My Journey

Borderline Sane.

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 13

I’ll start with this... I will NOT have this done by the 23rd. With that being said, I’m actually going back and redoing some of the models that I was rushing a bit. Even with not being able to participate in the contest, I want to create something really amazing. I’ve learned a lot, not only about modeling and some tricks to get the shapes and looks that I’m going for, but how I model. We talk about Professional Athletes having rituals, things they do to get hyped up and/or “secure“ the win.

Mostly, my procrastination is my worst enemy. I want to do this, but because I know I have other things that may be more entertaining, you know, like playing games, I didn’t get it done it time. I certainly could have and that is the worst part of this. I have been working on my Sgt. Hammer Build, spent roughly about 3 hours on it currently. It may be a long time for some, but I’ve been modeling with texturing in mind, and I think in the end that will help me more.

I have so much that I want to do, and like I posted earlier, I always give myself challenges that are way over me. But maybe one day all that extra work will become something.

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 12

Still laying out some of the tougher UV’s (Chair, Mouse) but all is coming to plan. I only have a few days left, but all that’s really left to do with texture everything i do the animation, light the scene and render it...I’ll never get it done in time it seems. But either way I’ll be proud of how far I have gotten. I could honestly make a lot of excuses like, my kids or work, but I have really been slacking lately. I could have had a lot more done with this entire project. I could have prepared better and maybe stuck to a schedule to better have time to get this project going. But that is in the past and I can only learn from it. An older shot of what it will look like inside of UE4, which is what I’ll be using for the render of this project.

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 11

Oh my god. Uvs I’m almost done. I can’t wait for the day, my heart might burst with joy. I spent the good part of my morning (took close to a one hour break because my wrist was hurting) finishing up some uvs. Then I’ll be ready to texture, light the scene, animate and add some sound. It may not sound like a lot but I have only 13 more days left. I have taken a few days away from the project because my wrist have been hurting, and i’ve had my own personal problems to get through. I’ll reinstate that it feels weird that I have been able to get this far. I always dream big and are hopeful but to actually get this close to completing something, feels great. I will also state again that my respect for those who create art of any fashion and style has been increased greatly. The amount of time that I have had to put into this was larger than I thought. I really thought the last week I was going to be able to just tweak a few things and I would be set for first place....we will see. I tweeted at Grubby, Kaelaris and Khaldor, and they have given me permission to use their voices in my project. A+. For the rest of today I will be taking a break, and actually playing some Heroes of the Storm. <3

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 10

Woot! Double digits. So..I've been laying out UVs. God I hate it. But I actually have a question... According to my research I should be able to put all my textures in one image and have the quality the same as if each object had its own texture image (effectively taking up the entire 1:1 square). Am I wrong? But I'm laying out my UVs in such a way I'm hoping to have about three sets. One for the room, one for the desk and everything on it. And one for the players arms and other objects in the room. If anything all I know about texturing is that if I really did give each object its own 1:1 square to texture with, I would have soooo many image files. Diffuse Specular Normal Transparency All that other nonsense, and that's a lot for it to load. I mean once I had it rendered it would be okay, but I'm not trying to kill that render time. So if you have any knowledge about which style you like or which you prefer and reasons why...I would love to hear. Which do you prefer?

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 9

There is a battle I have with myself every night, do I stay up and try to work on a few more things?, or do I go to bed, to give my brain that little bit of extra energy so that I can work more efficiently? Something that I have come to learn is that I will need a team. Maybe not for the project but for an large scale ones. I always thought that if I was by myself and with an ample amount of time set aside for me that I would be able to create anything. Which I guess is halfway true…unfortunately humans don’t live to be 500 yet. He respect that I have for those who work in game design and development; whether it’s the sound, story, visuals or any combination of them, the amount of work and time that goes into each game is immense.

I've completed the mouse and mostly just smoothing out the finer details. I've still been running I. My head the complete animation that I want to do. I've also been thinking of future projects that I would want to do. Maybe a calibration? I'm much better at object/environmental design, maybe someone with better skills in character art? But first this project.

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 8

Let’s just talk for a minute about why I have failed to post anything for the last two or three days. Besides me working full days and having the kids, I have been looking at materials and the stuff needed to remodel the home that I’m in right now. It’s taken a large amount of my time, and with the deadline getting closer everyday I’m getting scared and I’m wanted to work on my art more than ever now.

Today I was able to spend a little while and get a good part of the mouse made. As more and more of the scene is coming together, the more I know that I’m able to do in the long term. I’ve also come to the realization that I may not get this done by time for the contects, but I think that’s okay. If I can complete this and have it on display for everyone, it might get me closer to actually getting a job working at a studio. That would be amazing. But we will see.....

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 8

So today for the Heroes team was a huge success! Tomorrow the game will be officially released and players from around the world will be able to log on and play as their favourite Heroes from across 20 years of Blizzard lore!

For myself, I’m in the middle of creating my DxRacer chair for my project. The way that I have modeled it so far, trying to give the look of cushion, I’m having to do it as if it was an organic item instead or hard edging the whole way through.

I work a long day tomorrow, but I’m hoping to have the chair modeled out my tomorrow and then I can work on the mouse!

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 7

I'll state again. I hate laying out UVs and putting textures on them. But...I do what I must. I really do not want to lay out that keyboard While at work today, I started to think about this project. I wondered if I was doing too much, or maybe not enough. I was fighting about what I should do, or how to do it rather. I hope that plans that I have for this project come to be what I expect. This IS the largest task that I have given myself to do with 3D art at all. it is certainly taxing much more on the mind. And I thought to myself today that this is really something that I could do for a living. I enjoy creating things and learning about better ways to create. I’ve already learned so much about the process that it takes to create simply an animation, much less a complete game. Things I still need to model are a mouse, chair and headphones, not to mention the characters. I think i want to do Valla, Diablo, Arthas and Sgt. Hammer. -note to self- Don’t play Heroes of the Storm while rendering...frame rate will drop so hard

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 6

So, the blueprints, the storyboards, the layout that will hopefully be my first step into getting a dream job of working at Blizzard. Never mind the bad lighting, I just wanted to show what I have made so far.

