Sci-fi lear jet with mech-like landing Gear
    by Matt Bell
    on Sketchfab

Giant Grouper by Matt Bell on Sketchfab

This is another animal that students have a chance to encounter when they play Cyber STEM Academy's underwater activity. A Giant Grouper. I started the model in Zbrush and used 3ds Max and Quixel's Ddo to finish it. Even though I kept it low poly for good optimization I like the effect of the normal map to make it look a bit more organic.

Shark White Tip by Matt Bell on Sketchfab

WhiteTip reef shark. Denizen of coral reefs. This model was built in Zbrush and textured using Quixel's Ddo. This is another animal players in CyberSTEM Academy are likely to meet. The goal of the game is to enjoy the animal for it's own sake and photograph it if you can.

Sea Turtle Leather Back by Matt Bell on Sketchfab

Low poly Leatherback SeaTurtle for CyberSTEM Academy's coral reef game 'New Species Found'. This 'mini game' in CSA teaches middle school students about species identification and demonstrates why learning in a game-based environment is such a valuable teaching aid.

Robot by Matt Bell on Sketchfab

A low poly game character for CyberSTEMAcademy. Both Heavy Metal magazine and Heavy Metal the animated film warped my mind as a kid. I  loved the art and who can forget the movie's Corvette atmospheric reentry scene. Beware the Lok-nar! Anyway I like art-deco too and since this character has some of those influences I kept the shapes pretty simple.

Submarine by Matt Bell on Sketchfab

A low poly model that made the rounds. I started with Groboto's boolean primitives to quickly concept out some form and then took it to Zbrush. Finally into 3ds Max and Headus UV layout to establish good coordinate layouts for the textures. I used an older version of Quixel's DDo to texture it. These days I tend to use Substance painter and Substance Designer a bit more but Quixel is awesome. I guess this shape is impractical for a submarine but hey. . . 

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays folks!

I spent a fair number of winter holidays risking my neck snow boarding in New Mexico where it's a tradition to get festive with luminarios. I risked my neck putting luminarios on our rooftop in El Paso too. I really like the way they look.

Art pieces

Render using VRay in 3ds Max (the ship was created by my colleague, Lou Bonbrest)

ZBrush sculpt I made of a Giant Grouper; rendered in Marmoset Toolbag and composited in Photoshop

Zbrush, Marmoset and Photoshop

Zbrush Leatherback Turtle, Marmoset render, composited in Photoshop

Zbrush WhiteTipReefShark, Marmoset render, composited in Photoshop

Early Concept promo piece of CyberAcademy Megalith center

Early concept for CyberAcademy NorthWing Roof

I3D Christmas card art done with 3ds Max, VRay and AfterEffects

Splash page art for Tadpoles game. Zbrush, 3ds Max and Photoshop

Tadpoles character sheet- A children's game we did for U.S. Naval Office of Research. The characters were sculpted in Zbrush and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag

Early concept promo piece for Tadpole game when the working title was Leap Frog with another style of Immersive 3D logo

Tadpoles promo pieces

Low poly art of a Tadpole character's parachute. Zbrush, 3ds Max and Marmoset Toolbag

Tadpoles Screen Selection page

Promo piece for Alien Relocation game

Poster art promo for Cyber Academy's Merissa Lone game

Promo art for Debt Ninja game which teaches concepts related to personal finance

F-18 landing- Promo piece for Office of Naval Research- 3ds Max, Mental Ray and Photoshop

3ds max, Mental Ray and Photoshop

Carrier approach concept piece. 3ds Max, Mental Ray, Photoshop

Promo piece, Office of Naval Research- 3ds Max, Mental Ray and Photoshop

Maryland Native- mountain lion

You can play this animation here; but it's much better to see it in hi-definition over at 'vimeo' where I originally posted it. Please click on the 'vimeo' link located in the lower right corner of this animation window and watch it 'fullscreen', if you wish. You can also watch a short video of some recent work I've done for the computer gaming industry while you're there.

Sci-fi-mayhem

This Photoshop painting is poster art I did while working at BreakAway Games. It is partially derived from reference material my friends created. The subject is the 'Redeemer' in action! A prized game asset indeed. C&C game designers didn't waste time arguing whether people who purchased the game would enjoy wreaking simulated havoc; it's sort of a default game industry assumption that they would. After our lead concept artist Mike Phillips came up with the 'hell on four legs' design, responsibilities fell to another artist supreme-o Mike Reis to build, texture (and animate?) the beast in 3d so mayhem could bust across the streets of our little apocalyptico.

Smart Growth Street Visualization

Greening the gaming industry

'Greening' Command and Conquer: Kane's Wrath from Matt Bell on Vimeo.
This video clip shows my implementation of 'green' game assets and a modicum of smart growth planning into several levels I built out for the game Command and Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath. I did some work as an environmental artist on this particular project using proprietary tools to shape the ground terrain and place buildings. Essentially I was a clicker. But I was studying smart growth policy at the time. Each level wound up being relatively unique thanks to an extensive assets library I could choose from and I was glad to find very cool models of wind turbines and greenhouses built by others with superb artistry IMHO. Armed with advanced green technology, I adapted my layouts to suggest an aggressive smart growth agenda. Well not really; but I ran with the idea when I could. I improvised to suggest things like mass transit, community agriculture, wind farms, green spaces and smart grid plug-ins for electric cars. 'Blue zones', as they are known in C&C lingo, are relative oasis' thinly spread across a world that has been blighted by deadly Tiberium crystals! They represent our last great hope to gather strength against factions of evil and turn the deadly tides of radioactivity. Maybe light rail mass transit and organic farming with raised beds are the answer. Too bad there weren't any bikes in the assets list; but I used what I could to envision forward thinking sustainability policies in a game that was otherwise set in Armageddon.

GIS Study

These two images are maps I created for my Johns Hopkins GIS course. Definitely a proof of concept more than anything else! I was locating places to camp in Moab Utah based on a number of self imposed criteria including where all the BLM land is so you wouldn't get charged camping fees and where the topology of the land would block exposure to cold northwest winds. I’m not sure I’d bet my vacation plans on the results but it was definitely great using the software to answer some off the wall questions.

This short clip is based on concept art I painted in Photoshop. There's no rhyme or reason; I was having fun compositing 3d elements into a static 2d painting. It's great to experiment with animated effects while you're trying to spruce things up. I used Autodesk's 3d Studio Max and Adobe After Effects.

One of the first images I ever painted in Photoshop.  This goes back to '94! Those were the days. MicroProse madness!!

Stay tuned- updates coming soon

Thanks for stopping by, updates coming soon.