BJERN!!

Hi  guys!

It has been a while! I have had some summer vacation and other stuff have been going on so I haven't had that much time to create new things. I have a lot going on that I want to throw up here and I hope I can do so during the autumn. I have been thinking a lot about what Mel's counterpart should be, and I finally think I've got it. I have some sketches and I hope I can model the little creature as soon as possible. I also have to make some adjustments on the hand so that me and Kian Bashiri finally can make our game where you roll your thumbs (spoiler ;) )! We have ideas for other "sports" featuring hands as well :)

What I really wanted to talk about was that I haven't only been chillin' during this summer vacation. Me and Kian and lots and lots of other cool nerds met up at the fantastic game jam No More Sweden in July to make games! We had lots of fun and me and Kian managed to create something quite cool. So cool in fact that we "won" the game jam!! :)

Here you can play our experimental game BJERN!!

Thanks to all you guys who organized and participated, and thanks for all your votes!! We had so much fun. Hope we'll see you all next year!

HANDS!

Hi!!

Remember last time when I told you I was working on something else? Well, this is it!! I have been modeling, rigging and skinning a hand. The hand is for a small game I am also creating with Kian Bashiri. I can tell you more of the actual game play at another time ;)

The initial model was made in 3ds Max. I then exported my mesh into Zbrush to make a high poly model. I had a lot of fun working with this hand, making all the small details and trying out the spotlight tool to create a cool diffuse. It is very much a work in progress at the moment as I need to tweak the shading a bit and work more on my textures. The model is as I mentioned rigged and skinned. I can show you some posing of the hand later!

Just a small update ;) Have a nice night!

Cheers!

Meet Mel!!

Yo folks!!

It has been a while. More than a year. I have been very busy making games and haven't had the time to update the blog because of that. I am hoping I can change the pattern and start updating more often again. I am currently working on a few personal projects with the brilliant programmer Kian Bashiri and I'll try to update the blog as often as I can.

I have updated my portfolio with what I have been doing at work for the last year, please check it out ;)

I have two personal projects that I am working on at the moment. Below is a picture of the character Mel from one of the projects. Mel is a melee / explosions type of character that will be one of two characters in a hack and slash game. I have rigged, skinned and made a few simple animations with Mel, but nothing that I can show you yet. Maybe in a few weeks ;)

 If you have any feedback, please tell me! It's easy to miss things when you're in it ;)

As I mentioned I am working on two projects simultaneously. As of now there is not much I can show you. But I'll be sure to update you as soon as possible. Perhaps next week!!

I hope you enjoyed Mel! Have a great evening!

FINALLY!

WOOOOOOP!

After many hours and working nights after work, it is finally done!

Here are some renders. There is still some optimization that needs to be done, but otherwise I consider myself finished with this piece at the moment. I will update my webpage and portfolio with this new stuff as soon as possible.

And now to bed. Tomorrow, more makin' games <3

Work, work

Hello guys!

It has been a while since I updated you on my progress. A lot of shit, both good and bad has been going on in my life and I have had other things on my mind. I had to move back home to my parents in Stockholm, and at the same time do a work test for DICE.

That, amongst other things has delayed my work on the bus. Recently I picked up the bus again and started working on it. I am now in the last stages of the progress. I thought I should update you on what it looks like at the moment. I have laid down flat colours on the outside as well as the tires of the bus. What is left is polishing the textures, both the outside and the inside, fixing the various material settings of the windows and the finish of the hull of the bus. The final thing to do is the staging, fixing a cool but simple setting for the bus to be placed in.

In the beginning of this project I had an idea of staging the car in a developed environment. I will put that idea on hold, and instead work with a smaller project. I will tell you more on that later!

Have a good rest of the weekend, and I will try to update you sooner next time!

New Project!

Yo, yo yo!

