Character project- Leila Cross (researcher)

 

                            Character project blog (contextual tasks at the bottom)

For our final 3D brief of this year we will be doing a group project where the members of the group will be doing different roles in order to create a small part of a game. I will be making one of the characters for our groups project. I am really looking forward to being able to make a character with the full PBR workflow from start to finish. I am nervous about having to skin and rig the character as I really struggled with this part during the gladiator project. I will discuss with my group first and fore mostly about the concept and any ideas we have and then I will begin collecting refence images and coming up with a quick sketch of what I want to do. 

In my group we discussed what out concept would be and we decided on a sci fi alien kind of idea. I will be making a character that will be working in a lab and that will also be going out exploring to collect samples and other things to test. She will be skilled in both research and long range combat. I don't want her to be a generic scientist with a lab coat, I want her to be more of an Indiana jones hybrid. She runs the lab but also goes into the alien world to collect the samples. I am thinking about making a small pistol to go with her as one of my props to support the range combat element. I will also be making a knife for taking samples and I am yet to think of another prop but as the process goes on my concept will because more clear. The image above was my initial mood board of ideas and my initial sketch of what the character will be wearing however after getting some feedback on this I have decided to tweak the colour scheme a little bit. I am going to make the overall look of the character read more like she could be working a lab with out loosing the explorer element. Since i am really interested in doing modelling for clothing and fashion I really want to incorporate elements of current fashion trends into my design as this is something I want to branch out into in the future. I would love to have a go at using marvellous designer if the time allows me to watch some tutorials for it. In summer I would like to have a look at using hair cards however for the sake of time I will only be hand sculpting my hair. On the image above I collected some pictures of various existing concepts and items of clothing I will be using as references. However after feedback the colour scheme especially will be changing dramatically so it doesn't read so much like a mechanic. 

 

I collected some refence images of Karina from aespa as I will be usign some of her facial features in the sculpt of the head. I also have some refences of anatomical drawings of skulls and female faces to back up my refences. I will be slightly changing the face so it doesn't look exactly like Karina however i will be using her as support. 

I have began my sculpt by blocked out the basic shape of the face just to give myself a base to start adding planes and features onto. I really enjoy working with zbrush and this is the first time I have ever tried to model a human face so I will be using my refences closely to get it as accurate as possible.

The head is starting to have some definition of the features however it is currently looking quite masculine so I am going to look back at the references and make some changes to this. It needs to have softer features which look less angular and masculine. 

I am currently still not happy with what this looks like. Her face still looks too harsh and angry. The jawline and cheekbones need to be adjusted accordingly. I have been collecting some more refences to use. I am still at a very low resolution and I am still at subdivion 1 so I can still make big changes to the structure and proportions of the face. I have been referring to some videos with tips on how to sculpt a good human face whilst I have been working. It is quite challenging thus far to construct a convincing face. 

 

I have made her bottom lip much too big here. I wanted to increase the size of the lips so that she looks less scary and more kind of youthful and glamourous however I did it too much here. I have now refined the eyes and nose some more and am relatively happy with these however the cheekbones are still too prominent. Looking at the construction of Karina's face it is very soft and any plane changes are smoothed giving her a cute and youthful look. I am aiming to replicate this as best I can. At the moment she is still looking too harsh and old. 

I have added some more details to the face and eyes. The lips are still looking too small in this so I will be revisiting this and possible adding some more fat on the cheeks to give a more youthful look. I think I have the actual construction of the skull down relatively well however its just making the head look like the concept and type of character. I have a very particular narrative in mind and I want to be able to make a character that me as a player would be enthusiastic about playing. I will spend as much time as needed on the face as I think it is the most important part of a character. I want to face to be just as I have been imaging it. From the process s0 far I have begun to use layers within zbrush and how vital having a lot of reference images are for the narrative and sculpt of the face. it has been very challenging so far. 

