The Goblinator

Hey all! It seems it has been a while since I've been on here. A lot certainly has been happening lately over the past couple months or so. Ranging from the earthquake in Japan, the uprising in Libya and Egypt, the tornadoes in the southern states (especially Alabama), and the death of Osama bin Laden. Bum bum bum.

I could always talk a lot about each one of those situations, but that would take forever. I'm just thankful for the victory over our enemies, and terrorrism in general. Yet, always keep those affected by the tragedies in your prayers. They still need them and will for a long time to come.

Now that I have that mostly out of the way, I have a quick little update on my most recent project. He's been slow coming, but moving along none the less. I've recently finished sculpting every part of him, and have also finished painting him and adding texture to him. You can see it below!



Front view



Front view

So that's what he looks like right now. Pretty exciting, ay? So this is the super crazy high resolution version of this goblin guy. He comes in at 23 million polygons. Needless to say, that is way too many. Like... 23 million too many. I basically need to get him down to around the 20,000 mark or somewhere around there, so that he could actually be used in a game.

I know, you might be thinking, wouldn't he lose a lot of that smooth detail, creases, bumps, dents, and such? Well yes, but what you do is, make this texture call a "Normal Map." This will basically take the high resolution detail of the model, and create the illusion that it still has it all by manipulating light, and making it bounce in specific directions to create depth where there really is no depth on the lower resolution model.

Ok, I just nerded out a bit, but if that little bit was interesting, then you can check out this link that explains it a lot more thoroughly. http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap

But anyways, that's a small little update. I'll likely have more on him soon. Let me know what you all think!