Since last time a lot has happened! I finished the outside of the boat hangar and it is now on display on my new website :D. You can all check it out at http://marianorkvist.com/

Since Monday I have started with a new project. This time around I wanted to make a vehicle. Already in the spring of 2012 I found out about the awesome GM Futurliner, and now I am actually going to make it in 3D. The GM Futurliner was a display vehicle developed by General Motors in the forties. A total of 12 vehicles were produced. They were used in General Motors campain "Parade of Progress", where they displayed the cars and technology of the future. The parade ran in the UD between 1940-1941 and 1953 to 1956. Of the twelve, nine are still known to exist, and car number eight, the only one of the vehicles outside of the US, is actually located here in Sweden.

You should all check out this bus as it is super cool! I, for one was perplexed by the awesomeness of it. I started modeling yesterday and have been modelling for about 6-8 hours. I am quite finished with the outside, there are a few details left. Tomorrow I will make the insides of the bus, I think it will be loads of fun.

My idea for this project is to create the vehicle, shiny new and beautiful, as well as a scene were the car is placed in an interesting environment. The vehicle in the scene will be a wreck compared to the new shiny version.

Now I'm gonna go for a jog, gotta keep dem legs moving.

See ya'll!

Preview

Yo!

It's Thursday, and today I am going to Stockholm to visit my family over the weekend. It's going to be great! As you know I have been working on a boat hangar with my friend Aydin. It is nearing completion, on the outside, at least. When the outside is done, I will take a break from this project and do something else for a while, just to get a new perspective and try out something else.

These are two snapshots of what the outside looks like at the moment. There are some finishing touches that has to be done. I will work a bit more on the material on the main building, add a ton of cool decals and collision boxes for all the meshes.

 

Below are the four different barrels that can be seen in the scene. I made two standard barrels and then imported them to Zbrush and made two different smashed variations.

 

 

Now I will be going for lunch. Have a great day!!

It's coming together

Yo Everyone!

It has been a while. I have continued working with the environment assets for mine and Aydin's boat hangar project. Soon I will be completely finished with the outside and continue working with the inside. I have already made some meshes for the inside, but they are not at al as finished as the outside.

I will show you some of the  models I have been working on.

Here is a door that is placed on a "balcony" of the main house.

 Next is a pair of search lights that are placed over a garage type door

 And finally, this is a vent, placed at the far back corner of the main building.

All the assets has been created in 3D Studio Max, the textures has been made in Photoshop, with the help of images I have downloaded from cgtextures.com. The pieces has been rendered in Marmoset Toolbag.

I will give you a picture of the whole building with all its assets in a while, there are a few finishing touches I want to make first though :)

Have a nice week, I'll keep you posted!

Saturday Night Crunch

YO YO YO

I just wanted to make a quick update. I have continued working with mine and Aydin's collaboration, and I have started texturing some of the meshes I have made. I have also made quite a few new materials in general, But I will only show some meshes today.

First up is a vent that goes on the outside of the boat hangar. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I am especially fond of the rust and the fences in front of the actual fans and outlets of the vent.

Next up is a roof I made for the small house beside the vent. I continued working with a really worn and torn look, and I think it turned out great as well :)

Even though it is party hour this lovely Saturday evening I will continue my modelling and texturing into the first half of Sunday.


Good night, party hard!

Time for an update!

Yo everyone!

It has been summer, and therefore I have not written anything in the blog for a while, all though quite a lot has happened! I have graduated with a bachelor degree with major in game design and a minor in graphics (:D), I have worked in a summer camp, I have travelled all over Sweden and, of course, I have been modelling!

Now it is autumn again and it is high time to get the gears running again. I currently have two projects that I am working on. Since I have no real environments in my portfolio I have decided to work with that. The first environment is a sci-fi hangar that my friend Elias Press has drawn (I will give an update on that in a few weeks). The other project is a collaboration with my friend Aydin Afzoud. We discussed collaborating and we decided that we should create a boat house together. He will do the layout and the design of the boathouse and I will model and set everything up in UDK.

