Great stuff man, huge fan of epics art team - Thanks for sharing 
p.s: Your website does not seem to work =P
The detail is just sublime! I would love to see someone create the MC Escher Snakes in a similar manner. It’s really just one snake you’d have to create, then duplicate and rotate it…
Also, for anyone interested in the history of the Caduceus symbol read this:
Also reminds me of the serpents that Thulsa Doom had in the “Conan the Barbarian” movie, as seen here:
I guess I just post stuff like this to show how you can get inspiration from so many places, which is why it’s so important to know art history, theatrical history, etc. There is a wealth of imagery out there to use for inspiration.(Including all of the wonderful stuff all of you talented people create here at ZBC.)
I love the work.
I have a question about the steel plates on the arch of the door. How did you space them so evenly? They look to be seperate z-tools for each one. I am curious to know your method for laying them out so even and symmetrically?
Oye! awesome.
nice work mate 
how much of em were done in zbrush?
these are great ! im still playing GearsOfWar 1…share more please !
Pixels: Right on, inspiration is everything. I read up on the origin of the thing before making the statue, though I wanted to find out where the caduceus symbol came from so I ended up reading up on Chiron who gifted the knowledge of medicine to mankind ( well, according to the Greeks).
I’m pretty interested in pre christ religions and mythologys so I’d wondered how the serpent, symbol of evil now, had survived as representative of the healing arts. Interesting stuff if you are a bit of a sad professor and I need something to think about while I’m whittling away at these things.
Anyway, I’ll post some proper answers tonight along with more pieces. I just had to respond to a fellow researcher
Awesome stuff Kevin. This is one of the best env work I’ve ever seen.
The level of detail is certainly more than it was needed in the game, but it clearly shows that you were very well motivated
Are these rendered in zbrush or elsewhere?
YEAH MR J. Rock out sir.
Looks great matey :).Interested in seeing more…the snakes are very good :).
Kevin,
I also heard it originated from people having parasitic worms in their skin and they’d get them out by wrapping the end around a stick and winding it up until it was pulled out all the way. They still do it in certain African countries.
caffeineandpixels here’s a nice one:
http://www.etereaestudios.com/docs_html/snakes_htm/snakes_index.htm
Couple more pieces -
Attachments
really nice work. great to see some environments here for a change.
was just wondering what percentage of gears 2 env was done using zbrush?
Thanks for all the comments folks.
Workflow -
I don’t do anything fancy really, I do however do a lot more front-end planning than you might expect. I always work on the grid, even the bricks are on the grid with centered pivot points so I can reinstance them back in max to create variants and ensure heights between bsp tiling textures and static meshs that share the same bricks match up ingame.
Really, I’m a big planner, thats all I do thats different.
I spline most of the basics of the design, shell it then when I know its all working on the grid like interchangeable lego bricks and will be capable of supporting multiple meshs I move on to equally subdividing each section.
Part of my planning here takes the form of thinking ahead with the design as to how to split up the large blocks into smaller elements so that they are easily manageable in Zbrush in subtool chunks that dont individually exceed about 2million polys (4 million tris) so that there is less polygrouping on the back end required to get all those pieces back out of zbrush into max to batch polycrunch and then use blues importer to bring them all into max and process along with the non zbrushed elements.
I work very simply in zbrush, I try to immitate how a stone mason or a carpenter might work, just pummeling away and scooping the forms out of the blocks with mallet fast and clay brush initially before relying on the other tools to refine once I’m done with the bold stuff.
I use alphas a lot, some of them rendered through height maps and gradient renders of forms I liked in max so I can stamp the deco on to things in zbrush and create more natural and worn looks. Other times I just export the modelled deco pieces and damage them in zbrush, sometimes I generate alphas in zbrush with grabalpha, edit with Crazybump for small details and cracks.
I use lazy mouse a lot and radial symmetry tricks but mostly I just bang on stuff with the clay brush until it looks right, I control everything through thinking ahead , planning it out, subtools and polygroups because I’m kind of anal retentive now.
Plus, as amazing a tool as zbrush is, its not got a grid system that I trust like max has so I tend to do more on the front end in max than most of you would think is necessary. I do this because I want to be sure of reuseability as often we have to work quite fast here and zbrush is as much of a help in that for me as reuseability in max is.
The steel plates are all instances rotated around the pivot point of the arch.
Everything that is original or damaged was blocked out in max on the grid and then the detail and designy stuff was weathered in zbrush.
The Snakes were modelled straight and plain in max, pretty much just smoothed cylinders until I detailed them out in zbrush, then when I exported them back I could unwrap them straight, before I then path deformed them into location. This is again, another symptom of my always trying to plan things out more on the front end so I get more use of things on the back end and can make the resolution higher ingame.
thanks for sharing your work flow… your images are stunningly clear,clean, and visually pleasing… the twisting pair of serpents are considered by some to be the two subtle nerves that twist along the spine and that are awakened by deep meditation… and form the basis for celestial perception, spiritual awakening and freedom from limitations… re:Ida, Pingala and Sushumna
Vedanta:
Thanks, I hadn’t heard of that one about that one, I’ll need to google those names, they sound indian, I like the indian mythology, its one of the closest surviving relatives to the beliefs of the celtic mythology that I’m most interested in.
Have you ever read Alan Moore’s Promethea series of comic books? Theres some great stuff in this vein in there, she wields a caduceus sure, but its more a story about the nature of inspiration and the true meaning of magic and its use in interpreting the world around us in terms of symbolism.
Wow Kevin this is awesome ! Great stuff i just got a question theres a lot of tutorials abour zbrush with characters but i having seen alot on enviroment any body knows where i can find some?
THANKS a again awesome Stuff
Great work and thanks for your insight Kevin, you sound very organized and certainly ahead of the game ; )
Very interesting, thanx for the tips