Gargoyle - Dawn of War: Tyranid mod

Originally the Tyranid mod was not going to have this unit. But ever since Dawn of War Soulstorm came out and introduced flying units to the game the team has wanted to put them in. I've done a lot of models like this now so I knew it wouldn't take long. To make it educational I decided to make it with the fewest polygons possible. This forced me to really focus on the sillhouette and put as much detail as possible into the texture.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Photoshop. It has 1314 triangles and uses a 512x512 texture.

Eldar Falcon - UT40k (Unreal Engine 3)

The Eldar Guardian was ingame but it needed some armor. I decided to do the Falcon because it is the basis for 2 or 3 different Eldar Grav Tanks (basically just different turrets) so I can turn this 1 vehicle into several with minimal effort. Also I love the original model and couldn't resist building it in 3d.

The low and high poly models were created in Maya. Textures were painted in Photoshop. Fine normal details were added with CrazyBump. It has 5078 triangles and uses two 2048x2048 materials composed of Diffuse, Normal, Specular and Glow maps.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Ammo Crate - UT40k (Unreal Engine 3)

The last model in my one-per-day decoration series. Because it was much more complex than the other 3 I almost had to do this over 2 days, but I stayed up late and got it done.

The low and high poly models were created in Maya. Textures were painted in Photoshop. Fine normal details were added with CrazyBump. It has 408 triangles and uses a 1024x1024 material composed of Diffuse, Normal, and Specular maps.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

X Trap - UT40k (Unreal Engine 3)

The 3rd model in my one-per-day decoration series.

The low and high poly models were created in Maya. Textures were painted in Photoshop. Fine normal details were added with CrazyBump. It has 356 triangles and uses a 1024x1024 material composed of Diffuse, Normal, and Specular maps.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Tank Trap - UT40k (Unreal Engine 3)

The 2nd model in my one-per-day decoration series.

The low and high poly models were created in Maya. Textures were painted in Photoshop. Fine normal details were added with CrazyBump. It has 408 triangles and uses a 1024x1024 material composed of Diffuse, Normal, and Specular maps.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Barrel - UT40k (Unreal Engine 3)

Unreal Engine 3 became freely available without having to go through Unreal Tournament 3. This meant more frequent updates to their engine and people would be able to play our mod without buying Unreal Tournament 3 first. But the downside of this was that we could no longer use all the nice Unreal Tournament 3 environment art for our maps. To help out our mappers, and practice a faster workflow, I decided to do a series of battlefield decorations. Each one of these was created start to finish in one day.

The low and high poly models were created in Maya. Textures were painted in Photoshop. Fine normal details were added with CrazyBump. It has 288 triangles and uses a 1024x1024 material composed of Diffuse, Normal, and Specular maps.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Eldar Guardian - UT40k (Unreal Engine 3)

Unreal Tournament 3 came out and the UT40k team had to start upgrading old art assets to make use of new technology. I was excited as it gave me a chance to learn new skills and tools. I dusted off the old Eldar Guardian model and got to work. I cleaned up the topology and added details that we couldn't afford before.

This is the first model I made that uses Normal Maps , Specular Maps and Glow Maps. It's also the first time I used Mudbox for high poly sculpting on the Guardian's head. I think it came out "ok" but there's room for improvement. My biggest mistake was starting the sculpt from Mudbox's default head model. It's a fine model in it's own right, but it didn't have the details where I needed them and I had to subdivide too much. Since then I've done some extensive studying on facial topology and I plan to come back and redo this one some day.

The low poly model was created in Maya. High poly sculpt was done with Mudbox. Textures were painted in Photoshop. Fine normal details were added with CrazyBump. It has 7520 triangles (7966 without helmet) and uses two 2048x2048 materials composed of Diffuse, Normal, Specular and Glow maps.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Hive Tyrant - Dawn of War: Tyranid mod

This is a similar story to the Spore Chimney. The same modeler that went missing had already finished a Hive Tyrant and never submitted it. We weren't sure if we would ever get it, and I was out of things to work on, so I decided that I would start building my own.

This model took me more time than any other in my portfolio. It is very complicated with lots of equipment options that we wanted to have in-game. Tyranid weapons are physically connected to their limbs, so each weapon needed it's own set of arms. And since this is the commander of the army and poster child of the mod, I really took my time and made sure I got the proportions and details correct.

