The Bird Boss

Bird Boss by steadyeddy on Sketchfab

We decided upon having a boss that could fly and swoop down at the player initially, which then formed into the idea of a bird. Our initial aim with the bosses was to have them be giant and imposing to the player.

I begun with various different designs to the bird, eventually settling on design D) with a combination of C)'s spine and E)'s glowing eye.

I also did a sketch to visual the combination of these elements. I tried a more painted art style, as we were still in a process of deciding what sort of art style to go for.

I also mocked up an early (but incomplete) storyboard for how the bird boss fight would proceed.

I did three reference planes of the bird without it's feather and set them up in a scene in 3ds max, which I then proceeded to box model, using the planes as a guide.

Once happy with the base mesh, I uvmapped the mesh in Roadkill, then separated it's elements and sent it to zBrush.

I used zBrush to sculpt and add detail to the geometry, which I then exported as a high poly mesh, and using xNormal created normal maps from.

Back in 3dsmax I used the hair and fur shader to create the feathers for the bird. To achieve this I used splines as a guide for the feathers to follow, then had the planes use the texture of a feather I made in photoshop. When I was happy with it, I exported the feathers as a mesh.

I created the diffuse and specular shaders from a combination of the normal map, ambient occlusion and painting in photoshop.

I was very happy with the result of the bird, I learnt a new technique for creating planes easily, and felt that my workflow has improved well enough that I can produce a finished result at a quicker pace.