I have started blocking out the basic shapes of the hair now. I collected some refences from Pinterest to use for this. I like the idea of having short hair for this character tied up in half up bunches either side. I am planning on adding a lot of detail to the hair using dam standard as the character has to be as close to realistic as we can possibly get it and because I am not using hair cards I will need to spend a lot of time refining this part. I am quite interested in learning how to make realistic hair so I will be teaching myself how to make hair cards in summer. I have started the process by blocking out the biggest structures if clumps of hair. One thing I think is really important with this part is to make sure that all the hair works well with each other and it makes sense. From sculpting the fur on my lynx I realise that this is key to making fur or hair look convincing. For the streaks at the front of the hair i used spheres and then dragged them around using the move tool. For the bogger pig tails at the back I used the curve brush tool with a slight alpha. I also made a headband using the topology from the face so that it will be pushing back the bits of hair. I will be putting some kind of emblem or logo on it which will also become decals in the actual lab setting so that my character links nicely into it. 

Here is a progress shot of what the hair is looking like I am working at more of a high subdiv now so that I can capture some finer strands of hair. I will keep building up on this keeping in my where the hair will be flowing and how all the sections will work each other. I have been using a lot of refence for this. 

The dam standard brush has really helped a lot through out the process so far as I have been able to finely sculpt strands of hair. The hair refences I have been using are all slightly wavy just to give the hair a bit of depth. I have some cool ideas for how I will be colouring it in the future. So far this part is taking me a very long time however because the character needs to be realistic looking I think it is an important step and is one that is definitely worth spending time on. I was thinking that I could do this in substance painter however like my lynx I want the generators to pick up some of the indentations and for it to bake nicely onto the low poly. 

Here is a screenshot of the finished hair sculpt. I really tried to keep in mind how hair grows and how its formed around the scalp and head. Since hair is such a prominent part of someone's face I wanted to make it as detailed as possible. I hope the bake will turn out nicely. I also took the opportunity to further edit the face to look more pretty and cute. Like I previously mentioned I want to make a character that would be someone I as a player would like and would appeal to me. Since its my first pbr character I want to be really passionate about it. 

Here is a side view of the hair. around the ear I payed close attention to how the hair would sit. I also added some smaller pieces of hair that will be retopped separately. I think the retop for the thinner strands of hair will be quite challenging but I will give it a go. Since the hair isn't too long I'm hoping that I will be ok working within my timeframe. I think my previous Lynx project particularly helped me with the sculpting of this as it somewhat mimics that of fur. If i have some time later on I would like to add some plaits to it as they would be a challenge to sculpt and a nice addition to the hairstyle. I want my character to have a cool yet pretty type of look so I'm hoping the hair will really pull this together. I also blocked out a little cross earing and cartilage piercing using ZModeller however I will probably make these in max as it will be easier to make a high poly from a low poly. I have chosen to make a cross earing because I liked the idea of it somewhat linking to the chapel and having this juxtaposition of messing around with hellish alien creatures under a church yet the character having some links to a religion. I plan on making a chain cross necklace to go with this.

This is the back view of the hair. I tried to make it quite wavy in this section just to add a bit of dimension to it. I think the symmetry of the pigtail things will help the overall silhouette instead of it just being a flat normal bob cut. The retop will be a challenge but I plan on looking up some refences of meshes online to help me understand how best to retop since I have never had to retop hair before. 

I took this top down view to show how I sculpted the parting. The way I made the hair was a sphere that I moved into a general shaped blob and sculpted into so its not actually attached onto the head directly. I think I will be retopping it onto the skull though so it is all one pieces apart from the separate strands. 

Here is a front view of the face and hair as it currently is. I am going to be sculpting some finer details onto the mouth and skin after I have sculpted the body. I am not sure if the bake will pick up finer details but I am going to do it anyway. The eyebrows also need some finer detailing however I could also do this in substance painter. I have also just realised that because I do not want to loose any details on the face i wont be able to dynamesh the head and body together once it has been made therefore my design will feature a turtleneck to cover up this seam so I don't have to dynamesh. I will make sure to make the body while the head hasn't been subdivided and sculpted into so that I can attach the 2 together. 