I want the scene to start here. It’s dark, 3am or so, right when us gamers are alive. Light is shinning from the crack in the door. We zoom into the door. A bright light fills over the screen and we are now in the Gamers room.

Here we would see the gamer playing. Fast Apm, the clicking of keys, muffled sound coming from the headphones, quick movements of the mouse. From here I have a few ideas that I would like to do, Maybe cut to inside the game and see the action or have it pan around the room and you get to see some of the Heroes character in fan art form, like posters or mini statues. I’m not really sure yet,.

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 5

Something I haven’t done a lot of work with is Lighting. To me it should be fairly simple; put a light at the lamp or blub and change the brightness or the color and call it a day. God I wish. There is actually a lot of work to go into the lighting process. To get the shadows right, not only do you need your model to look good, but also the lights to hit the model correctly. Once you get into the actual lighting process, you realize that only that one light, or two lights, almost never works. You need to make your scene work like how a real light works; it needs to bounce, to reflect, to illuminate without blowing out the scene. I think tomorrow I might just show out what I want to do and what my storyboard is so that way my process makes that much more sense.

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 4

So, I finally did it. I was able to take a break and relax some yesterday. I watch some Code Geass, which is really getting to me. The main character is starting to lose his mind and is causing all his friends and family to die and it’s all going downhill. I know it didn’t sound relaxing...and it wasn’t. I’ve been stressing all day; I finally go to the finale...cliffhanger. UGHHHHHH!!!! Anyway.... I also got a good bit of work done as well, even with the kids coming to interrupt me every five minutes asking me for more juice or something. I love them, but do they really need their cups refilled right after they finish them? Every. Single. Time. ------- He actually just did it again, while typing this up. ------- I was able to complete my storyboards. While in college, I didn’t think I would use the storyboards as much as my teachers said I would. And I was right, if anything it’s just a representation of my scenes; not so much of a way for me to keep them memorized and to make sure all the shots look good. I can think of that on my own. What I use the storyboards mostly of was to take a look at the scene and see what is missing. Example : A bedroom, maybe I could add a rug, make it feel more real, or maybe I could add a lamp here, and etc.

Finally I have something rendered out, even if it isn’t textured. I’ve done a bit of progress on the room as a whole as well. i was able to work on the bed and the overall layout of the room. But there is still much work to be done. Easily, the hardest part of this will be adding textures. I hate that part. ------- He just asked for juice again -------

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 3

So as I finished with before, I took the day off yesterday; played some games, laid around, ate microwavable food, zero chores accomplished... or rather that is what I thought I could say. I went to my regular day job and worked; not for very long, but long enough to make me yearn to come back and work on this project. If you have ever gotten a chance to know me, something I do not like to do is waste time. I’m great at multitasking and I love being productive. But I know that I needed a break. I didn’t want to burn myself out and I like playing video games. So I tried, but I thought, “I have two monitors, I could play this game and model at the same time during cut scenes and such.“, “I could watch some streams, and write up my storyboards“, and various other ideas. What I’ve come to ask myself and maybe some others, is : Am I working too much? Do you prefer to just go with the flow and get the work done when you feel like? Or do you try to set aside some time for yourself, even if it is forced upon?

[kylejhille-blog]

Heroes Project Day 2

Spending a good bit more time today in the art department, I was about to get a few models complete. Something you may catch onto either now, or later... I hate texturing. I don’t like making all the images and textures all line up and spending a lot of time inside of Photoshop. Nothing against Photoshop; love that program. I used to spend all my time daily in Photoshop, but I don’t want to be bothered inside of it when I work on 3D Art. I don’t really have a good reason why. It’s not hard, just....bothersome. New level of respect for texture artist. Here is what I have so far.

Now this may not look like something that would traditionally be in a Heroes Setting, but I promise I’ve got something exciting in store. A little over a month left, lets see if I can get it all done. But I think i’m going to make it that every Friday, I’ll take a day off and appreciate other artist and animations, and possibly see what I can learn from them I’ll do that...by playing some games. Here I come Heroes!

[kylejhille-blog]

Project Heroes Day 1

So, I’ve decided. I will be doing an animation; which terrifies and excites me. I always plan BIG. I get these ideas and I can see them manifest and develop in my mind. I can see it in all it’s glory....but the never comes to life. Which is why I’m making these updates so it can keep me going. It’s easy to quit, when no one is around. So for my progress, I have printed off some Storyboard sheets which I found HERE. I’ve the the basics of what I want to show and I think that I’m ready to start modeling it out and getting it all setup. Also before work I was able to do a quick block out of Valla’s Crossbow.

It’s nothing special and it honestly looks like garbage, but if I’m going to succeed at this, Ive got to take it one step at a time. I need to model and make progress everyday!

[kylejhille-blog]

HOTS and Deviantart

So it was just announced that Heroes of the Storm and Deviantart have teamed up and want players to create some fan art. You can check it out HERE! So I’m going to start a 35 day (that’s how many days until the contest ends) journal. I plan on posting everyday with progress and some snippets of the work and progress that I am making...But the first step....what to do?

[kylejhille-blog]

RocketJump Film School

So this is cool...

Many things catch my interest, but I'll definitely have to check this out!

[supernugget42]

[kylejhille-blog]

I think I’m in love.