Forza Motorsport 5 Work

After a long year of working at Microsoft, I was finally able to talk about my involvement working on Forza 5.

If I'm going to be honest, I will say that it was definitely a different experience than I had initially thought it would be. I was actively involved on the Track Team doing anything from lighting bugs, to flickering polygons, or fighting alphas in the crowd groups within the racing stands.

The bulk of my work was making sure collision and objects within the world worked properly. I did however get to work specifically on some environment props on the main courses.

One area of the team I was specifically in charge of was tirewalls, making sure they seamlessly flowed from one wall to another. I was also in charge of modeling and texturing said tirewalls.

Finally my tasks, while long and tedious at times, were incredibly important to the learning process of how a AAA games really works. I respect the work my team did and am happy to say the game couldn't have happened without the work we did. Small bugs may be minor tasks, but when you put together a couple hundreds "small bugs" you essentially have the difference between a working game and an absolute mess.

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Robo 00

By Brett Somers on 6:50 PM

So after a dead flash drive and a few more days than I could afford, I finally got this guy low poly, textured and rendered out.

I'm satisfied with the texture, but after sitting and bustign it out, I'm gonna walk away and come back to it, as I'm sure I'll find something I can do better. Either way, I'm really happy with how the maps turns out, the diffuse was fun to paint, and I think this is one of the first models that I've ever actually needed a glow map.

Hand painted robot Codename Robo 00, done. 1024 Diffuse/Bump/Spec/Glow and around 7400 tris. Questions/comments/critiques always appreciated. :)

Now to rig and pose this guy before portfolio review!

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MMO Game Jam

By Brett Somers on 5:31 PM

Nothing like locking yourself in a room for a week with friends working on a mock-up MMO.

I was in charge of putting together simple environment work, trees, rocks and bushes. But my favorite part of the project was getting to unwrap and texture characters.

Rough character models were done by Grace Galarosa. Finished, unwrapped and textured/rendered models were done by me.

I was going for a low poly hand painted feel.

With a little under two weeks until I gotta have all my stuff together for portfolio, I'm in polish mode. Making things look more clean and more shiny, or in some cases grungy and bumpy.

These are both just first passes and require more polish, but i like where they are going. The first Sal the salamander (working name). And the second an npc enemy known as the Porker (again working name).

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Interface practice

By Brett Somers on 12:52 AM

As I come back to the real world after a year at Microsoft, It's nice to just re-visit some old ideas and concepts. Posting some interface updates as I get back to design and 3D. Look for some more updates later this week.

A game fighting game interface.

A flight sim game interface.

A redesign of a well known site trying to make it more organized or user friendly. Providing more information on one page where there is already so much going on.

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Forkin' Orks Character work.

By Brett Somers on 11:25 PM

Forkin Orks, was a fun project. Full of hand painting, modeling and texturing for me. The main concept of the project was a hack and slash with an old farmer as the main character. The farmer uses a special pick fork that transforms based on combos and killing of a group of orcs. Full of crazyness, but fun all the same. I was tasked with designing, modeling and texturing the characters of the game, in the span of two days. Easier said than done, but done none-the-less. I was pretty happy with the end result but may go back later and touch em up.

Early Concepts

Low poly models. Both roughly around 1200 tris

Textured models and texture sheets.

I also got to do the fully animated farmer moves and a bit of concept art of the endscreen where your stats are posted.

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Zombie Defense on Windows Phone

By Brett Somers on 11:13 PM

Yes there's a Bieber zombie.

A long time ago, or so it seems, myself and Ed Altorfer decided we wanted to make a game... in a weekend. Zombie Defense was that brain child. It was a quick and easy game, 2D and my first game published on a mobile device, the Windows Phone to be exact. For 0.99 cents i think its a pretty decent buy. Either way, I was the lead (only) artist with Ed the lead (only) programmer, lol.

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Crystal Caves project.

By Brett Somers on 10:49 PM

Another school project that was forever ago. "Impact", was a fun little platforming and scavanging project. The player goes around an abondoned little city and drills crystals for energy while trying to find pick ups. For this project, I was in charge of making assets, concepting and texturing. The crystals below were especially fun to texture.

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Old Projects - COG

By Brett Somers on 8:18 PM

"Cog" an old project that a group of other students and myself worked on was interesting. I had come on for its final leg, and thus never got to do any of the pre-production work. For the project, I was one of the main character modelers and general assets modeler and texture artist. The project was pretty, but gameplay wise unsuccessful and buggy. Project done in Unity.

Concept and original model done by Jame McDonald

Original concept by James McDonald

I think James concepted this one as well.

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Looking back as I move forward

By Brett Somers on 6:22 PM

Seeing as there is only one more quarter left for me at the art institute, I wanted to find a way in which i could stay in contact with the many people who inspire me and I aspire to be like as artists. There are tons of talented people I have met in the last 3 years and I want to be able to at least keep tabs on their current work while post mine, so blogging seems appropriate.
Seeing as this is my first of (hopefully) many posts, I'll start with a brief description of my intended blogging purposes. My name is Brett Somers, I'm 21 years old and I'm a current student in the 3D game art and design field. My aspirations and goals revolve around finding a promising job in the game field and I especially love working on modeling characters and assets, with a high attention to texture detail. Handpainted, referenced textures are something I really want to get better at and are definitely my main focus at the moment.
The following is just a sample of the stuff I've done over the last three years, any and all things being related to projects, homework or just general free time. Comments, critiques and questions are always appreciated. Without further ado, art...