Overview
For this initial shoe design, I was inspired by the need for robust traction and grip, drawing from real-world designs for ice and winter boots. The goal was to capture a sleek, modern aesthetic while incorporating pronounced tread patterns for enhanced grip.
This project also marked my first attempts at developing a robust texture change user interface (HUD) to showcase the various design options.
Product textured and rendered in Adobe Substance Painter in 2023 as part of a PBR update initiative.
Implementation
Using Blender and the Hopscotter add-on, I was able to experiment with hard surface modeling techniques to bring this vision to life.
HUD preview demonstrating how customers can mix and match color combinations between the sole, straps, and blade heel.
Lessons
While I was proud of the custom buttons I created for the texture change HUD, in hindsight the HUD itself was overly complicated. Including a full list of available sizes, for example, proved unnecessary and made updates more tedious.
Looking back, a more streamlined HUD focused purely on the texture swatches would have been a better approach. I've carried those lessons forward in refining my texture change UI design in subsequent projects. The main product image also took up too much valuable real estate on the HUD. Finding the right balance between informative controls and a clean, focused display is an area I continue to develop.
Overall, this shoe design allowed me to push my 3D modeling skills while also highlighting opportunities to improve my approach to texture change user experiences. The process has been invaluable in shaping my product design workflow.
The HUD image for this product showing texture change options for 3 regions.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.”
- O'Brien, George Orwell, "1984"
