CHARACTER PIPELINE FOR GAMES
CHARACTER PIPELINE FOR GAMES
Meet the teacher
Kurt Papstein
Character Artist : Turtle Rock StudiosWorking in both films and games, Kurt has extensive experience creating interesting and detailed characters. Currently he is working with Turtle Rock Studios, sculpting and concepting creatures for an unannounced shooter under THQ. His career in games can be traced back to InXile Entertainment, where he worked on many of their monsters and creatures for the title Hunted: The Demon’s Forge.
Outside of video games, Kurt has had the experience to work in films as well. Developing from the ground up, new and intriguing characters for the big screen on multiple unannounced projects in Hollywood.
Kurt has also had the privilege to speak at multiple conventions, Pixologic User Group Meetings, and workshops. Demonstrating to hundreds his techniques in creating interesting and dynamic creatures, for many different genres.
His work can also be found in 3D Artist Magazine, where he has been featured for interviews, a cover spot, and many tutorials. He spends his off time also teaching for Laguna College of Art and Design. Sharing with many students his craft in ZBrush, and how it all relates to video game art.
Senior Artist at Human Head Studios
Program Details
This program will cover a character production pipeline for games. Showing the process from beginning to end, resulting in a professional portfolio piece for current and next generation games.
Through the duration of the program, Kurt will demonstrate how to create visually stunning characters for current generation game engines. Students will learn how to translate a 2D concept into a fully functional game asset.
Starting in ZBrush, students will learn how to block out the initial design and take it all the way through to a finished high poly sculpt.
Later, Kurt will be showing how to take these assets into some of the most advanced tools in the industry, in order to finish the character to a professional level fit for a portfolio.
Topics discussed include base mesh creation, digital armature construction, human and animal anatomy, hard surface and organic sculpting, texturing techniques, and presentation. Just to name a few.
At Phoenix Atelier our mode is slow and steady. There is no point dumping a bunch of information on you that you won’t remember or have the time to do. So our structure is bite size that can fit in anyone’s busy schedule.
All of our programs are curriculum based lasting 8 weeks in duration. Just like any school you will have new daily content and assignments given to you. On average daily assignment will take you between 15 minutes and a full hour to complete. This is of course defendant on the complexities of that day and its subject matter. Once a week you will be invited to a live session where your instructor will review and critique your work.
SUNDAY TO SUNDAY
Every day you will have access to brand new learning material and videos. At the end of each day’s material there will be a small yet IMPORTANT exercise for you to follow through on.
* It is the accumulation of the small things we DO that make us who we are.
On Fridays, you will be given a larger assignment to do over the weekend. This assignment will recap the elements learned and solidify the teachings for the week.
LIVE REVIEWS
Your Assignments will be reviewed by your instructor during the live Go2meetings. The day that this will occur will be chosen by the instructor as to their availability. Whatever the day is, it will remain consistent for the duration of the course. (Baring no unforeseen complications.)
*These are not private reviews as it is our belief that as PROFESSIONAL, artists we must learn to deal with the stigma of public reviews of their personal work. The proverbial, “Thickening of one’s skin”.
CERTIFICATE
To all that do participate and complete the assignments there will be a revue at the end of your work and a certificate of completion will be awarded by the instructor and school if deemed justified. We will be looking for quality within the work and not just rushed assignments in order to complete the requirements.
*Although you might consider the certificate a token of our appreciation, it is one not to be taken lightly. If awarded a certificate your name will go on our certified Artist list.
When we are contacted by prospective employers looking for student recommendations it is from our certified artist list that we will provide the names from.
REPETITION
You will be given material in some cases over and over. This is not a miss print nor are we getting lazy. Repetition is the key to learning and retaining information. Putting information you have heard over and over into action. What a concept!
*Claiming ignorance without knowledge is acceptable. Claiming ignorance when knowledge has been given is suicide of the spirit.
Come on in with an open mind and heart, take from it what you deem useful and toss out what you don't.
Let’s get started!