I am currently focusing on the boat house. I have made a very basic BSP-brush environment in UDK and I am now trying out different kinds of materials that is going to be placed in the environment. It is very entertaining to work with materials, and I learn new ways of getting the right material, every time I am doing it. I am also looking forward to the modelling, I want to develop my speed, and will try to be as efficient as possible. Here are a few images of the sketches Aydin has made with my measurement scribbles all over. I wanted to be quite thorough when measuring everything so that the proportions of everything works out in the end. You can always make changes in the end, but it will be tough to change everything if you realize that the first thing you quilt does not fit with the rest.

Here are two different materials I have been experimenting with. One is a concrete wall and the other I might use as a metal ceiling. There still is some tweaking to do, but I have a start to work with! I can't wait to see everything as a finished environment, I think our collaboration will turn out really cool! Look out for NorkAfzd in the future :)

Makin' progress

Yo!

I just want to give you a quick update on my work before I go thrashing into bed! I have been working like a dog for the past week, and I will be working even harder until Friday. I have a dead line to be finished with everything, art wise for my exam work on Friday, the last few days before the work is supposed to be turned in, will be spent on writing.

Here are a few pictures of the models made from the concepts I have shown you earlier. Because it was easier when drawing I combined the plasma ammo with the speed parts, the missile ammo with the power parts and the laser ammo with the range parts. I still have some editing to do, these are just the flats, and I am not sure about everything I have done so far. I hope you enjoy!

 

 Have a good nights sleep everyone!

Concepting!

Yo everyone!
It has been a busy couple of weeks, and there are more busy weeks to come! Since I last wrote, I have completed the church. At the moment I am happy with the result, but I am hoping that I can play around a bit with dirt textures to really make it cool. That have to wait a bit though, since I have started working with my exam project and paper.

That doesn't bother me though, I have a really fun project going and I am looking forward to working on it. For my exam, I am creating a customizable gun that is inspired by the Ratchet and Clank franchise that is just awesome. I want to create a gun that has the same aesthetics, and I have finished creating the concepts that I thought I should show you!

These were the original concepts, that I then chose my favourites from.

 The idea is that the player first chooses whatever ammo type she wants, the ones you can choose are:
- Plasma (purple)
- Laser (blue)
- Missiles (Orange)

When the player has chosen her ammo she can then put together a gun from the three different part groups, these are:
- Grips
- Barrels
- Chassis.

That then make up your gun. There are three different attributes to take into consideration when creating the gun. It is:

- Power
- Speed
- Range

The different parts are better in some attributes than others. For example you can put together a gun with three different parts, that all support power, or you can put together a more balanced gun that are OK with the three different attributes, but is not over powered in one.

Here is a picture of a few variations of different guns. These parts were the ones I thought fitted best. In total there are 3 different types of ammo, 3 different grips, 3 different barrels and 3 different chassis.

The ammo types and eligible attributes has been decided from a study on line, where Ratchet and Clank players answered what types of things they most of all wanted to change with their guns.

These are the finished concepts, but I am sure they will be changed as I go into 3D. I will have to work a lot on making them rounder, as many of the guns in the Ratchet and Clank has rounded parts.

I am really happy with the results so far, and I am looking forward to making these in 3D. My hope is to create all the twelve parts, but I am on a really tight schedule and we will see if I can make it.

Oh, and I finally got my camera, so I am hoping I can get out and take some cool reference pictures as well as textures for my library of images. I have already spotted a few things in Visby that I want to model.

Anyways, I am going to go lie on the sofa before bed. Have a great evening everyone!

Shufflin'

Hi again.
I thought I should really start to keep my promise and update this blog more often. I have continued working on the church today and I am starting to feel pleased with what it looks like. Tomorrow it will be time for chamfering edges, the entire day. Perhaps not that fun, but quite necessary. I also need to do some clean up of the low poly model. At the moment it is at approximately 12000 polys. I want to get it down to about ten, but we will have to see if it is possible. Here is a picture of the church, still a work in progress.



Also, I realized that my camera has been delayed, and will not be delivered to me until the 21st of March D: I had hoped that I could have taken a walk this weekend and gathered some textures, but apparently not.