Main body sculpting

I am very nervous about doing the next part of my project as I am not overly confident in my knowledge of anatomy and I really want to ensure that my figure looks as close to perfect as it can. I have started by collecting a range of good refences to help me make a start on blocking out. Unlike on my lynx I didn't use zshperes I just blocked out by appending shapes and then dynamsheing them together as I felt that with zshperes I do not have as much control and I need to be able to pick out and define ant major muscle structures. I think I prefer using zsheres for more organic shapes that have a sense of fluidity to them rather than things that require a lot of accuracy specific to the sculpt. For the figure of my character I plan on using Karinas body type also. I want her to be very tall, lean and modelesque. I think for the sake of the character she needs to be toned and athletic looking if she were to be doing fieldwork along with being in a lab as she is also an explorer. I keep thinking quite deeply into what the narrative of the character will be and I will be writing a more detailed lore to present my ideas clearer at the end as i want her to read nicely. 

After I had dynameshed my block out I padded out the joints and smoothed down some areas with the clay build-up brush. I am still in quite a low subdivision here so I am still in the process of making quite broad changes. Like I had previously mentioned I wanted her to be tall and model like with a toned and lean figure. I found it really difficult to start sculpting in the muscle forms so I spent quite awhile on this stage. I think as I begin to sculpt the clothing I will further start understanding which parts look wrong and then I can adjust them as needed in the lowest subdivision. I will not be sculpting the feet as I am planning on making some stompy boots. I have found the arms particularly challenging as the elbow and forearm joins are quite weird and unusual plus the arms are quite thin. I will need to go back and have a look at this part. 

For the first piece of clothing I will be making I will be using the picture above as a heavy refence. I really want to have a go at making a pleated skirt and I think with leather texture it will look really nice. I am considering how I can incorporate a lot of different fabric textures into my work As previously mentioned I am interested in the modelling process of clothes and am keen to do a good job with it as it is something I'm personally passionate about.

I tried 3 ways of making a pleated skirt before I ended up with a result that I was happy with. The first was I tried was going to be this flat pleated plane that i would duplicate and then bend round the figure in zbrush. However this did not work at all because it was just not bending nicely around the form and kept and squeing. I wanted it to look as clean as possible and this method was just not working. I also tried this where the plane wasn't shelled and it also didn't work. 

The next method I tried was using the array tool in max which worked slightly better as it allowed me to get the pleated in a circle however the panels were not facing the right direction and looks really bad when I tried to put it on the character. The pleats are only attached onto the bottom of the skirt and this method wasn't really suitable for it.

The final method I did which ended up working nicely was one where I placed each individual front facing panel by hand which was time consuming however It did pay off well when I put it into substance painter because I was quite easily able to move it and mess with the form of it compared to my previous attempts. I shelled it in 3ds max however looking back it would have been better if I had added the thickness in zbrush. I had some issues with subdividing, zremshing and dynameshing it but in the end I found that dynamic subdiving using a range of tools and then sculpting back into it to define the pleats worked the best. It would have been better If I used marvellous designer however due to time constraints I didn't have time to teach myself how to use it. I will definitely be doing that in summer. 

Here is some progress o the clothes. I am not happy with the top so I will probably tweak the design a bit. I have not added any folds in yet either. After some feedback I shortened the arms and corrected some problems with the joints. I was also given some feedback on the folds in the trousers as currently they look too squishy and not sharp and stiff enough. I need to think more carefully about how the type of fabric will effect the silhouette. I collected some better refences to use to help me establish a nicer silhouette. 

These are what the trousers look like so far with the improvements made. I will still need to further define then with some stitching in a high subdivision level. I think this has drastically improved the silhouette of my character however the top half is looking very flat and plain so I am going to go back and add to this.

I decided to add on some leather straps around the top just to break up the texture of the fabric a little bit. I have also started to block in the creases on the crop top. 

At this point I have taken the opportunity to make some small narrative props for my character. I decided to make an ID holder which I will texture at the end with a little profile screenshot of my character. This will be clipped onto the belt. The card will be needed to enter the laboratory and will give a little narrative profile of the character. I will make the high poly of this in zbrush as it is easier then use this already correctly retopped one as the low poly.

Because there are already a lot of metal buckles on my design I wanted to have a different closure on there and because I am using  a lot of tech/ cyber/ futuristic wear as a refence I thought this would be a perfect choice. It will be made from plastic and be fitted around the belt which holds the trouser type things up with the test tubes and other small pieces of equipment. This was also made on 3ds max and then I will bring it into zbrush to refine it. I think my hard surface modelling skills are lacking a little bit so these smaller assets are definitely helping me become more confident and able to utilise some more methods of modelling in max. 

