlier in this thread.

Thanks for viewing.

Have a great weekend!

_KN

cotty · 24 Aug 2014, 08:31

great models and modelling!

ken28875 · 29 Aug 2014, 23:27

@cotty said:

great models and modelling!

Thanks Carsten!

Have a great weekend,

_KN

pilou · 15 Sept 2014, 09:26

Epic!

ken28875 · 16 Sept 2014, 05:31

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend.

I have a series of concepts inspired by games like call of Duty or Battlefield. I think I did post some images before. Here's another one.

SketchUp + Lumion3d + Photoshop

The military vehicles that I did are part of this personal project. I will use some of them in future concepts whenever I have time to work on some more.

Thanks for viewing.

Have a terrific week!

_KN

ken28875 · 4 Oct 2014, 22:10

@unknownuser said:

Epic!

Merci Pilou!

Hi everyone,

I hope you have a great weekend.

Here's a concept I did for Simcity - Cities of Tomorrow.

SketchUp + V-Ray for Skp + Photoshop

Take care,

_KN

ken28875 · 13 Oct 2014, 08:48

Hi everyone,

I hope you had a terrific weekend.

Here's another concept for Simcity - Cities of Tomorrow.

SketchUp + V-Ray for Skp + Photoshop

Questions/feedback always welcome as usual.

Take care,

_KN

cotty · 13 Oct 2014, 08:54

Nice!
Is there a maximum vertex count for these models you have to achieve?

ken28875 · 13 Oct 2014, 09:05

@cotty said:

Nice!
Is there a maximum vertex count for these models you have to achieve?

Hi Carsten,

No, there is no maximum vertex count for any of my Skp models because they are for concepts. They are not the real in-game models.

After the concepts are approved, they are sent to the modelers who will build the 3D models with Maya or Studio Max. Some of my coworkers do use my SketchUp models as reference or export them into Maya/Max and reduce the polycount and re-texture them.

Thanks!

_KN

Bryan K · 17 Oct 2014, 02:19

Those are some crazy cool looking buildings!

ken28875 · 18 Oct 2014, 20:16

@bryan k said:

Those are some crazy cool looking buildings!

Thanks for your kind words, Bryan!

Have a terrific weekend!

_KN

ken28875 · 26 Oct 2014, 02:57

Hello everyone,

Halloween is just around the corner. So I thought I'd share some personal projects with zombies!

I found some models on 3D warehouse, fixed them and added more details and textures.

SketchUp + Lumion3D + Photoshop

Please let me know what you think.

Have a great weekend!

_KN

Bryan K · 26 Oct 2014, 05:24

Love it! Those are great!

Daniel · 29 Oct 2014, 16:36

Great work as always, Ken.
Question: why do they remodel your concept models? Why don't they use your SU models? Sounds like they are just re-inventing the wheel.

ken28875 · 10 Nov 2014, 09:25

@bryan k said:

:roflmao: Love it! Those are great!

Thanks for your kind words, Bryan.

@daniel said:

Great work as always, Ken.
Question: why do they remodel your concept models? Why don't they use your SU models? Sounds like they are just re-inventing the wheel.

Thanks for you interest and questions, Daniel. The SketchUp models are not game ready assets, therefore not optimized for importing into the game engine. The polycount is way too high and the textures are not correctly mapped. Indeed, my SketchUp models have tons of individual textures whereas the actual game models use 1 to 3, 512x512 or 1024x1024 texture maps.

However, for some simple and small models, the 3D modelers do use my Skp models sometimes by doing some minor fixes with the polygons and adding textures.

Have a good day!

_KN