Evolution of Starcraft: Alpha-Beta-Game Graphics

Oh, jeez... I dunno in terms of time. Those units are taken straight out of the wallpaper scene that I'm doing for the competition. So the "time" it took me to do the signature is a lil blended over y'know? But I would say the modeling part for the Thor took about... a good 20 hours, mostly cuz I had to keep referencing those lil details and such. Marine and phase cannon only took about an hour each, lol.

Then the animation took about another 6 hours. See, this is my last free summer of my life, and I wanna just go nuts with upping my Maya skillz before headin back for my last year of college, where they will put me through the grind to make a HUGE 3d animation project. So that's gonna be... a task.

Oh, *ahem* yes, back to the forum post. In regards to Blizzard doing the "same," I actually couldn't tell yea. I mean, certain things in animation take REALLY long or REAL short depending on only a couple of minor things. For example, sure it's an animation but the resolution is like 350x100points, so rendering goes by in a breeze. Also, my shadows are set as depth as opposed to raytracing, which would make it look a lot more realistic and that would up the render time from about 10 seconds to 5 minutes per FRAME. So there you have it, just a lil peek at the large spectrum of time consumption/product results.

If I had to make a WILD guess, I'd say it would take some Blizzard guy about half the time that it took me due to prepossessed knowledge of Thor design and better hardware. But then again, you have a team of Blizzard guys, so it would probably be exponentially faster.

But honestly, if they wanted to redesign that siege tank, or even the DT, I honestly don't see why it would take them more than about 24 hours between a design and modeling team. But that's just a shot in the dark. I'm not really pro at all, I just happen to love Maya and SC2, lol.

 

Hmmm... thanks for the insight!

I'm pretty new to graphic design, but people have pointed out Maya to me before and I assume I'll eventually dabble in it. Seeing your finished product DEFINITELY makes me want to do so.

But 20 hours... hot DAMN!

Anyway, I was under the impression that raytracing was faster than depth rendering. I was reading in a tech magazine about how it should speed up games and eliminate the need for video cards (INTEGRATION BABY!!!). I thought depth was rendering the entire image as opposed to raytracing which was just what is visible....

I'd love to hear your explanation and I would encourage you to make a post about how the graphics are designed. REALLY INTERESTING TO ME!

 

I always loved the Zerg buildings in the early stages, but I'll admit they don't look too Zergish

 

Reminds me of something from the original gameboy games... like.... Zelda or something.

 

urgh, that blue creep looks terrible