Here is a screenshot of the skirt so far. The only thing left for me to do is some details on the strap things going across (metal eyelets) I will sculpt them and then bake them on. I added the ID clipped onto the belt. I was going to make it into a lanyard but I decided against it as it looked too generic and I want to add a chain necklace instead. The plastic clip has also been sculpted into the belt. I am still not sure what it will made from however I'm thinking maybe some kind of nylon seatbelt like material.

Here is where my character is at so far. I am adding some puffy sleeves to the top as I think it will help a lot enhance the silhouette as currently the top half looks really boring compared to the bottoms. I need to sculpt into these further using some refences for the creases. 

I finished sculpting the creased into the sleeves. I am quite happy with how these turned out. I used quite a lot of references for them to make sure that the creases matched the fabric I am planning to make them out of. I think that overall changing the shape of the sleeves has helped a lot with the overall silhouette of my character. I now need to start finishing up the creases on the main shirt over the chest area and add some seams in.

I was debating whether to make my shoes in Zbrush or max however I decided to make them in make in the end because I could use the structure of the blocked out foot to get a good base for my shoe by extracting topology from it. I collected some refences shoes that I liked the look of but ended up primarily focusing on this style of doc martin. I though it would be a solid option in relation to the look of the character.  I began by extracting topology and then zremeshing it really low so that I could have a good mouldable base. I actually found it really challenging to get the initial shape of the shoe correct as it was quite awkward. I spent a long time on this part before sub diving it. I then used a plane and drew round the base of the foot in order to extract the soles. I wanted them to be as clean and sharp as possible this is why I did it in this way. For any other parts such as leather panels or straps there were also extracted and dropped down to a low mesh and then subdivided and sculpted. The stitches I learnt how to use the curve brush effectively. I'm quite happy with how these turned out and I'm hoping they will bake onto the sole nicely. 

The image above shoes the finished shoes that I will need to retop and then bake. I am looking forward to texturing these. The lines on the soles will be done in painter as I think sculpting them on would have been as waste of time as they will be rubber and I don't need generators to pick them up.

Retopping

I decided to start my retop process by retopping the trousers as I thought they would be quite hard to do. I started by putting in the initial loop around the knee. I looked at some refences for the decoration loops on these just to make sure my topology would be good and ready for skinning and animation. I tried my best to sculpt in the folds as well as I could whilst also considering deformation. After some feedback I decided to straighten out some of the topology especially on the back of the leg so that It would deform better. Due to this I wanted to add in more topology to pick up the folds better therefore I ended up going in with Msmooth tool as turbosmooth was too much and was wasting topology. 

Here are the finished leg pieces ready to be baked. I might do a test bake on them to see how well the folds catch and if there are errors I will simply mess with the topology and low poly more until I get a clean bake. 

I have started reopping the face at this point with the use of some refences of correct facial topology as you can see on the left of the screenshot. I made sure that I had all of the most important loops going around the mouth and eyes in particular. I started by blocking out these loops and then working outwards from there. I had a lot of difficulty around the nostrils and moth as I wanted the nostrils to be able to flare out so I looped them around however this was quite hard to match up to the other loops I had made. I spent a long time messing about with the topology so that I could get it as perfect as possible. 

Some progress photos of my retop of the head. 

here is the finished face for now. I am going to go back in a mess with it a little more before I go on to unwrap it just to make sure there's no ngons or other mistakes. All the essential loops are in place and work correctly. I decided to make the face relatively high poly as I didn't want it to look faceted in any way. 

This was probably the most difficult part of the retop and I spent so long trying to get this perfect. I ended up having to use a lot of geometry for the shirt as there's a lot of details that i wanted the bake to pick up especially in the sleeves as they are heavily gathered. I looked at some shoulder deformation refences for this and did a lop on the top of the shoulder going down the arm and then loops going around under the armpit, I am slightly worried about whether my character will rig and skin nicely due to the sleeves being so puffy. I ended up using M smooth after I had finished connecting all my loops up and was happy with the topology as I needed it to catch some more of the definition of the high poly in the creases. sadly this did mean i ended up with a lot of topology however I did manage to make it a little less wasteful in the chest area. I'm really hoping that the shirt will bake nicely. 

