Making Progress

Here is the arena now, a lot of stuff is still placeholder quality. Researched a bit more, still have no idea what I'm going to do about the seat polycount, its going to be ridiculously high. No, my individual seat count isn't that high, there is just a lot of seats 12,600 to be exact. So if the seat is a 100 polygons that's 1.2 million polygons just for butts, ouch! I am getting to a point where the 5 reference pics I took aren't doing a whole lot for me, gonna need to make a visit and get some useful pictures to move me forward. This could be a problem because they're usually not open everyday, or to anybody, so I may be putting this one off for a bit, which I promised myself I wouldn't do, but I may have to for a bit.

Here's the progress.

Layout

Started to layout a few things today, trying to get the architecture right. Created the seats and placed them in one section of the arena, its somewhere in the 100,000 polygon range...! Not sure how I'm gonna get it to run in engine with all the seats in the arena....  Looked at NHL 15 and FIFA 15 and they have all the seats and upwards of 9,000 active fans animating in the arena and it runs at 60 FPS, the polycount on screen has to be in the 10's of millions polygon range, they have to be optimizing it somehow? I'll have to research it a bit more. Here is an updated pic.

Champions

Well had a few hours tonight so I replicated the championship banners. Here is a quick texture pass on them. Gonna do a cloth sim in maya and then transfer the normals to the banners to give them a cloth feel so there not so flat looking. Im working off of some old ref photos I took a long time ago. The banners aren't 100% accurate, but not too far off. Going to have to take some good reference photos the next time I'm there so I can get the details right.

Its Been Awhile....

Alright, since I've started a new job (no, not in the industry) I haven't had much time to work on stuff, or motivation. :(  I've realized that I've fallen into the artist's trap of starting a project, being really excited about it, then get about halfway through it, and abandon it. This is usually due to starting another, more exciting project, well at least I think at the time. Well, this is getting me nowhere when it comes to polishing a good portfolio. So I have looked at some older projects that are sitting on my computer and have decided to pick a few that I feel have potential to be good portfolio piece and finish the damn thing! So here is the first project that I have decided to finish and get in engine. I love sports, I love sports games, I have actually thought this would be a good industry niche to get into, but haven't explored or finished anything yet to show off. I'm making a promise to myself that I will only post pics of this until its finished, hopefully it will get me motivated to finish it. My family loves the Utah Grizzlies and hockey so here is the Maverik center in West Valley, Utah. I have a lot of good memories in this arena, and have spent many winter nights in that spot on the image. Plus I'm hoping our 2026 bid on the Winter Olympics actually goes through, its a long shot but it'd be nice to see Olympic hockey back in this arena.

Hopefully I can get the arena looking like this, minus the crowd. NHL 15

Of course I picked "The Joe" as an example!

Virtual Plein Air

Here is a piece that I painted up today to contribute to Virtual Plein Air Facebook page, its a great group with a lot of great artists, check it out. I obviously need a lot of practice, a little going right a lot going wrong with this piece but it was fun.

Høgsholtve, Denmark 
http://www.mapcrunch.com/p/55.730139_9.490896_-663.14_-18.88_-1