CAGD 495 Sprint Blog 6

 04/23/26

For this sprint I started my work on creating some final models that would end up being wish cards for our game. I also worked on retexturing some of our older models in order to better reflect the feel of games work. Pretty much I spent the majority of my time for this sprint refining and finalizing some finishing touches for our games look and feel. Since we are at the end stages of our product it was important to do this while we still can. 

At the start, I focused on making 3 new models. These included the Racer Helmet, a Racer toy, and a soda can. All of these were last minute models that we decided to include in the game and that would be a nice addition to it. As for those models the only one that took me a while to finish was the Toy Racer. The helmet and soda can were pretty easy enough to do, the problem was that I have never really done character modeling before, so this was a new challenge for me. In Maya I started by simply making out the blockout of the racer and then little by little creating some bevels and scaling some edge loops. I also decided to only model one side of the Toy Racer and then duplicating it and scaling it backwards so that I could work a lot faster and also save some time. This made it ten times faster to finish. Once again, the only thing I had to remember to do was to flip the UV shells of the duplicate inside the UV editor in maya so that they would not create problems during texturing. Lastly Once I did that, I made sure to do a Mesh Combine so that I could have one single model displaying the Toy Racer. I think that at the end it turned out fantastic for my first ever character model. 

As for the rest of my sprint, I worked on retexturing some of our previous models and working to refine them to better fit our game's look. A lot of that was also creating new looks for already made models so that we can go ahead and use different versions of those models. For example, what I mainly did for this was create new textures for the cars I had made in previous sprints so that they could have their special look.

This would actually tie directly into the Toy Racer model that I also made this sprint. The reason being is that our team's game designer actually came up with some cool looking concept art for the Racers to be included in our game. So, I was basically tasked with referencing the racer concept art and creating the new look for that specific car matched to the racer. With that being said I retextured all 4 cars I had made up to this point, and I think they turned out great with their respective racers. I think that the new looks for each car turned out amazing and makes them seem more unique.

CAGD 495 Sprint Blog 5

04/09/26

For this sprint I continued to work on the 6th RC car that I started last sprint, by getting it all UV’ed in order to take to texture it. The process for this was very repetitive and pretty much the same just like all the previous cars I have already done. The important thing here is to just make sure that all the UV shells are completely flat and unfolded inside the 0-1 space in Maya’s UV editor in order to avoid any mistakes while texturing it. By the time I was texturing it inside of Substance Painter I was happy with the way it was turning out. Once I had gotten this model and card completely done, I moved on to working on more models that I was actually assigned for this sprint. The models l got assigned were some more props for our games background and they included a hat, gummy bear and a lollipop. 

Each of those models were relatively easy to create while the only one I ran into some issues was the gummy bear model. Being how it has some complicated topology and curves I decided to dissect it into 4 main parts. The body, arms, legs and head. I started by just making the body and the limbs. The limbs were easy enough to make because I only had to make 1 set of each and then I was able to duplicate them and scale them over to the other side so they could essentially be mirrored and symmetrical. When I did this however I made sure to UV the originals before duplicating so that I could remember to flip the UV shells of the duplicates. It's very important to do this because otherwise you might run into issues when texturing.

After that the body and limbs were done came the hard part which was the head. I actually pulled up a background image of a gummy bear silhouette as well as a side profile of it in order to get it as close as possible. It took some scaling and beveling of some edges but after some hard determination I think it came out looking pretty good. I took these models to texture, and I think they turned out fantastic. 

Once I had those cards knocked it finally became time to work on our game 8th and final RC car. As one of the team's modelers, I was told from the beginning of this project that I would get to work on 4 cars as well as our other team’s modeler. So, this was it, my last car for our game. When I saw that our ALR sheet consisted of the last car being a van I figured it would be pretty easy enough to complete so I immediately got started on it. 

As usual as the last cars I made sure to get the blueprints for the inspiration of the car into maya so that I could have a clear reference at all times. Since the Van did not have any intricate curves, it was definitely the easiest car to model. I took my time with it and made sure to have no n-gons on it and to have it completely flatten for the UV shells. In the end I think this was the perfect model to wrap up our car assets for in game. I love how it turned out and can't wait to see how it plays.

CAGD 495 Sprint Blog 4

3/26/26

For this sprint I was able to work on some more models for our team's game as well as start on the 6th RC car for our game as well. However, if you remember from last sprint, I had some remainder cards I needed to knock out first which was to finish U’Ving the jeep model car and texturing it so that it could be ready to use in game. Let's dive into my Sprint 4 work. 

As I mentioned it was important for me to finish the jeep model so that the team could go ahead and implement it in game. So, I made sure to finish UV'ing so that I could go ahead and texture it as well. In the beginning I was having some trouble with my UV shells not being flatten completely 100 percent so inside of Substance Painter I ended up reimporting my mesh a couple of times while texturing until I was happy with how it looked. In the end I was able to create 2 different textured car files that matched our other cars styles, one for each color. I would also like to point out that for each of our cars we are adding a layer on top with a paint brush to give it that cartoony style and feel. I think it definitely turned out awesome and I was happy with it.