Here is the finished shirt with all the correct deformation loops. The M smooth really helped pick up some more of the shape so that it didn't look as crunchy. I think adding this was a good choice since the sleeves are a key part of the silhouette. 

This is the finished face after I corrected any of the mistakes, i am overall happy with this however the ears could have been better. I did try and make them spiral inwards but there was so much geometry it became really hard for me to deal with. At this point I am becoming very constricted with time and I need to start on the next parts of the project. If I get time I can go back and add further geometry to this. I will be coving up some of the faceted edges with earrings in the mean time. 

I have now finished the full retop. the rest of the character was relatively straight forward to do as it didn't require too many loops. The arms were quite hard ad I had to do an elbow pad along with some other complicated parts with the fingers which I had to use a lot of refences for to get right as there was many things I had to consider with them such as the knuckles. My fingers aren't perfect as I think they could have done with some more geometry however in relation to the arms they worked well and I think since the characters hands will have gloves on it wont be too bad. my model has quite a few little bits to it so it took me ages to retop all of this and like I said before I am quite conscious of the amount of time i have left for this project. 

Here are some close up images of the retop of the shoes and body. I think the skirt retop came out really nicely and I am hoping to texture it well too. I have collected a variety of refences for the clothing so I have lots of ideas in mind. Since the shoes don't need deformation loops they were quite quick to do. A lot of my model could be mirrored as well so this modifier came in useful a lot. 

As I am quite short on time I decided to Zremesh the hair and then edit it in max and conform it to the high poly. Luckily since I did short hair the hair doesn't really need to deform too much anyway so this shouldn't be too bad. ideally I would have liked to have retopped it better with full loops around it however for the sake of time I did zremsh it. It has held the form of the high poly well thought so I am hoping the bake will nicely pick up the details. The thinner strands of hair around the face would have been really awkward to retop and I would have needed a good chunk of time to do these perfectly. However on the thinner strands zremesh pretty much perfectly gave me the needed deformation loops so I was happy with this outcome. Its just the main body of hair that would need some work if I had time. 

I think overall the low poly character looks nice and not overly faceted. The colours shown on the model are corresponding to the material IDs and how i have split up the texture sheets. Here is the front of the fully retopped model.

Here is the back of the fully retopped model. I am really pleased with how the rousers have held their shape on the low poly so I hope the creases will be able to bake well into them. Another thing that I am happy with is the pleated skirt, even thought I had a lot of issues sculpting it to make it look nice its turned out quite nicely. 

Unwraps

Clothes- 2048

Hair- 1024

Skin- 2048

Props- 1024

Eyes- 512

Baking process

For my painter baking process I ended up having a lot of errors which took me soooo much time to fix which set my schedule back even further. I am now quite worried for how much time I am going to have for texturing. I wish I had planned out this project with errors such as this in mind. For the error above it was a simple fix of painting out the ambient occlusion map. To do this once I had done my final bake at 2048 8x8 antialiasing I deleted the AO map and then added it back into a dill layer where i could correct it. I was able to fix some of the other errors by simply adjusting the cage but this one I could not fix with out painting it out on the actual AO map. It took me quite a bit of time to figure out how to do that but it turned out to be quite simple. There are now no errors at all on the hair and the 8x8 bake picked up the details I had sculpted really well so I am very pleased. I do still wish to be able to try out hair cards in summer thought to get a more realistic look. 

My next error was this strange artifacting on the collar and this one took me the longest to figure how what was going on with it. I thought it might be something to do with the UVs but I could not immediately see the issue until I saw some strange geometry laying on top of the UV island of the neck. I deleted this and the problem was fixed.

Another issue I had was the normals of the fingers that were close together projecting onto the other fingers causing this strange line. Like the AO errors it was a simple fix of painting out the normal map and the AO map however I don't mind this error too much because the line kind of looks like a seam as they are gloves however I have fixed it anyway. 

