by Elliott Mitchell | Jan 25, 2016 | 3D, Art, Boston Unity Group, Unity3D
UVs are often shrouded in mystery, or simply an afterthought to many 3D artists and game developers. Not only are UVs essential to texturing 3D models in Unity, UVs are required for Real-Time and Baked Global Illumination(Lightmapping). Unbeknownst to many, UVs may also have a profound influence on runtime performance and an artist’s iteration cycles.
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[image title=”Good UVs” caption=”Good UVs”]https://vermontdigitalarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Elliott-Mitchell-Good-UV-2016.png[/image]
[image title=”Bad UVs” caption=”Bad UVs”]https://vermontdigitalarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Elliott-Mitchell-Bad-UV-2016.png[/image]
[image title=”Ugly UVs” caption=”Ugly UVs”]https://vermontdigitalarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Elliott-Mitchell-Ugly-UV-2016.png[/image]
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Earlier this month, Elliott Mitchell (co-founder of Vermont Digital Arts) delivered a quick ten minute lightning talk on the subject of UVs at the Boston Unity Group. His presentation is a high level overview of UVs for the given truncated format.
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5WrQSUdvKU[/embedyt]
Keep an eye out for a more fleshed out talk on UVs in the near future. There is so much more to cover. Here is a link to Elliott’s slides.
by Elliott Mitchell | Jul 24, 2015 | 3D, Art, Boston, News & Events, Unite
Unite 2015, the annual Unity game developer conference, is scheduled to be held in Boston, MA, September 21st – 23rd! Isn’t that exciting?!?
I’m Elliott Mitchell, co-founder of Vermont Digital Arts and the Boston Unity Group. I am honored to announce that I will be presenting at Unite for the fourth consecutive year! My session, Unity Maximus: Art Optimizations for Maximum Performance in Unity 5, was announced on a list of talks published on Unity’s blog yesterday. This talk will be geared towards helping artists and designers who are beginners with Unity 5 art optimizations.
Unity Maximus: Art Optimizations for Maximum Performance in Unity 5, is scheduled for Tuesday, September 22nd, 5:00-5:30, Ballroom A.
Many platforms, like VR and mobile, place high demands on developers to meet acceptable frame rates or else risk failure. Often, the art assets in a Unity project look fantastic but no matter how optimized the code base is, the build just doesn’t meet the desired frame rate. Unoptimized art assets, including some art which may be purchased on the Asset Store, can seriously hinder performance on demanding platforms. In this session, we will highlight some red flags to look out for in a variety of art asset types and identify key optimizations that can be implemented into your art pipeline to significantly increase performance on demanding platforms. Art asset types covered will include:
- 3D Models, Animations and Rigs
- 2D Textures and Sprites
- Materials and Shaders
I’ll likely cover a few more topics like lightmapping & post process effects.
I hope to see you at Unite 2015 Boston!
Best,
-Elliott
EDIT 9/18: Changed the time and location to Tuesday, September 22nd, 5:00-5:30, Ballroom A.
by Elliott Mitchell | Oct 28, 2013 | 3D, Art, News & Events, Unite, Unity3D
Do you make 3D art, animation and or use Unity to make multiplatform Games? Anyone can download or make 3D art assets and anyone can make games in Unity. It is another story when it comes to creating an art pipeline that accounts for efficiency, flexibility, multiple resolutions for multiplatform optimizations. Art optimization begin in the tools one chooses to uses for content creation. Optimization is also dependent on the way tools are utilized and how they export assets for Unity. Finally, art optimization happen within the Unity editor, which varies for individual targeted platforms, with best art practices and smart coding.
Elliott Mitchell, co-founder of Vermont Digital Arts and the Boston Unity User Group, gave a Unite 2013 (Unity Developer’s Conference) talk on this topic last August in Vancouver, BC. Check out the video of his talk and check back here to see a series of blog posts on topics covered as well as the plethora of areas he didn’t have to touch upon in his talk at Unite.
[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-HwsJiLtyw&feature=youtu.be” width=”640″ height=”355″ autohide=”0″ fs=”1″ rel=”0″]
Special thanks goes to Anzovin Studio for providing The Setup Machine for Games to Elliott and Vermont Digital Arts. In addition, Anzovin provided their expertise by rigging the Elliott’s 3D Samsquanch character as well as animating an Idle and Walk cycle for this demo!
Remember, there is no optimized game without good coding even if your art is exceptional. Make friends with talented engineers or learn to code yourself! It takes both sides of the brain to make great games!
by Elliott Mitchell | Oct 24, 2013 | Art, News & Events, Vermont
Front view of the Vermont State House (taken Sept. 23, 2004) – © 2004 Matthew Trump
Vermont Digital Arts is honored to have been invited to represent in the 2013 Vermont Arts Summit at the Vermont State House!
When: Saturday, October 26, 2013
Where: Vermont State House
Montpelier, VT
Elliott Mitchell, Vermont Digital Arts co-founder, will be speaking on the panel The Art of Great Digital Games:
Background art, character development, textures – each of these and many more forms of artistic output are essential to many of today’s most popular games. Narrative, music composition and sound design can drive some of the best in-game experiences. So why don’t video and mobile games have more credibility when it comes to art and arts-based learning? Hear from three developers of mobile games about the serious opportunities for creating and experiencing great art through personal devices. Through discussion we’ll explore ways classic studio skills can be augmented and deployed using mobile, hand-held, and PC computers. Moderated by Lars Hasselblad Torres.
Marguerite Dibble of Birnam Wood Games , Josh Buck of Champlain College , Daniel Moore of Toonuva Games and Lars Hasselblad Torres of The Vermont Office of the Creative Economy will be joining with Elliott on stage to speak about video games in the arts.
If you are interested in making games in the State of Vermont then Register here!
by Elliott Mitchell | Sep 6, 2013 | 3D, News & Events, Unite, Unity3D, Works In Progress
Vermont Digital Arts is back from Unite 2013! What a conference!
Elliott Mitchell (founder of Vermont Digital Arts) presented on Successfully Avoiding Common Pathways to Heartbreak and Disasters in Your Art Pipeline last week at Unite. Due to popular demand, keep a posted on a series of upcoming mini-posts relating to Elliott’s talk.
Overall I feel my talk was well received by the audience at Unite 2013. The audience was an interesting mix of artists and developers with various levels of experience in Unity and art pipelines. I realized I only had time to cover a fraction of the content I thought was important so I just went with the flow and covered what I could in the allocated time. I’m looking forward to authoring a series of posts covering my talk and points beyond!
-Elliott Mitchell (Founder Vermont Digital Arts)
Also we wanted to give a shout out to Anzovin Studio for the rigging and animation on Samsquanch with TSMG!
More to come….
