In this collection of lessons we will learn about creating concept art for a game as well as how the role of the concept artist fits into the production pipeline. We will begin this course by learning about the role of a concept artist and how that role fits into the production pipeline. Next, we will learn about the game design document and then use it to determine which assets concept art is needed. From there, we ll move on and learn about designing a level for our game from the ground up by planning out its overhead layout. Next, we will learn how to visualize this layout by creating concept sketches. Lastly, we will shift our attention to painting the concept art, focusing on rendering out our composition, planning for and painting the light sources, and then rendering out organic material to line the walls of our level. After going through this course, you will gain a better understanding as to why decisions are made during the process of creating concept art. You will also learn the basic steps involved in visualizing an idea for a level in a piece of artwork.

In this tutorial we will learn the efficient use of tools and techniques for creation of a time-lapse video. Throughout these lessons we'll delve into the animated growth of a tree branch as a time-lapse video. We'll learn everything from modeling, texturing and shading to the animation and final compositing. By the end of this tutorial, you'll have a better understanding of how you can employ efficient and productive techniques for a time-lapse video that can be used when up against a tight deadline.

In this Maya tutorial we will learn time-saving techniques and workflows for creating a digital creature maquette in Maya, ZBrush and TopoGun. When creating a creature concept for the film industry, it is common for a director to ask for a detailed character rendering or even a 3D print of the creature before approving a character concept. Throughout these lessons we will look at the creative process of taking a 2D concept and turning it into a 3D digital maquette that is detailed enough to show a film director for approval. Once approved, before the VFX studio can integrate the character concept into it's pipeline it must first be fully retopologized into a clean mesh that is ready for rigging and animation. By the end of this tutorial we will have gone through the entire conceptual process of creating a film-ready character concept that is posed, prepared in accordance with 3D printing standards and rendered for a dramatic presentation.

In this series of lessons we will learn some of the different techniques used to create an image from start to finish. This tutorial is aimed to show you a variety of techniques utilized to create a finished piece starting from a painting. We will go through several different stages including modeling, lighting and texturing where we will learn various methods which will help us to reach our goal. So by the end of the tutorial, hopefully, you will learn how to avoid turbosmooth, how to give variety in your texturing, how to quickly unwrap objects in UV Layout and etc.

In this series of tutorials, we will talk about the steps that we went through in order to build the character and weapon models for our Unity mobile game project. We will start by referencing our game document, which will be our guide through the process of creating our Unity game. We can find information on the look of our models but also on the desired resolutions of the models and textures. We will concentrate on creating game topology for our two characters and two weapon models. We will also cover map generation and texture painting as part of the process. In the end we will have models ready to be rigged and animated or plugged directly into the game engine. We will use a variety of software packages from Maya, to TopoGun, to ZBrush and Mudbox in order to prepare our assets so there will be a lot of back and forth. This course references some pre-made assets and covers methods for modifying and prepping those assets for this particular game. In most of these cases, if you'd like to learn to build these assets from start to finish, there is a tutorial that will fill your need. For instance, in this course we look at the steps we went through to modify the biker character from Creating High Resolution Characters in ZBrush 4 and Creating Game Characters with Maya 2011 and ZBrush 4. So if you'd like to build the character from scratch, those two courses will take you through the process. The same goes for the enemy tick creature, which is from the Introduction the Mudbox 2011, and the assault rifle from Creating Next-Gen Game Assets in Maya.

In this tutorial we will learn the complete workflow to create a realistic high viscous fluid. Throughout this tutorial we are going to talk about the core feaures of RealFlow. Starting with the basics, we'll discuss the fundamental parameters of a standard SPH system as well as looking at the Hybrido solver. We'll also cover some meshing techniques using the RenderKit particle mesher to avoid flickering issues. Then we'll look at how to render our mesh in V-Ray for Maya and finally how to composite our passes in NUKE. After completing this tutorial, we'll have a much better understanding of the entire process to make a realistic and believable fluid.

In this Maya tutorial we will look at creating functional, efficient topology and learn how to utilize it to model a detailed character. Throughout these lessons we will take an in-depth look at some mixed polygon modeling techniques using Maya 2011. We'll focus on creating animation-friendly topology for our fantasy style character that will not only deform correctly but will also showcase detailed anatomy. By the end of this tutorial, we will have learned how to model clothes, props, books, candles and a human skull while covering a wide variety of modeling techniques to produce detailed and accurate meshes. While this tutorial uses Maya 2011, the techniques used are transferrable to any other polygon modeling software program.

In this series of lessons we will learn how to use particle flow to create custom particle systems.