The final issue I had was some of the smaller objects not baking this was a simple naming issue where I had not correctly matched up the names of the high poly and low poly. 

Here is my finished bake on the top half of the body. I am really pleased with how this has turned out and I am looking forward to texturing. It was definitely worth the baking time to bake at 8x8 antialiasing even though it did take a lot longer. 

Here is the front body finished bake (or so I thought).

I noticed that there was some kind of weird AO error going on on the trousers so to fix this I was able to reduce the distance of the AO cage and it completely got rid of these spots and didn't effect the details of the other clothes at all.

After I had got my bake to as perfect as possible it was time to move onto texturing. This part of my process took me a really long time as had to work out where the problems were coming from and work out how to correct them. I think in hindsight I needed to leave myself more time for this part of the project however I have learnt for next time how to plan my time more efficiently with consideration of baking errors and baking time. I am really happy with how the bake looks though and I am looking forward to texturing it.

Texturing and lighting

I am going to be texturing my model and lighting it at the same time so that I can consistently see what the final outcome is going to look like in engine and make any necessary adjustments so that the textures look how I want them to look as substance painter isn't a perfect representation of what it is going to look like. I worked in this way from my back yard slice last term and for my lynx and really liked it. I started out my texturing process by blocking out some colours (which I ended up changing quite a bit to better fit the narrative and role of my character). I will go on to start building up the layers and adding some more edgewear and surface details. I have made some alphas and tiling textures for some of the designs and logos I will be using. 

Here is the first import of my character and textures in unreal. it currently looks really terrible though as there's barely any textures or nice lighting on it. There is still a long way to go in the texturing process. 

I was really pleased with how I was able to texture the leather skirt. I used some refences online and liked the look of the white contrast stitching. I think this adds a sense of realism to the skirt and also ties it in well with the colour scheme of the rest of the clothes. The stitches are done on a paint layer with a stitch brush and alpha. I added stitches to a lot of the relevant clothes such as the leather belts and the top. I also wanted to add some elements of fashion into the design so I edited a fishnet tiling texture and imported it into my project and added some height. I really like the depth and interest this creates. As you can see my metal belt has baked a little funny and I wasn't sure why however I didn't mid this effect so much as it just looked like worn away metal edges and wasn't too visible ion engine. If I had more time I would have changed this possibly. 

Another part of my texturing process that I am quite pleased with are the leather shoes I made. I heavily referred to a reference image for these and liked the way they turned out. 

Here is an earlier screenshot of the trousers before I had finished texturing the skin and shoes. The decal print I made myself in photoshop featuring the company logo that I designed. This has also been brought into the environment that Kingsley made as seen on his lab coat. 

The images above show some of the alpha sheets I made and then imported into painter so I could add the decals on the clothing and props. I wanted to add lots of elements of narrative onto the character.

Here are some pictures of some finished textures in painter. the front stands of hair didn't bake properly and I didn't notice until I added texture however I don't like how these look so I will be deleting them. I didn't want to make the actual texture too noisy, I used some tutorials and refences for painting the face and the rest of the skin. I am quite pleased with how this has tuned out.

Ignore the strand of hair is is broken. 

The full body of my character in painter. I ended up changing the colours and textures of the top to white instead of like a fabric purple because It was helping establish the role and narrative of the character. the white suggested more of a science researcher type of character rather than a more ominous one. I think changing the colours to white has really helped present the role of the character more clearly. Since the fabric is also white and kind of like a shiny latex it looks like something that would be worn in a lab as this material can be easily washed. 

Props

I was planning on making quite a few bigger props for my character however I was really running out of time which was ashame as I was really looking forward to doing some hard surface modelling. I was originally planning on making a little gun however I did end up making a karambit knife which I am happy with. To made this I used a refence and then built up the shapes using a mixture of techniques including turbo smooth and msmooth. The high poly is the low poly but with more topology and added smoothing groups. The smoothing groups worked really well on the karambit as I was easily able to get some nice details in. I really enjoyed modelling the knife and I think it turned out quite nicely. I would like to do some more hard surface modelling in the future especially weapons as this part of the project was something new for me.  The idea behind the knife was supposed to be both for cutting off and collecting samples in the field (the alien area) or for self defence purposes if needed. I think maybe I could have reduced the amount of topology a bit but i got a bit carried away with making it look really clean. 