As for my other models I was able to do this sprint, I was tasked with creating a bag of chips model along with an actual chip. I was also able to work on some origami pieces that will be assets for our game as well. These included a ninja star as well as a paper football. The last couple models I created were a walkie talkie as well as 3 different building blocks. I created a triangle, square and rectangle for the building blocks. For all of the models listed above I made sure as always to try and recreate it the most accurate way possible. Out of all the models the only ones that were a little hard to work with were the Bag and Chip models. The reason being is that I wanted both of them to have that curvy topology to them without seeming too bulky. In the end however I was able to texture them appropriately and I think that's what made them look nice as well. 

Lastly, I began to start working on the 6th RC car for our game. This time around we are pulling inspiration from the classic Skyline sports car. I started my process the exact same way, however I ended up taking a little longer with this car since I wanted to make sure and create all the different lines of curvature that this car has. So far, I am almost done with the car and its features. I think that this upcoming sprint I will work on refining it and getting it ready to UV and texture. I am excited to see how this car turns out as well. See you guys' next time. 

CAGD 495 Sprint Blog 3

3/5/26

In this sprint I was assigned some more 3D artwork. Just like the previous sprints I worked on creating some more models that could be used for our games background and could serve as pick up items in game as well. Along with that I was assigned to work on our game's 4th Car model which was very exciting and fun to do. Let's dive into how this sprint went for me. 

At the start of the sprint, I worked on finishing up the retro handheld console that I had started last sprint. While it seemed like it would be easy enough to wrap this card up, I actually spent some more time on it than I thought I would. The reason being is that when I was UV’ing the model it seemed to have areas where there might have been some bad stretching or distortion of some faces on the model, leading to some of the UV shells not being a 100 percent flat or unfolded. Due to this I had to go back and spend some time finding where on my model the issue was in order to fix it. As soon as I had fixed it, I could finally finish UV’ing it. 

After that I worked on creating 2 more assets that would go paired with the retro console model. One of them was a simple 2D sprite I would use for adding it to the screen of the console and the other was creating another 3D model of a game cartridge this time so that it could pair nicely with it. The 2D sprite was easy enough to make inside of photoshop while the cartridge also took me some time to finish it all the way through but in the end everything looked amazing.

After I finished all of that I worked on some more models for our game. All of these models were super fun to make, and I loved how they turned out. Below are the final renders of the models. Each of these models were quick and easy to do due to the fact that they are very low poly.

I also started to work on the car model for our game's 4th RC car. So far, I was able to create the body of the car as well as the wheels and the antenna. The next step would be for me to go ahead and UV it so that I can finally texture it and I honestly can't wait to see what it ends up looking like. The concept for this car was to go off of a Jeep wrangler, so I am very excited for this upcoming sprint to start. 

CAGD 495 Sprint Blog 2

2/19/26

For this Sprint I had the fantastic opportunity to 3D model and texture our 2nd Car model for our game. This was very amazing to me since it was my first time ever 3D modeling a car. Alongside that I also worked on many new models as well that would be used for our game. 

As I mentioned, the first thing I started working on was creating our 2nd car model. The car would be inspired by a classic 80’s version of the Trans Am muscle car. I started by bringing in some blueprints of a factory version of the car into Maya in order to have a scale reference for the intended car model. This included all angles of the car so that I would be able to scale it appropriately once modeled. Along with the car I had to model a separate set of tires for the car as well as a new antenna model for this car. This was relatively easy since the tire only needed to be modeled once and then duplicated.

One of my biggest challenges for this was the fact that I split up the car in 4 parts. I modeled the body, rear, hood and front of the car completely separately and once it came time to combine them, I ran into some minor issues. I found that a lot of my edge loops were not connecting entirely around the car since they had modeled separately which led me to fix them manually. 

Overall, by the time I had a good-looking mesh that I and my leads were happy with, I quickly went to UV and texture the model, and it turned out amazing. The car is definitely something I am proud to have worked and provided for my team. I was able to export 2 different versions of the texture file to showcase our red and blue players in game. After this model was complete and done, I moved on to working on my other cards that I had for this sprint. Most of them included creating some more assets for our game’s level design. 

I worked on modeling a battery, cannon ball, hardwood floor and some speed panels. As usual when creating these models, I made sure to keep our poly count low since most of these items will only exist in our games background. As soon as the models looked good they all got textured appropriately and marked as completed. The last model I started to work on was the retro handheld console. For the most part the model is complete and all I have to do now is make sure to UV it so that I can go and texture it. That will be my next thing I get to work on this upcoming sprint.