Any ways, tomorrow it is Friday, and I am looking forward to the weekend and some relaxing. Hope you have a great evening, I am off to bed and LOTR!

Gunaliscious

Yo, it has been a while, but I am done with the gun. I actually finished it about two weeks ago :D I thought I should post it now so you all can see it. I am very pleased with how it turned out. I have learnt a lot of new modelling techniques and a lot about texturing. I hope that my new skills will make my next project go even faster!


So lets talk a bit about my current project. At the moment I am building a church. It is supposed to be a Victorian style church, which has proven to be a bit hard. It turns out that the Victorian architecture takes influences from everything when they built their houses. It is hard to get a coherent style, as I am not building a specific church, but rather take bits and pieces that I like and combine them. I hav got some useful feedback and I think it will look cool in the end. Here is a work in progress!


On Thursday a camera that I have bought will arrive at the post and I am hoping that I can use it to walk around Visby in search of cool textures. I have an idea that if I get a big enough library, I can use it to make new materials, nearly every day. That would teach me a lot and I would defenately become way faster at, I think both modelling and texturing. If i know what I can do with a texture, I know what I have to model and not.

Anyways, have a great day!

Mo-Capaholic!

Hi everyone,

Once again I have managed to ignore the blog for quite some time, maybe it is time for me to realize that I won't make more than one post every month. I guess that is ok as well :)

Now I have been working on animations and would like to show you what i have accomplished during the last few weeks. We have had an assignment in school were we were supposed to plan and execute a motion capture shoot. after that we should use the data we had gathered, clean it and then use it to make animations. I have never animated anything in 3D before so this was a big challenge.

I have certainly learnt a lot. I have learnt about how to plan your animations in great detail and how important it is to be well prepared, both for the shoot and for the work that has to be put on the animations after the cleaned data has been processed. I have learnt how to make an animation tree, and I have realized just how many animations there is in a game on the market. It is an absolutely HUGE amount of work.

I am very happy that I have taken this course. I have new knowledge of what is desired of my models if they are to be animated properly. From here I want to use everything I have learnt of movements, typology, rigging and skinning to make the best models that I can.

Here are the finished animations that I made for the imaginary game "Everybody's Party Games". My team got the assignment to do animations for a bowling mini game. In the mini game there was supposed to be a walk cycle, game play animations based on the players skills and celebration animations dependent on how well the bowl went for the player.

Enjoy :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L26aANf88Gk&feature=youtu.be

My next assignment will be to make a really well modelled and refined model. I will show you my progress as I start working on it here in the blog. I haven't decided yet what to model, but I am thinking of maybe making a vehicle or a gun.

I will keep you updated on my progress, keep gamin'!

Rapid prototyping

I am really bad at updating I have realized. I do loads of stuff, but never get around to show anything. I really have to get better at this :)

So here is something I can actually show you. I haven't got around to do anymore 3D I can show you unfortunately. There has been a lot going on that has taken up time (Zelda). Instead of any 3D I will instead show you the things I have done for our game design course where we have been doing rapid prototyping.

Me and my BFF Stina made a sandbox storytelling game, and I would like to show you what I contributed with. The task was to make a sandbox game made out of 49 squares (7x7). On each square an event should take place, and the result of the game round should be as a readable story. We decided to set it in a fantasy world with a murder story. You wake up beside your husband who has been brutally murdered. The soldiers of the county are chasing you, but you still want to cleanse your name of any disbelief.


I drew the map with the 49 squares and various game features we had added. I also made the items. Stina had already drawn some of them in the event cards (one for each square), I had to come up with the ones she hadn't drawn, and colour the ones she had. It took quite a while to finish, but was very fun.


I hope I can upload the entire game so you may download it and play it at home :)

I will try to write something as soon as possible and not forget this time :)
Have a happy holliday :)

Workin'

Hi everyone.

