every day, in every way, I am getting better and better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IvxnK3xZtg
Have a great week!
the janky placeholder hair makes a sneaky cameo once again. I even made some equally terrible placeholder hair for the men!
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More refining. Feels like I didn’t get a lot done this week, I spent too much time on my pacifist playthrough of Elden Ring. Will slack less next week.
Have a great week!
I think I’ve refined these models more than I’ve refined spice melange in Dune: Awakening at this point but I’m constantly seeing areas to improve or fix
Have a great week!
I made some less terrible placeholder hair for the female basemesh, more face ratio/proportion tweaks, smoothed out some areas. Probably pretty close to being able to start adding in finer detail like skin creases and wrinkles on the female mesh, male mesh still needs face work.
Have a great week!
I think I’m starting to see diminishing returns, and as a player I think these models achieve a level of detail and accuracy that is sufficient for a quintuple A (AAAAA) 3rd person video game. I’ll be switching gears now to work on the wrinkles, fine lines, pores, pimples, and paint.
Have a great week!
Skin detail, fixed lips, added smile lines. Frames 2&3 are with a shiny matcap to highlight changes better. Hopefully we can start with baking next week.
Have a great week!
As a game developer and big proponent of the phrase “DEI or die”, I’ve been upgrading the sheer gooner power of the moneybags and shilling satchels of the human basemeshes.
I take one for the team and channel my inner gay to ensure the male mesh is just as lustful as the female. Bowls of fruit are simply no match for the raw, unbridled kamasutra-esque energy that I put out on display before the general public. Cheers
Have a great week!
I often hear how players say, “we don’t care about graphics, just gameplay.”
My interpretation of that statement is, “we don’t want unoptimised garbage that runs at 15 FPS on a RTX5090 because developers with zero art direction want realism but don’t know how to implement it in UE5 without insane performance overheads. Also they need to stop outsourcing all their work to modern-day slavery studios in India, China, and SE Asia as all of our triple-A titles are ending up as creatively bankrupt nepotistic unplayable dumpster fires, and it sure sucks to see they’re trying a last-ditch effort to fix this by digging themselves deeper into a hole by employing generative AI. Maybe if they dig deep enough they’ll dig themselves out the other side and end up in China somewhere.”
Graphics matter, but art direction matters more. Project Nova is dark fantasy; think Bloodborne, Castlevania, Dishonored, Vampire Hunter: D, London on a good day, Ukranians after they got invaded, pwnd Liberals after the second inauguration of President Trump, etc - therefore humans should look like they belong.
Have a great week!
Switching to Zsphere veins instead of hand-sculpting them directly on the highpoly means I can mesh & RGB project for vein masks, which can be useful in a number of gameplay applications, such as dynamically transforming humans into infested, physiological effects related to drinking, eating or exertion, or even as a ‘heat’ map for vampires seeking a meal. Another value to having veins in highpoly is so that I can make changes to the UV layout without worrying about texture map mismatch, as well as reuse the veins mesh for the playable races, barring the automatons.
It’s a lot of pretty dense learning material to get through. Humans in Project Nova aren’t like normal humans, they have slightly longer limbs on average. Soil and water composition, level of oxygen in the air, even gravity is different than Earth in Project Nova. These all have an effect on how veins develop but most importantly covers for my lack of anatomical knowledge. After all, the best artists hide their mistakes.
Have a great week!
Modular veins seem to be working well so far. Needs some cleanup and blending work (frame#3) but that will be part of the final polishing step.
Have a great week!
I’ve decided to not use the Zsphere veins that I made last week. While it was a good learning exercise, the results of mesh projection simply left too much clean up work to be worthwhile. As the human basemeshes are in a good spot, I’m revisiting older work; the vampires, and applying the anatomical skills I’ve been practicing over the past several months.
Additionally, I’m breaking the rule of having all basemeshes being of the same height. Project Nova will never be a truly competitive E-sports shooter game, and I would be remiss to not capitalize on the potential of having really amazing, incredibly tall, and wow, well, uh yeah, you know what they say about a thousand pictures speak one word, or something like that
Have a great week!
New playable species and reclassification of existing species + average heights. Races fit in a 1x2x3 meter cube. Minimum and maximum player race heights established.
Abyssal_Swamp_F 135cm
Vampire_Arboreal_F 145cm
Infested_Fungal_F 175cm
Automaton_Bronze_F 155cm
Human_F 165cm
Vampire_Cavern_F 185cm
Abyssal_Ocean_F 195cm
Automaton_Iron_F 205cm
Infested_Blood_F 225cm
Abyssal_Swamp_M 130cm
Vampire_Arboreal_M 150cm
Infested_Fungal_M 160cm
Automaton_Bronze_M 170cm
Human_M 180cm
Vampire_Cavern_M 200cm
Abyssal_Ocean_M 210cm
Automaton_Iron_M 220cm
Infested_Blood_M 240cm
Initial concept of the male ‘swamp abyssal’, pushed silhouette + resizing for the male ocean abyssal.
Have a great week!
Created lowpoly & subdivision levels for the male swamp abyssal. Concepted new playable iron automaton ‘subrace’ of the bronze automatons (technically ‘new species’ but robots aren’t technically alive so they technically wouldn’t qualify as a species. Semantics are fun…) for Project Nova.
Have a great week!
Didn’t get as much done as I wanted this week. Had errands to run & got sick but am better. Started detailing the swamp abyssal!
Have a great week!
As this is the last Thursday of the year, here is this week’s update as well as the annual summary of 2025 for Project Nova.
For this week I continued work on the male swamp abyssal.
Project Nova Annual Summary, 3rd year of Development
Jan- Feb:
Changed the infested race to a more bestial infested race code named ‘Blood Infested’. As I am making race variants, I am keeping both designs, changing the original variant to ‘Mycelium Infested’. Work began on the Automaton race, which has become the Bronze Automaton variant with the introduction of the Iron Automatons in late December.
Feb - Jul:
Female & male designs of the Bronze Automatons were created, from concept to UE5.
Jul - Nov:
I struggled quite a lot with leveling my anatomy skills, especially facial anatomy. While I am a character artist, I primarily work on character armour. I’ve never sculpted faces before now, and it showed. I think I’ve achieved an acceptable skill level after this intense but necessary training period.
Nov - Dec:
Wrapped up 2025 with using my newfound powers to improve the face of the female Vampires, as well as introduced the Iron Automaton variant and the Swamp Abyssal Variant, ‘pushed’ the silhouette of the male Ocean Abyssals, and established average heights across all races.
Plans for 2026
Infested:
Improve the Blood Infested race, I’m still not particularly happy with how they look. Add more root-like structures to the Mycelium Infested.
Abyssals:
Add tails and strengthen silhouettes of the Ocean Abyssals. Make the female Swamp Abyssal.
Vampires:
Improve male Cavern Vampire face, anatomy, proportions. Make the Arboreal Vampire variant.
Automatons:
I might scrap the current iron automaton designs in favour of more grounded designs.
Humans:
Might tweak facial proportions a bit more.
Have a great new year, Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
I’ve been a bit busy with overseeing renovations and moving to a new place, and was away from my desk for a day, but during that time I sketched out some rough zones of the main playable region of Project Nova. Hopefully the move goes smoothly but there might be less free time for me for the next one or two weeks.
Made the swamp abyssal less bloated and less caricature-like.
Have a great week!
There is roughly 15,750 calories in a grilled swamp abyssal, sans butter.
Have a great week!