For these same reasons we also decided to cheat the Dawn of War rules a little bit. All models in Dawn of War use a 512x512 texture, but with so many different equipment options, including a massive pair of wings, there was no way to put everything on a single 512x512 texture without all the details being too blurry. So we opted for 2 textures. I think the results were worth it.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Photoshop. It has 3862-5038 triangles depending on equipment, and uses one 512x512 texture for the body, and one 1024x1024 texture for the equipment.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Spore Chimney - Dawn of War: Tyranid mod

The Tyranids needed a building to put on the control points. We considered it done as one of the other modelers on the team had done this same model already but he was missing in action for over a year and we never got it. So rather than wait and hope he came back we decided to move on and do a new one of our own. This is the last model I created with Gimp. I found the program to be great, especially considering the price, but my workflow is more comfortable in Photoshop.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Gimp. It has 1580 triangles and uses a 512x512 texture.

Based on Forge World's resin model.

Spore Mines - Dawn of War: Tyranid mod

This is the "loose end" I mentioned earlier. This model serves 2 purposes, an explosive sacrificial unit good for disrupting troops, and to serve as the projectile for the Biovore artillery (we had been using tank shells and it sort of destroys the immersion).

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Gimp. All together the three models have 1246 triangles and use a 512x512 texture.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Magma Vent - Dawn of War: Tyranid mod

The Tyranids needed a building to plant on the Slag Deposits in game. I designed this from scratch to fill that role and match the other Tyranid units and buildings.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Gimp. It has 182 triangles and uses a 512x512 texture.

Capillary Tower - Dawn of War: Tyranid Mod

The Tyranid mod needed some more buildings, and a couple other "loose ends", to finish the art assets, and with some more experience under my belt I was able to do the next 4 models for them in just a few weeks time.

I started with this Capillary Tower. The shape of the model is pretty simple, so most of my time was spent painting the texture. I enjoy doing this kind of hand-painted detail so I took my time and had fun. This is also the first model that I painted using Gimp. A lot of people recommended it as a free substitute for Photoshop, so I thought it was worth the extra effort to learn how to use it.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Gimp. It has 630 triangles and uses a 512x512 texture.

Based on Forge World's resin model.

Basilica Administratum - UT40k mod (Unreal Engine 2)

I have done some map editing in UT2004 and know about the importance of modularity. Well Games Workshop released a plastic range of building models to be used as scenery for their table top game. They looked like they would work perfectly in UT2004 so I set out to recreate them for the UT40k mod.

It was shortly after I finished this section of wall that the Unreal Tournament 3 engine became available for modding. In order to transition the UT40k mod from the UT2 engine to the UT3 we would have to do extensive reworking of the artwork to make good use of the higher polycounts and normal maps. So this building is not yet complete as it is waiting to be reworked for the UT3 engine.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Photoshop. It has 486 triangles and uses a 1024x1024 texture.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Goblin - Hero Quest

I spent some time dabbling in game programming. I picked up Dark Basic: Classic and learned how to write simple games with it. I wanted to recreate the old Hero Quest board game in 3d, so I started creating art assets for it. The model is completely green because I wanted it to look just like the plastic miniature from the game. I planned to come back to it later on and create a full-color option for those that preferred to play the game that way. However I soon realized that the amount of time I spent on programming was cutting deeply into my modeling time. So I put the project on indefinite hold.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Photoshop. It has 860 triangles and uses a 256x256 texture.

Based on Milton Bradley's plastic model.

Eldar Guardian - UT40k (Unreal Engine 2)

After I finished the Ravener I was contacted by GeoDav; the leader of the Unreal Tournament 40,000: The Chosen mod (aka UT40k). He liked my work and wanted me to do some models for his project. As a big fan of Warhammer 40,000 I couldn't resist, so I did this Eldar Guardian model for him.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Photoshop. It has 4602 triangles and uses a 1024x1024 texture.

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Ravener - Dawn of War: Tyranid Mod

The Goliath Hive proved my dedication and ability to the Tyranid Mod team so they agreed when I asked for a character model. This one was really challenging for me but I learned a lot about the do's and do not's of low poly modeling. When I look back now I see dozens of places that I could've greatly reduced the polycount, but then hindsight is 20/20 they say. Even today it is still one of my favorite models.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Photoshop. It has 3630 triangles and uses a 512 x 512 texture. Like all of the models for Dawn of War, the texture uses a grayscale layer overlayed on top of 5 color channels so that it can have it's color changed using Dawn of War's "Army Painter".

Based on Games Workshop's plastic model.

Goliath Hive - Dawn of War: Tyranid Mod

The Goliath Hive was one of the first models I completed. I joined the Tyranid Mod team with no experience and very little understanding of modeling. The team gave me this building to create as it is less complicated than a character model.

The model was created in Maya and the texture was painted in Photoshop. It has 860 triangles and uses a 512 x 512 texture. Like all of the models for Dawn of War, the texture uses a grayscale layer overlayed on top of 5 color channels so that it can have it's color changed using Dawn of War's "Army Painter".

Original concept by -X- with some alterations by myself.