Company: Rose Digital
Role: Technical Artist | 3D Artist
Software: Autodesk Maya, Substance Painter, Photoshop
Preamble
From the years 2020-2022, I had the pleasure of working with the immersive advertising firm Rose Digital on a series of projects that targeted the 8th-Wall Web AR platform. In these projects, I served the primary role of a 3D Artist and Technical Artist ensuring that the product was designed to spec and optimized for the WebAR platform. To view some of the projects I made with Rose Digital, click on one of the images below, or continue scrolling!
Short clip of Patron Web AR experience, as taken by Rose Digital
Animated gif transition of patron model at various stages of development
Short clip of Patron Web AR experience, as taken by Rose Digital
Project: Patron
Year: 2020
Introduction
The year 2020 marked a turning point for the world at large. The COVID-19 pandemic came swiftly and forced us all into a new world of social distancing and remote work. Of the many challenges arising during that time, the one of how brands could advertise to consumers rose to the forefront. Without being able to advertise face-to-face, companies had to get innovative. Thus, the liquor company Patron hired Rose Digital to create a new way to market their projects to consumers using 8th-Wall's WebAR platform.
With the technology stack decided upon, I was brought in as a 3D Artist and Technical Artist, capable of creating and optimizing their assets from start to finish. With my expertise in realistic model creation and game pipeline optimization, we were able to deliver the product on time and under budget. For a breakdown of what was done for this project, please click the slideshow below.
From Concept to Production
Due to the target development platform, it was determined early on that this model design would need to follow all of the standard hallmarks of the game optimzation pipeline. As such, we decided to find a reference model to work with that was close to the final product we were looking to recreate. The reference model in question was too dense, and as such needed to be retopogized and optimized for WebAR. With the retopogy and UV's done, it was much easier to project the higher resolution curves onto the lower resolution base model.
Upon the completion of the model retopology and setup, we turned out attention to the texture work. A key component for this project was creating a detailed color map, that would allow the software devs to procedurally swap out different textures on-the-fly. After much back and forth, we settled on creating a Color ID map to allow for an easy way to swap and scale our textures. With that done, we further fleshed out the textures on the model itself, ensuring that the product was as close to a real Patron bottle as possible. We even scanned in a real Patron corkscrew and used that as a texture for the best results possible.
Project: Black History and Medicine
(Black History Month Special)
Year: 2022
Introduction
In 2022, Rose reached out to collaborate on a special black history month feature, Black History and Medicine. Similar to the prior Patron project; I was the primary 3D artist charged with creating a virtual museum environment which would be a portal that highlights some of the renowned figures in Black medicine. As the target development platform of choice was once again Niantic's 8th Wall platform, we had to abide by the same technical constraints as the previous project. In addition to the technical constraints of designing for WebAR, we had the additional task of designing a modular virtual environment that could fit multiple different design configurations.
From Concept to Production
Since this was going to be a Web AR experience, it was important that we design with real-world scale in mind. As such, we designed this experience to fit a 10x10 room playspace. Additional considerations was given in the design stage to create a modular set of museum planes and artistic frames that could be put anywhere in the experience. Just like the prior project, proper UV setup and color maps were a must to create the most realistic feature possible.
Once the initial model was created, additional tweaks and scale changes had to be created to ensure compatibility across multiple devices. Renders and process shots can be found in the slideshow above. Feel free to check out the experience by visiting Rose Digital or clicking on the link above!