Week 1 - Conceptual Sculpting
- In this first week of the program, I will be going over how I take an established concept and translate it into a 3d package such as ZBrush. Avoiding common techniques like box modeling and vertex editing, we will treat the character in a traditional hands on style.
Week 2 - Realizing the Character
- Creating a complex character and all of its parts are made simple with this lesson. It is easy to overwhelm yourself with the tools, but I will be showing how I keep things manageableand artistic with some more advanced tools and tricks inside ZBrush. I will also be going over anatomy tricks that will really break it down, making even the most difficult situations easy to understand.
Week 3 - Breathing life into the Sculpt
- Now that the form is defined, we will start to explore the subtle details of the character. Using intuitive workflows, I will show how I go about creating quick monster detail. The human face will also be tackled in this week’s lessons, exposing how I hand sculpt something as subtle as female features. Finally working our way to the mechanical nitty gritty, and hand tooling all of our mechanical details, adding greeble like elements, and taking advantage of brand new features deep inside of ZBrush.
Week 4 - Making it Real
- With the sculpt finished, we now begin the exciting process of translating our character into the real world. I will show how I rapidly take the character and all of its elements into 3ds Max and topologize the mesh for animation and material work. I will cover important topics on how I interpret the form into functional geometry, and more importantly how I prepare the character for animation. A crucial step in the character development process.
Week 5 - Mapping our Character
- Moving forward with our character, we take an in depth look on proper UV mapping and techniques. Working primarily in 3ds Max, I will show you some of my fast methods of preparing our character to receive texture and material information. With the latest in unwrapping tools, I will break it down and streamline the process into an easy to digest pipeline, that will have you texturing your character in no time.
Week 6 - Advanced Texturing Techniques
- Painting and texturing, making our sculptures really pop with detail and realism. I will go over how I quickly lay in color information and define the materials directly in ZBrush. Treating our entire character like an illustration and a composition, we will go over texture theories, gradients, masking tricks, and Spotlight. Demonstrating the flow and the rhythm to three dimensional texture painting, and how it can be broken down to a simple 4 step process.
Week 7 - Baking a Cake
- With our model complete and our sculpture painted, it is time to fuse the two together into our final incarnation of the character. I will be using simple to use tools to transfer our detail, color, and lighting information over to our real time version of the character. I will then reveal how
I composite and apply certain effects to my textures, to enhance the final look. Lastly, I will divulge in proper organization methods for work in a production setting, and how it all helps to keep your pipeline faster and without confusion.
Week 8 - Wrapping it up
- Using an advanced engine like Marmoset, I will expose how I go about building my character’s final materials, and fine tune its textures. Creating dynamic lighting, effects, post processing, and movies to show off our character the best way possible. Using this engine, I will go over specific challenges you will face in the game industry when it comes to completing the final look of your character, and
We provide single payment options as well as an option to pay in installments.
Pay in installments :
Two equal monthly payments options
Who is this program for?
This program is for anyone that wants to learn how to create advanced characters for video games.
Basic knowledge of ZBrush , 3ds Max is needed.
What will I learn?
- Block In
- Sculpting
- Details and Surface treatment
- Retopology
- UV Mapping
- Texturing in Zbrush
- Xnormal and Photoshop
- Marmoset
Will I get personal feedback directly from the teacher?
Once a week you will be invited to a live session where your instructor will review and critique your work .
How long is this program?
All of our programs are curriculum based lasting 8 weeks in duration. Just like in any school you will have new daily content
and assigments given to you .On average daily assignment will take you between 15 mins and a full hour to complete. this Is of course defendat on
the complexities of that day and its subject matter.
Are there any student requirements to attend this program?
Zbrush Basics
3ds Max Basics
Where can I get more info, like syllabus etc for this program?
Please check for the Syllabus link on this page. You can also contact our support at support@phoenixatelier.com
Is there any refund policy?
All our programs follow a refund policy mentioned in the FAQ section for this website. You can refer to that for more information.
