SureAI

Hey everyone! My name is Colin Wagner, and I was an "External Artist" for SureAI on the Enderal project! What that means, is I was an artist creating assets (weapons, props, and environment pieces) to be used in Enderal, but am located outside of SureAI's Munich office (specifically, in the United States).

I worked on Enderal for 3 years, mostly when pursuing my Master's degree, and originally discovered the team back when I started working with them on Nehrim (I did editing, localizing, and writing for the English translation).

I'm not sure if anyone would be interested in this kind of thing, but just in case I'd like to share with you guys four of my favorite pieces I created for Enderal. Now just a note, most of these renders are in a newer engine with a PBR renderer, so they won't look the same in these shots as they will in Skyrim, as Skyrim does not utilize PBR (IMO one of the largest advancements in realtime rendering in ages) and utilizes an older rendering engine. But I do promise they're all rendered in realtime in a game engine-like renderer.

Anyway, here are my four favorite pieces I created for Enderal!

Kile WarAxe: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/g9DwL

Kile Bow: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/QRDy3

Skaragg Slicer: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/E2vd8

Armor: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rOoP6

Working with SureAI again was a pleasure. They're incredibly professional and amazing at what they do. While working with them I learned a ton and grew substantially as an artist. I'll look back fondly at this project.

If you guys want to check out some other work I've created outside of Enderal, you can see them on my Artstation profile. It's mostly Unreal 4 stuff. I've cut a lot out recently, but there's still a few goodies there.
I hope you all enjoy Enderal! I know I am!

And to anyone reading from SureAI, a big thank you and congratulations! I was always impressed with how skilled/talented everyone was on the team, and now that I'm playing the finished project, I'm even more impressed!

That is great, thanks for helping make Enderal a great game. I had no idea just how much was involved in creating these items, so viewing all the details was very informative.

And thank you for playing it! It's really incredible to have something you've worked on in the hands of so many people.

Yeah, there's a lot that goes into this kind of stuff. The workflow that I use is definitely quite work and time intensive, but it usually leads to pretty decent results. It's one of the reasons these kinds of things take years to develop!

Kia ora

I to would like to thank you for your efforts in making this world for us to play in,.. I'd like to as if I may

The items you showed I take it theyer done with the like of Substance Painter or desginer, maybe Quixel suit even?
I'm thinking they would be converted after to suit the older specular/gloss form that Skyrim use's

I have a samll idea whats goes into this type of creation only because I downloaed both Unity 5 a UE4 and hell did I get a wake up
when trying to make an Elder Scrolls ish world. not easy I'm finding

Excellent stuff you did there

Since you started with this, here are my 2 armors that i created for Enderal:

http://i.imgur.com/V7cUsVw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/agxCtde.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K3bSB2U.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RUF4bL8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2rK59m8.jpg

And i did this with mouse. People who work this know what that means

Kiwi-Hawk hat geschrieben:

Kia ora

I to would like to thank you for your efforts in making this world for us to play in,.. I'd like to as if I may

The items you showed I take it theyer done with the like of Substance Painter or desginer, maybe Quixel suit even?
I'm thinking they would be converted after to suit the older specular/gloss form that Skyrim use's

I have a samll idea whats goes into this type of creation only because I downloaed both Unity 5 a UE4 and hell did I get a wake up
when trying to make an Elder Scrolls ish world. not easy I'm finding

Yep! They were textured in the Quixel Suite! Originally, I created last-gen textures in the original Quixel Suite, but with Quixel Suite 2.0, they kinda axed last-gen texturing and only feature working PBR texturing. So over time I had to learn how to convert PBR to last-gen.
For instance, with metal areas, the specular map handles color, while the diffuse map is basically just black. In last gen, the diffuse/albedo map handles color, so the spec is moved over to the diffuse in metal areas only, and the AO and curvature maps are integrated into the diffuse/albedo to provide some shading information, then you mess with the levels to enhance color and shading. The spec map is then desaturated, and the roughness/gloss map is used to augment extra detail into the spec map. The spec map is then darkened to hell because the Creation engine uses a very different spec calibration from normal. The metalness map can be used directly as an environment mask map after a bit of darkening. The normal map is then exaggerated by about 2x so the normal maps appear more visible in the Creation Engine (the CE again uses a different normal map calibration from normal). Many of the maps also need fairly major contrast bumps to make details visible inengine, since, again, calibration is different from the norm.

I actually really like UE4, it's very artist-centric, which I love. The last time I used Unity was Unity 4, and I was definitely a fan of that as well. My first UE4 scene is actually on my Artstation, it's the second to left one.

