Technology in the games industry is constantly evolving, and so to prepare for a job in the industry I need to make sure that I keep up with the new trends in games art technology. As an eventual applicant for character art jobs, there are certain new shading techniques which I will need to learn about in order to make sure that I have all the skills I need for my career.
DirectX 11 has affected the way that characters can be created, and the amount of realism and detail that can be produced in real-time. One thing that DX11 does is Tessellation. This works by splitting a mesh further into triangles to create a smooth mesh, and then using a displacement map to move the vertices on the model. Compared to a bump map, using tessellation gives a more detailed model which which light more realistically, and which have a better silhouette – one of the big problems with a bump map is that as it doesn’t actually change the mesh, shading near the edge of a model can spoil the effect of the bump map.
(Image from http://www.nvidia.com/docs/IO/91797/coarse_model.jpg)
Another feature which will help me as a character artist is DX11′s subsurface scattering features. Subsurface scattering allows a model’s shader to simulate light passes through semitransparent surfaces; among other things, this is a massive help in creating realistic skin shaders:
(Image from http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v666/Oniram/SSS-ex1.jpg)
As you can see from the image above, tessellation and subsurface scattering help to create much more detailed, realistically shaded character models. In the process of creating character models, I will research how to use these features in a game engine such as UDK, and implement them into future work. As well as improving my work, it will prove to future employers that I work at keeping up to date with new technologies as they come out, and understand how to use them.
Character animation processes have changed a lot in the past few years, and these days more and more companies are using motion capture animation in order to create realistic animations. As a character artist, this will affect the way in which I have to work. Motion capture software usually uses a very specific rig setup, and so meshes have to be made in specific ways so that they animate and deform correctly. For example, some companies use a specific base mesh with vertices ordered in specific ways, to make sure that the motion capture animation rig works in the way it is supposed to. It would be useful for me to learn about the ways in which character artists deal with the limitations set upon them by such workflow setups, so that if I am asked to do such a thing in the industry then I would already understand the process, saving both me and the company I work for time.