Here is the high poly with the smoothing groups. The low poly is very similar just slightly lower poly an no smoothing groups. 

Here is the knife fully textured in substance. I used refences for this again and I am happy with the outcome. 

This is the textures necklace in substance. there are 3 crosses on it but I will duplicating it in max before putting it into unreal as I didn't want to bake the uvs over the top of each other. To made the necklace I used the array tool but it didn't look very natural so i moved the links by hand a lot. 

This is the business card I made on photoshop using a screenshot on my characters face in unreal. I like how this has added some more specific narrative to my character and it ties it in well with the environment. 

ID holder in painter

This was a simple prop I made to hold the karambit knife. It slides onto the trouser strap. It features an embossed logo and contrast stitching to match the belt. 

I made some test tube props so that when my character will go out into the field she would collect samples and place them in the tubes strapped onto the belt.

I made a simple glass shader

Final result of the glass test tubes. I would have liked to have messed around with the instance a bit more but i had to start moving on due to time.

Unreal lighting (along side texturing)

I was doing my lighting process along side my texturing so as the textures change I change my lighting setup a lot. I personally I started out with the character in a sky sphere but that didn't make sense plus the light was washing out a lot of the details and looked really strange. I ended up making a new level which was all black cos I could completely light it to how I wanted. The character would be stood inside a dark lab so lighting it in this way was much more successful and I could properly bring out the textures. 

Currently the textures look terrible and the whole character looks plastic and cartoon like. I need to add a lot more to it. I have been using a wide range of references. 

                                                 

I had added some more details including various generators, hand made alphas and hand painted layers. The lighting is still in the sky sphere but I have posted the character at this point because the A pose is really unnatural. I used mixamo for the skinning and rigging along with the pose and looping animation. The looping animation is my character typing on a control panel as can be seen in my groups perforce file in the lab near the portal.

                                                       

 

I made the sky sphere darker here but I still didn't like the textures or the lighting so I went back into painter and started messing around again. the lighting set up I had was way too complicated for a character and was completely washing out all the features. this is also before I deleted the front small strands of hair. 

Oh god I really hate the lighting and textures here.

Final lighting + texturing setup- Changed to black background

Here is my final lighting setup and textures. I am relatively happy with how the lighting turned out. I will post a picture of the setup further down. it mainly features point lights set to a warm colour however I have used a back light which is in a cool blue colour to backlight it and just showcase the silhouette a little more also this is similar to the vibe of the lab she will be stood in. The floor is just a simple plane with a shiny texture on it. I lit it in a way that shows of the textures but doesn't completely blind the details out and the features. 

I was pleased with my ending light setup. I think it works with my character quite well. Especially once I had added the blue backlight.

Final thoughts on this project- Overall I am really proud to have been able to make a full game ready PBR character which has a looping animation. There are some things in which I think I could have done better. These include adding eyelashes to the character with alphas, I really ran out of time so I did not get round to doing this. I think I would have also liked to have taken the rig and skin biped into max just to edit it and make it really perfect. Miximo did a good job but its not completely perfect. another thing would be is to add more subsurface qualities to the skin. The things I ended up missing out were things that I had to leave out due to time management. I had some issues especially with the baking which took way longer than anticipated so it really set me back and when it came to texturing and engine stuff I was really limited with timings. next year when I made another character I am going to plan out a schedule now I know how long things take. For this project I wanted to make a character that I would like to play as in a game and I think I was successful as I am pleased with the overall design of her. I think she does have a unique character design and an interesting silhouette even though I wasn't able to iterate much on the design. I am really interested in fashion and I will be learning both clo and marvellous in summer as I am interested in 3d fabric simulation and fashion. I wish I could have used these software on this project along with hair cards and marmoset but I did not give myself enough time to learn them. I think the character has semi realistic qualities but what would have really helped would have been hair cards. I am relatively disappointed with how the sculpted hair ended up looking in relation to this rest of the character and textures. My character ended up being just under 50k tris which I think is a good amount for a game ready character. (I forgot to mention this before in the blog so I will mention it now). Also I would like to note that the knife is currently in the pocket I made so in unreal you cant get it out because Miximo has grouped all my objects into one. I have included a screenshot of it in my beauty shots. The other props you can either see and I have included screenshots further up. I really enjoyed this project but it was a massive challenge for me and I did have some hard times during it but I learnt so much and now feel confident in developing my character art skills with the help of some new software. I am really interested in making some final fantasy style characters as I love the models from square enix so I want to have a look at these. I worked so hard on this and I think in some areas it has paid off but there are clear improvements I will need to make going into third year. 

