Art Spotlight: Poké Ball

In Art Spotlight, we invite Sketchfab artists to talk about one of their designs.

Hi guys! My name is Jesús Orgaz, I’m a young 3D Artis from Madrid (Spain). I Studied 3D videogames and animation at Trazos where I studied to become a 3D Artist. I really love the 3D process; the modelling and texturing characters, environments, assets…everything!Currently I’m looking for a of videogames company in Spain to work for and to improve my knowledge. Until then I’m learning a lot in forums and blogs like this.

Concept art by Susan Lau (left) and final result by Jesús Ortega (right)

Concept art by Susan Lau (left) and final result by Jesús Orgaz (right)

My model of the Poké Ball isn’t an original idea made by me… But when I saw the concept of Susan Lau on the internet I couldn’t resist to create a 3D version of it, and the 20th aniversary of Pokémon Company was the perfect excuse to create it! I enjoy this project a lot because I have many good memories from my childhood about Pokémon. I have always wondered what would be inside a Poké Ball… and now I know it!

To start the model I created a low poly version in 3DSMax with a unique UV Map, I did this UVMap in that moment because after that, when I detailed the model in Zbrush it was easy to extract a great Ambient Occlusion map base to start the hand painted process, using a mask and Ambient Occlusion. With this pipeline I don’t needed to do a retopology of the model because the low poly with UVs goes to Zbrush to be detailed.

When I had the Ambient Occlusion map and I’d retouched it in Photoshop, I decided to bake the Normal Map in 3DSMax so I get the best detail. That was a good move because thanks to this, the clouds of the Poké Ball looks much better in spite of the fact that it doesn’t have a Specular Map, the Normal Map give to the model a great feeling of volume.

When I have the Normal Map and the Ambient Occlusion I import my model to 3D Coat to the last step in the creation process; The diffuse texturing, with some layers: First I created a base color multiplied by the Ambient Occlusion to get the principal colors, after that I created a layer for the lights, shadows…I detailed the grass, the volume of the clouds, the trunks… always emphasizing the areas with more Normal map info.

And finally I uploaded my model to Sketchfab to take some renders, using a good illumination to show the detail of the Normal map.

Thanks to Sketchfab I can show a great 3D version of my Poké Ball, the final render looks great and I think is much better show a 3d model instead of an 2D image. Sketchfab helps me a lot to show my work and discover other excellent projects. I learn every day exploring new models!

Which Pokemon do you imagine living inside the ball? Please, leave me a comment with your ideas!

Thanks for Reading!