DEFIANCE Game Progress: Learning How To Make 3D Renders After Sculpting
Also, swords
On the long trek toward the launch of my small solo tabletop game, Defiance: Duel in the Black Keep, I’ve been working hard on prepping the miniatures for sale.
One of the things I’ve needed to learn, now that I’ve gotten the basics of sculpting down, is how to do a render of the sculpt — turning the file into an image that I can share.
So, in between working on edits of my novel, I’ve been teaching myself that next skillset. Camera positioning, lens selection, composition, lighting, etc. etc., as well as a bunch of settings that Blender cares about.
Did this one recently. Pretty simple. I sculpted these swords in blender (they look a little crude, but these will be for models who are about 30 millimeters tall). This was a quick sculpt, and a quick render, so I kept the lighting simple; just a single point light.
The middle sword is my preferred version although I’ll have a use for the top sword as well. I’ve got plans for the future of this budding sculpting skill. :)
I’ve been iterating renders of the current game models too.
I used this one in a previous post. The lighting setup was a fair bit more complex — I was trying for more cinematic lighting. I’ll be working on lighting more in the future.
I love light more and more as I explore art.
Here is a render of the Warrior as she’ll appear when 3D printed.
I kept the lighting a little more even for this one, trying to show the detail.
The rendering process was helpful: I found some low poly areas on the back of her cloak. You can see it in that last one, down near the edge: where the shapes are a little too big and they start looking sort of pixelated. So I went in and re-sculpted those parts. A render isn’t the same as a 3D print, but it definitely helped me catch that detail!
I also did this:
My internet bro Malev Da Shinobi is a game dev, and his most recent game is designed to be played with all the extra pieces left over from a model kit. Which is a great idea, and like lots of great ideas it fired up my imagination, so I sculpted the models above (they’re simple, designed to look like they were made with the sprue leftovers from a model kit so it went pretty fast!), and then got to practice a bunch of Blender skills to make a product photo.
I’m pretty happy with how the images turned out.
If you want these digital models, BTW, they’re up on my webstore here: https://bardswordpress.com/product/doompunks-doomsprues/.
I’ve got them available for free at the moment, but at some point I’ll probably raise them to $1. No plans for physical versions of these little purple guys, but I know Malev is printing some up. :)
That’s it for today. I’ve got to get home and get to bed. I’ve been working to try to make up for the dent in the budget ever since I had to get a new computer, and I haven’t caught up yet. The artist life can be that way sometimes.
But, I’m really glad to have a new computer: it’s what’s making all the stuff I’m doing right now possible. My old computer would have probably caught fire if I’d tried to do a bunch of renders like I’m able to do now.
I’ll keep the updates flowing! Thanks for reading.
— Cael