Crystal Staff
This project was completed to solidify my understand of creating hero assets and become more comfortable with the workflow. I wanted to put my skills to the test, so It was created from scratch in about a weeks span.
I really wanted to encapsulate the look of the old and weathered wood in the concept, so during the high-poly sculpt I intentionally made the crevasses deep for baking and texturing, so it came across strong enough in the curvature map.
All aspects of this piece was poly modeled rather than taken to Zbrush and sculpted. My reason for this was because of the tight deadline I had, I wanted to spend the extra time focusing on textures, rather than topologizing in Maya. Therefore, when it came to sculpting the details, I already had a low-poly base ready for the baking phase.
A huge lesson I learned when doing this project is how far baking can take you!
Polycount: 2,348
Programs used: Maya, Zbrush, Substance Painter, Unreal Engine 5, Photoshop.
Concept by: nataliaszrama.artstation.com
Before
After
I have such an attachment to this concept/project because it was the first prop I ever made that was game ready! I remember being so truly proud of how it turned out initially, it really motivated me to continue being a 3D artist. Fast forward a few years and once my 3D skills got better, I wanted to recreate the concept to compare and see how much I improved in the last 2 years. It has been extremely rewarding to see!
Hopefully in the future, I can compare even more progress!