Starac hat geschrieben:

Excellent stuff you did there

Since you started with this, here are my 2 armors that i created for Enderal:

http://i.imgur.com/V7cUsVw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/agxCtde.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K3bSB2U.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RUF4bL8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2rK59m8.jpg

And i did this with mouse. People who work this know what that means

Thanks man!
And sweet! Armor can be a pain to to make, with all the blend shapes and rigging (not a fan of rigging). When I made my armor, I had to rig, blend shape, and weight paint it in Max 2012...and it was my first time using Max ever haha.

So when you say you made it with a mouse, do you mean you sculpted it in Zbrush with a mouse? If so, ouch. My armor was all Modo, no sculpting just subdiv modelling and cloth sim.

SureAI-Colin hat geschrieben:

Kiwi-Hawk hat geschrieben:

Kia ora

I to would like to thank you for your efforts in making this world for us to play in,.. I'd like to as if I may

The items you showed I take it theyer done with the like of Substance Painter or desginer, maybe Quixel suit even?
I'm thinking they would be converted after to suit the older specular/gloss form that Skyrim use's

I have a samll idea whats goes into this type of creation only because I downloaed both Unity 5 a UE4 and hell did I get a wake up
when trying to make an Elder Scrolls ish world. not easy I'm finding

Yep! They were textured in the Quixel Suite! Originally, I created last-gen textures in the original Quixel Suite, but with Quixel Suite 2.0, they kinda axed last-gen texturing and only feature working PBR texturing. So over time I had to learn how to convert PBR to last-gen.
For instance, with metal areas, the specular map handles color, while the diffuse map is basically just black. In last gen, the diffuse/albedo map handles color, so the spec is moved over to the diffuse in metal areas only, and the AO and curvature maps are integrated into the diffuse/albedo to provide some shading information, then you mess with the levels to enhance color and shading. The spec map is then desaturated, and the roughness/gloss map is used to augment extra detail into the spec map. The spec map is then darkened to hell because the Creation engine uses a very different spec calibration from normal. The metalness map can be used directly as an environment mask map after a bit of darkening. The normal map is then exaggerated by about 2x so the normal maps appear more visible in the Creation Engine (the CE again uses a different normal map calibration from normal). Many of the maps also need fairly major contrast bumps to make details visible inengine, since, again, calibration is different from the norm.

I actually really like UE4, it's very artist-centric, which I love. The last time I used Unity was Unity 4, and I was definitely a fan of that as well. My first UE4 scene is actually on my Artstation, it's the second to left one.

Starac hat geschrieben:

Excellent stuff you did there

Since you started with this, here are my 2 armors that i created for Enderal:

http://i.imgur.com/V7cUsVw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/agxCtde.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/K3bSB2U.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RUF4bL8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2rK59m8.jpg

And i did this with mouse. People who work this know what that means

Thanks man!
And sweet! Armor can be a pain to to make, with all the blend shapes and rigging (not a fan of rigging). When I made my armor, I had to rig, blend shape, and weight paint it in Max 2012...and it was my first time using Max ever haha.

So when you say you made it with a mouse, do you mean you sculpted it in Zbrush with a mouse? If so, ouch. My armor was all Modo, no sculpting just subdiv modelling and cloth sim.

I did everything with the mouse, sculpting, painting. I use Mudbox, and TopoGun - one of the best tools ever created.
And weight painting

Yes it is hard to make it. I'm actually not fan of making armors and similar things. I like to make environment stuff: landscape, buildings, textures, etc.

Damn, sculpting and painting with a mouse isn't fun. Looks like someone needs a Wacom!

My favorite stuff to make for Enderal was weapons. You can focus a lot of effort and put a lot of detail in them (since they take up so much of the screen), you can use unique textures (don't have to rely on random tiled textures to get a decent texel density), and they aren't really all that difficult to integrate and get working properly. Bows need weight painting and rigging, but it's so rudimentary that it doesn't take long at all. Props are nice as well.

Nice work!

As a traditional/primitive archery nut, that bow is pretty nice... not too bulky and overbuilt like a lot of the fantasy bows

I made a model of this Magyar hornbow I have for Oblivion using Blender, but was too lazy to texture more than a small part of it. What tools do you use for modeling? It doesn't seem feasible to make models for Skyrim just with Blender..

Wonder how to make custom animations for archery as well

SureAI-Colin hat geschrieben:

Damn, sculpting and painting with a mouse isn't fun. Looks like someone needs a Wacom!

My favorite stuff to make for Enderal was weapons. You can focus a lot of effort and put a lot of detail in them (since they take up so much of the screen), you can use unique textures (don't have to rely on random tiled textures to get a decent texel density), and they aren't really all that difficult to integrate and get working properly. Bows need weight painting and rigging, but it's so rudimentary that it doesn't take long at all. Props are nice as well.

Wacom! Sure baby

I would make them to be on the Withcer 3 quality with decent tablet.