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[SureAI-Colin]

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!

[badgesareus]

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.

[SureAI-Colin]

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!

[Kiwi-Hawk]

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

[Starac]

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

[SureAI-Colin]

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.

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.

[Starac]

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.

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.

[SureAI-Colin]

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.

[pcoutin]

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

[Starac]

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.

[pcoutin]

So you use Quixel for texturing... that looks like an awesome tool. I was just using Gimp and Blender Dx

looks a bit complicated to turn it to last gen

But what do you use for modeling? and for turning your stuff into NIF files? 3DS Max?... ..

Or Z-brush? UV mapping is kind of annoying with Blender... especially in 2.49 I think. Maybe I could model in Blender then export for 3ds max..

Thanks! Man I want to find this Kile bow..

[SureAI-Colin]

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

Thank you! Glad to see the bow passed muster!
Going for a more realistic scale and bulk for the weapons was something Nico and I both wanted at the start, so it was always a goal of mine to not go too crazy with the fantasy bulk. One thing you may also notice I added was the sense of removable limbs for different draw weights. I thought that was cool when doing my bow research for the Kile bow so I integrated it into the design.

For modelling I use The Foundry Modo. My general modelling workflow at the time was a highpoly made from edge weighted pixar subdivision surfaces. The subdiv cage was modified into a lowpoly and the curve detail of the highpoly was baked into a normal map.

Blender can definitely make models for Skyrim! It's (for the most part) just as capable as other modelling programs.

Wacom! Sure baby

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

Wow! Witcher 3 has some damn nice armors. Their character sculptors are incredibly skilled.

So you use Quixel for texturing... that looks like an awesome tool. I was just using Gimp and Blender Dx

looks a bit complicated to turn it to last gen

But what do you use for modeling? and for turning your stuff into NIF files? 3DS Max?... ..

Or Z-brush? UV mapping is kind of annoying with Blender... especially in 2.49 I think. Maybe I could model in Blender then export for 3ds max..

Thanks! Man I want to find this Kile bow..

Yep, Quixel Suite 2, it's a nice tool, though like everything has its downsides. It isn't nearly as stable or flexible as something like the Substance suite, but it steals the show when it comes to speed.
Well hey, a good deal of the assets I made for Enderal were made in Photoshop. You can still make some great textures in a standard image editor, it just takes longer. :p

Like I said at the top of this post, I use The Foundry Modo for modelling. As for UVing, I use Headus UVLayout, which is an absolute life saver when it comes to UV's, it just makes UVing so much easier and faster. Once the model is all uv'd, baked, and textured, I convert it to NIF using Max 2012 (which is where I also do the rigging, blend shapes, and weight painting). I didn't use Zbrush much on any of these models. As far as I know, the only time I did use it was when making the stitching for the armor's gloves. I sculpted each damn stitch individually, since the quality of the stitch brush didn't fit the look I wanted.

If I remember correctly, the Kile set is the top-end weapon set (equivalent to Daedric), so it'll be a high level bow.

[Nicolas Samuel]

Colin is right, it's a high level bow. I believe it can be either bought from Gabor Gaboff or, which is more likely, chosen as a reward at the end of the "Screws, Hats, Odds & Ends Incorporated"-Questline in the strangers quarter.

[pcoutin]

Haha, now I wish I had made a Trickster..

[DrNormalLove]

Believe me, plenty of us put that bow through its paces, it's a beautiful piece. As for the armor, where could one find a set?

[SureAI-Colin]

Believe me, plenty of us put that bow through its paces, it's a beautiful piece. As for the armor, where could one find a set?

Awesome! I haven't gotten to any of my weapons yet (they're all high level), but I have run into a couple environment pieces.
Can't wait to use some of my weapons ingame, though!

Honestly, I don't know if the armor is in the game or not. It was meant to be a low level set, but I believe it may have been cut. That's the nature of game development, though, stuff gets cut. It's still one of my favorite pieces regardless.

[Kiwi-Hawk]

Kia ora

If it was cut could you make it a mod to be added? be nice to see some of the cut weapons armours as mods so they at least got to see the light of day and got some user love

I'm greedy I know lol,.. With the special additon comming soon it would be really great to have a wee video series (shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 I think) step by stepping your texturing and conversion process, tho I think it's a little different right? the new updated engine use's PBR if I'm right. but I'd love to learn your process I brought Quixel but have a hard time getting my head round it, was the reason I spent ALL my movie smoke money on Substance, But i have Quixel so I should make use of it and maybe some of the free/cheaper stuff off mega scan would make life a little easyer

[SureAI-Colin]

Kia ora

If it was cut could you make it a mod to be added? be nice to see some of the cut weapons armours as mods so they at least got to see the light of day and got some user love

I'm greedy I know lol,.. With the special additon comming soon it would be really great to have a wee video series (shouldn't be more than 2 or 3 I think) step by stepping your texturing and conversion process, tho I think it's a little different right? the new updated engine use's PBR if I'm right. but I'd love to learn your process I brought Quixel but have a hard time getting my head round it, was the reason I spent ALL my movie smoke money on Substance, But i have Quixel so I should make use of it and maybe some of the free/cheaper stuff off mega scan would make life a little easyer

Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier!

I have been thinking about making some videos in my spare time, though mostly as a way to explain to friends/family how I do my work (most have no clue how I do what I do). Though if they're well received I'd love to make videos going into more detail as well.

Have you had a chance to look at Quixel's tutorial section? They have tons of nice tutorials detailing how to use the program.
http://quixel.se/tutorials/

I've been playing around with Megascans as well, though megascans at the moment is mostly focused around natural materials such as dirt, grass, and vegetation.

And yeah, the new engine is PBR. If it follows PBR spec closely, it shouldn't require any conversion, but if they don't follow it that well, it may still require conversion. I wouldn't know until I was able to actually work with it.

[SirCalvin]

Gah, all the weapons and armor in this thread are plain gorgeous, but I haven't managed to find a single one of them ingame yet. The kilean bow especially has to be one of my favorites, and it's pretty damn close to tempting me to start another archer playthrough soon...

[SureAI-Colin]

Kia ora

If it was cut could you make it a mod to be added? be nice to see some of the cut weapons armours as mods so they at least got to see the light of day and got some user love

Forgot to answer this bit.
I'd be happy to see the cut armor in a mod if people would like that. However, I wouldn't be able to be the one to make the mod, at least not for awhile. I'm in the process of doing the whole job search thing and have a month long art test ahead of me, and that's just from one studio! Other studios are in the wire as well. I'll be very busy for the foreseeable future.

If someone wanted to make an Enderal armor pack (and was willing to do a bit of touch up if needed), I'd be happy to contribute the armor.

Gah, all the weapons and armor in this thread are plain gorgeous, but I haven't managed to find a single one of them ingame yet. The kilean bow especially has to be one of my favorites, and it's pretty damn close to tempting me to start another archer playthrough soon...

A few posts up, Nico gave some locations where you could find the Kile bow. All this stuff is high level, so it's pretty rare.
I haven't even found this stuff myself! I want to see how it looks in Enderal, since I haven't seen it with Enderal's new ENB and related stuff.