It was ages since I last posted anything, I know. I really have to learn to upload things more often! Anyways, I have been doing things, I haven't just slacked off and played Oblivion (or have I....). Ok, there has been a little Oblivion, but a lot of drawing and modeling as well. At the moment I am modeling a retro futuristic bus for my coming portfolio (yaaay). I have also been drawing for a storyboard for class and sculpting a bust for my zbrush course.

That is the thing I thought I should show you now. This week we have practised beauty renders and how that works. Last week we managed light rigs so, today we were supposed to make a final render as the assignment for the last week of the course.



My next picture is from a 2D course, the one in with the storyboarding. I created a concept for an alien that the protagonist hunts down. I have shown you the concept for the character before, Logan. This is her antagonist in the story. The one she is supposed to bash the head of. I would like to sculpt this in zbrush later, and maybe put it in my portfolio as well. I think that if I can model assets from the same story concept it will give my portfolio a more complete look, so that is what I am going for.


The 3D bus of course isn't part of this universe, but is another idea of mine.

More on that later fellas, gonna model some more and then have a hamburger with my friends :)
Ciao

Boarding a mood

Yo everyone!

I have made concepts of the main character before and now I wanted to continue working with the other elements of the show reel to be. So I decided to make mood boards for the elements that I will be working on in the near future, the alien and the passageway in which my character Logan will move in.



I have quite a clear idea of what I want the setting to look like. I am thinking that the setting should be kind of like the corridors of nowadays ships, but with a futuristic touch. I want it to be narrow and suffocating in the corridor, almost a bit claustrophobic.



For the alien I had more problems. It should be really gross and slimy and awful. I had insects as an inspiration as I wrote the manuscript for the show reel, but I looked more and more on deep sea creatures as I created the mood board. I want my alien to have lots of legs and tentacles as well as those really creepy huge eyes that the deep sea fishes has.

I started searching for insects but couldn't find that many interesting pictures. Therefore I googled instead "gross insects" but I had to go back, it was too much. It felt like there was something creeping over me as I looked at those horrid pictures. Yuck!

So anyways, this weekend my mother is coming to visit, so there will not be that much done.
Hope you have a great weekend :)

Conceptalicious!

Yo everyone!!

I have been concepting the character of a very short animatic type of film that I am working with in school. The assignment is to create a manuscript, break it down, make concepts and create a storyboard that you are supposed to animate in After Effects.

I have written a short manuscript where the female engineer Logan sneaks around on a space ship and kills aliens. She works on the ship and it has been attacked by insect-like aliens.
So, I have been drawing on the concept of the main character Logan (I know it is a man's name, but I liked the idea of it as a name on a woman :)). Last week I made some silhouettes and now I have been cleaning and put some colour on the concept. The colour really isn't necessary for the assignment, but I thought that it would be fun.

I know that the concept is very sketchy, but I really wanted to post this, so I did it anyway. Well now you can see how I work :)

So any ways, it is Saturday, and time for some cosiness :D

CIAO

Summer is over

Hi again.

Omg, my last post was right after GGC and I haven't as much as look at my blog since then. It is really time to make an update!
This summer I have been studying life drawing with Pernilla Person as our awesome teacher. I have learnt so much and I am so grateful that I have had the opportunity to take this course.

I thought I should post some of the work I did :)

During the course we worked from using simple lines to get the feeling of the pose right, not concerning ourselves with proportions and details.

The next week we added volumes! It was important to get everything at the right place this early in the drawing process, that's why using simple volumes such as boxes and cylinders are so important. That way you can easily change what you have done if you recognize that some thing doesn't fit.


Later in the course we focused more and more on details. Learning about the anatomy and putting the muscles where they were supposed to be. Now there is actually a person instead of simple volumes :)


Also we had the amazing opportunity to draw a female model in a wonderful medieval dress! It was awesome :)



In our last week our job was to build a sculpture with clay, using all that we learned during the course. It is hard to show you in a few pictures of the enormous development in my drawing techniques, but when I look back at the first pieces I made for this course I am very glad of all the things I have learnt. If you have the chance to take this course, DO IT!

Now I'm gonna watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!
Ta ta