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[Josh [SLX]]

I've been thinking of submitting an application here for a while but i've been a little scared. I'm not certain what some of you would think of my work.

My name is Josh Brooker and I am from near Valdosta Georgia.
I've been modeling for around 7 months, and as its really hard to find a job in my area, ive been doing it pretty much non-stop, learning something new every day.

I figured I would post some of my stuff and get a review. I'm not sure if it is up to GE:S standards but I would like to get a professional opinion so i can decide the direction to take my work further.

I've been a Goldeneye nut since it came out. It was one of my favorite games on the N64 and i spent alot of time with the gameshark hacking every secret there was, so i was ecstatic when i first learned of the remake for the source engine. I've been playing GE:S off and on since the beta release, and it was one of the things that make me want to learn to do my own cg art. I've been doing texturing in photoshop for 3 years, I'm currently attending part time at Valdosta Technical College, and will eventually transfer to the Savannah College of Art and Design.

I use 3ds Max, I have a little experience in Zbrush, and I can use both CrazyBump and Xnormal to generate Normal, Specular, Displacement, and Occlusion Maps. I can UVW map and bake textures. I created all of my textures from scratch or pulled them from CGTextures.com, as well as used them as bases.
I live at home, so i have a lot of free time to work.
Opinions appreciated, as to me that matters more than getting a position on the team.

As i am a wrestling fan, my work tends to evolve around that unless i was given a different project.
TNA Wrestling's 6 Sided Ring:

Wireframe:


TNA Impact! HD Arena:

/tnarampnrm.png[/img]

WCW-style 4 Sided Ring:


WCW Starrcade:


Diffuse:

Specular:

Normal:


I understand if i have further to go before I am good enough, but I am hoping to at least see how far I am from the mark.

My primary email address and MSN is elementaltalent@live.com
Secondary is Slimulationx@gmail.com

[Jeron [SharpSh00tah]]

I am going to ask permission for a bump. I could use him.

DEFF 7 thumbs up!

[Josh [SLX]]

Wow, that came as a suprise.

I notice you are from  Boca Raton. I used to live in Lantana and Lake Worth, which are right around your alley. My grandmother used to clean those showcase mansions in Boca, so i've been there quite a few times.

Would have been cool if i still lived there, we might have been able to team up in person to work some time.

I'm going to model something GoldenEye related and throw it in this topic. Will take snapshots and post progress.

[Jeron [SharpSh00tah]]

oh yea slim? What crossroads did you live on? Anywho we would love to see texture artists and the process trials. We have plenty of textures to be made,

Also I would like to give him a bump for some new streets and bunker textures.
What do tha' fella's think?

[Josh [SLX]]

Eehh...It was a few years ago, I can only remember that it was next to Dixie Highway going through Lantana and Lakeworth, near A shopping plaza with a Publix and EB Games, close to a Wacovia Bank. We lived on Owosso Road.

And I'm all for that, actually a little excited. Streets and Bunker were my favorite 2 levels as far as potential for design.

[killermonkey]

me likes *thimbs up*

btw, your lighting is awesome in your renders! May I suggest a book to further your talent? I will suggest it anyway:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Lighting-Rendering-2nd-digital/dp/0321316312/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246714144&sr=8-1

Fucking bad ass book

[Konrad Beerbaum]

Your stuff looks pretty good.  There are some areas you could improve, but it looks like you have a solid grasp of all of the basic skills.  All it takes now is practice to improve.  I would recommend working on a wider variety of assets to expand your skills, especially texturing.  Fortunately, mod work is really good for that .

I would like to see him get a trial. 

[Josh [SLX]]

Wow, i really didnt expect all this, so you bet im really excited.

Thanks for the book referral killermonkey, definitely getting a bootleg of it. Cheers.

I have some photoshop-made only work if you guys are interested in seeing some of that. I  used to mod WWF No Mercy with Project64 for like 3 years so my texture abilities are probably better than what is presented here. When i first started doing stuff in max i just tacked on textures as materials, then worked my way up to uv unwrapping. Even then i've been somewhat lazy with my texturing but on something like GoldenEye Source, im definitely up for only releasing top-notch stuff with more effort. One of my biggest issues to overcome is the motivation of myself. I tend to work better when I have a little pressure and some guidance from people that im "employed" by.

Thanks for the opportunity. I cant wait until i'm given approval and can start working on some official projects.

If I'm not mistaken, your preferred method for textures is to render your Normal and specular textures on the diffuse in max, and then bake everything in one file? If so, then I can definitely do that.

[Konrad Beerbaum]

No, the textures are created separately.  Some maps are used in the alpha map of the other textures.  The source engine knows to look in these extra channels in order to save space. 

Diffuse: 3 channel color map with ambient occlusion baked into it if needed. 
Alpha: Black + White (1 channel) map that is included in the alpha channel of the diffuse if used. 
Normal: 3 channel map created using a normal mapping progarm.
Specular: Black + White map that is included in the alpha channel of the Normal if used.

There are some extra maps used in certain cases like for ambient, but those are the main ones.  It's pretty easy once you do it once, and we can give you some guidance as well. 

Look for one of the project leads to give you the final word on a trial. 

[Sean [Baron]]

Bumped to trial. Make a topic in the trial members section and wait for someone to give you something to take a crack at

[Josh [SLX]]

I was going to show this but i couldnt find it at the time. It turned up, so here it is.
I made this for a friend for use in WWF No Mercy. I didnt bother updating the ring itself as the "WWE Bash" ring apron was the main focal point. All the shaders done with crazybump with multiple normal maps overlayed.