BringMeASunkist

The new issue of Vertex is out!

Vertex 3

For those unfamiliar with Vertex, it's an annual magazine that features game-industry artists from all over the world as they briefly show off their art and describe their workflow. Whether you're an enthusiast or somebody trying to break out in the industry, these magazines are always incredible. I know I've personally learned tons and it's helped me achieve what I have. Best of all, they're released as a "pay what you will" product; meaning you can get all three issues for free!

Just last week Marmoset announced it's very cool Marmoset Viewer, which is easily the best presentation I've seen for interactively displaying your 3D art. And today they announced their partnership with Ken Kopecky's Hexels. If you haven't seen it yet, Hexels is a painting software that constrains your brush to a variety of grids, allowing for a quick way to produce pixel art, isometric art and more. Head over to Marmoset's site to check out more on this.

Has anybody been following the reveals showcased at GDC last week? It's been a very exciting March for game developers.

Unreal Engine 4 goes FREE!
With PBR shading and awesome lighting, Unreal 4 is an exciting engine right now. And with it going free last week, I expect a lot of schools to start using it as a replacement for UDK in the very near future. To celebrate the occasion, Epic released another of their excellent real-time videos set to a classical score (which I'm always a sucker for) and just killed it. To check out more about Unreal Engine 4, head over to their site.


Unity 5 releases!
I've never been a big fan of Unity, never could put my finger on it. But a coworker put a copy of Unity 5 on his machine last week and began playing around. What he created was pretty excellent, I thought. I was impressed to see the engine supporting sliders in the shader creation; something I haven't seen anywhere but Marmoset Toolbag 2. Excited to see more work coming out of Unity 5. Check it out over at their site.


Substance Designer 5 releases!
Lately I'm seeing more and more studios adopt the Substance workflow and I'm seeing incredible results coming out of it. Allgorithmic released their Substance Designer 5 last week and I'm already seeing incredible results. Polycount has been flooded with quality substances recently. And their new Bitmap2Material software is insane for both removing lighting and making it tile. I've never seen anything like it. But Allgorthmic's site can tell you more.


Quixel teases... again
Quixel has been real quiet since Thanksgiving, which is a shame because I love seeing what they show off. But at GDC they revealed a simply stunning jungle nevironment made from their megascans and created in their Suite package. I urge everybody to check it out. And hit up Quixel's suite for more info on their texturing softwares.


Marmoset Viewer!
I'm not a huge fan of Sketchfab. I could go into more detail on the matter but that's not the point. What is the point is that the new Marmoset Viewer looks like a fantastic suppliment for Sketchfab. What's more, it looks absolutely awesome. And I'm excited to see the new competition that will surely be created between Marmoset and Sketchfab. This was only announced at GDC, not released, but here in the near future I think artists are going to have some pretty cool options for showing off their 3D models in real-time previewers! For all things Marmoset, visit the Toolbag's site.

If anybody is interested in the professional game design world, Polygon just released a fantastic article about Machine Games. The article address the founders, some things they learned in the industry, how they broke off from Starbreeze Studios (previously my favorite studio), and chronicles their process for making their first game; Wolfenstein: The New Order. My studio is about to enter a contract with Machine Games as well so I'm very excited to working with them.

Also worth mentioning that one of Machine Games' senior 3D artists is here on dA: Panick. If you haven't already seen his stuff, make it an immediate priority.

Fellow deviant, soultry666, just released an awesome breakdown of how he created Spider-Man villian, Carnage, expertly using some often underutilized tools. If you're into character creation or brush tricks, I urge you to check out his breakdown. A time-lapse video is also available, and absolutely worth watching.