The Art of SketchUp - part 1: Fantasy
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Dear Friends,
Wow, it has been more than a year since my last post.
I disappeared for a while, but don't worry, I am still alive and back with a bunch of new concepts.
In case you were wondering what happened to me, here a quick summary. The company that I was working for on the mobile game Chronoblade ran out of funding and they shut down the Art Department and laid off the Art Director and Concept Artists.
However, as someone once said, when one door closes another opens, I got a new job. But I had to move to Los Angeles (Sherman Oaks, to be exact). I am no longer working in the game industry, but in the entertainment/theme park type of projects. Indeed, the new company is Victory Hill Entertainment and I am currently doing concepts for Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N shows that opened in Paris, New York, Seoul, Las Vegas and Singapore. Check out the website:
http://www.victoryhillexhibitions.com/I am also doing concepts for the upcoming Hasbro Transformers shows. I can't wait to share some of the latest concepts with you guys.
In the meantime, I can show you all the concepts I did for Chronoblade.
The concepts below are for the first chapter of the game.
Chronoblade is a mix of fantasy and sci-fi, therefore I will split my concepts in the fantasy and sci-fi threads.
Thanks for stopping and have a terrific week!
_KN
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Cool return!
Waiting the transformers!
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Happy to see you back here!
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Seconded. Always great to see what you come up with. Welcome back!
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Congratulations ken! And welcome back. Good to see you posting agian as well.
One day I'll figure out how you make what looks like simple models transform into gorgeous textures and depths.
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@ Pilou, Carsten, Doug and Bryan: Thanks for your kind words, guys.
Here are some concepts of the Dark Woods leading to the Watchtower where you fight the boss of this chapter on top of the tower.
As usual, SketchUp + V-Ray for SketchUp + Photoshop.
Have a great week!
_KN
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Great pics! Is it a mobile game?
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More great renders!
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@rich o brien said:
Great pics! Is it a mobile game?
Hi Rich
Yes, it's for a mobile game called ChronoBlade. Check out the Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/Chronoblade/@bryan k said:
More great renders!
Thanks for your kind words, Bryan.
Here's a couple of concepts for the Boss fight in the Burning Village.
Cheers!
_KN
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Excellent work as always!
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Wonderful Ken. Thanks for sharing. Your work is so inspiring on many levels. Not only do you have the dream job. You're the master at it! Conceiving whole scenarios and all the way down to the details--and the ability to make it come alive visually. I wonder what the end product looks like from your visualizations. I wonder how you approach making your shapes, for example the boulders or the rough rectangular building stones. Your geometry looks so efficient and clean.
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@bryan k said:
Excellent work as always!
Thank you, Bryan!
@pbacot said:
Wonderful Ken. Thanks for sharing. Your work is so inspiring on many levels. Not only do you have the dream job. You're the master at it! Conceiving whole scenarios and all the way down to the details--and the ability to make it come alive visually. I wonder what the end product looks like from your visualizations. I wonder how you approach making your shapes, for example the boulders or the rough rectangular building stones. Your geometry looks so efficient and clean.
Hi Peter,
Sorry for the late reply. I am always crazy busy with work, especially with my new job here in LA.
Thank you for your interest and for your kind words about my work. But I would not take credits for everything in my renders. Indeed, as a concept artist, I always try to use existing game assets as much as I could so that the 3d modelers and environment artists would know what to use for the final in-game models. Consistency of the visuals will also be kept from concepts to final products.I don’t create everything from scratch because there is no reason to reinvent the wheel. My final concepts are a combination of 3d models that I have in my resource folders, 3d assets from the game and new models that I create and texture. A lot of the models that I made are low polygon objects that’s why they are very clean most of the time. The textures are what make the models look detailed.
After getting the descriptions of the areas from the game designers who are the people who write the stories for each of the game levels, I do some really quick pencil sketches and gather all the 3d assets I need, and build the ones that I don’t have yet. I put everything in SketchUp, rendered with V-Ray for SketchUp and postwork in Photoshop (e.g. color correction, fire and smoke effects, paint-overs details that could not be done in SketchUp, etc.).
I don’t have any images of the end product/game, but you can search ChronoBlade on youtube to see the videos of the game. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chronoblade
What interesting about ChronoBlade is that it is a side-scrolling game where all the levels consist of tileable units that can be combined to create different environments.
As you can see in the images below, you can add tile 04 or tile 07 after tile 01, or have tile 01 between tile 05 and tile 07 for example. You can put those tiled areas in different orders to create different game experiences for the players.
The images for tile 01, 03, 04, 05 and 07 are raw screenshots from Sketchup. For tile 3, you can compare the SketchUp model to the final render with postwork.
Thank you for reading and have a terrific weekend!
_KN
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Sim City at the Middle age!
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Very clever! Interesting info on the game mechanics as well.
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@ Pilou and Bryan: Thank you for your comments.
Hello All,
It has been a year since I posted something in this thread. Things have been quite busy with work and other stuff.
I am back and adding a few more concepts from the game ChronoBlade.
Those concepts were done in 2014. I have a bunch more of them that I will post soon (a year from now...J/K...hopefully in a few days).
SketchUp + V-Ray for Skp + Photoshop
Have a great week!
_Ken
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Very nice, very effective shaders and mats.
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@mike amos said:
Very nice, very effective shaders and mats.
Thanks for your kind words, Mike. Good day to you!
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