My reference board

Final presentation page

I was inspired to make this little page from some fashion posts I saw on Pinterest breaking down an outfit lol.

Contextual tasks

To go along side my blogging for my projects this year I have also been completing a series of contextual questions to support my growth as a game art student. These have all been documented below under the relevant sub headings. 

• What is your 3D “comfort zone?” How do you hope to expand it over this academic year?

I think with 3D it is very important to push yourself to learn new skills and new software's in order to push forward the quality and outcome of your work. In industry artists use a wide variety of development software and I think its really important to have a wide knowledge all of  these and how they can be used and inputted into the uni coursework I will be doing. Learning new skills really pushes you out of your 3D comfort zone and it encourages you to start trying out workflows that may be unfamiliar and you may have a lot of issues with. However once practiced you can input them in a way which could bring up the quality or improve work efficiency. Sticking to the use of the same software such as max and only using the same tools and workflows is within a 3D comfort zone whereas trying new things even within the software's pushes you to expand your knowledge further even if you might experience set backs and problems a long the way. I hope to not only expand my knowledge of the software I use for efficacy and quality purposes but also improve on the knowledge of technical aspects such as topology and optimization. I want to push myself to learn how to create nicely optimized assets with topology which is appropriate for its purpose. Knowing when to add in loops for example in areas of deformation whilst also implying game ready qualities. I think my 3D comfort zone lies within the kinds of work I was doing in first year and kind of pushing myself into taking more of an independent initiative to start making my own personalized assets with out the use of lots of tutorials and hand holding. I want to be proactive in my learning and solve as many issues as I can by myself as this will not only help me in the future but also teach me more in depth how to use software correctly. 

• What is the purpose of highly reusable textures and 3D assets in video game environment art creation?

In the context of environment game art construction reusable textures and 3D assets can make a project a lot more efficient and also link lots of elements of it together. Making a procedural tiling texture that can be added onto lots of walls or floors for example is a good way to tie environments together and create a sense of continuity to the levels. It also saves modelers a lot of time as it eliminates the need for making lots of new induvial textures for things that simply do not need them. These reusable textures can also be changed easily especially if they have been made procedurally to create a texture which reflects the other environments but also adds some difference, such as a color change or a change in size as could be used in reusable asset making. Making reusable 3D assets such as wall panels or making things in a modular way is a great and quick way of making larger scale environments. A set of a few modules can be duplicated repeatedly to efficiently build up a scene. This can be seen especially within sci fi environments that use a lot of metal space ship modular walls. 

 

• Investigate techniques and tools that can be utilised to create 3D environment assets faster, and ways in which assets and textures can be given variety to hide obvious repetition.

A really good tool in which can be used to create environments faster is substance designer as you can create very non destructive procedural tiling textures very fast. You can also model on substance painter if you are really good at it. You can quite easily modify procedural textures to make them slightly differ as the workflow is non destructive. This includes the colour and other grunges. 

• How does creation of meshes made for deforming/animated assets differ from static mesh creation?

Meshes made particularly for character assets need to be retopped in a specific way in order for the rigging team to rig and skin the character for animation. Joints need to be able to move in a realistic way with out any clipping or crunching of the character. To do this the 3d artist must add consistent loops around the deforming join and also pads around areas such as elbows and knees so that they can deform inwards or outwards and the meshes will not clip into each other. faces in particular need a series of special loops around the eyes nose and muzzle for the face to be able to move naturally with talking. There are many refences online for examples of good deformation retopology that can be adapted to fit your specific character asset. Static meshes do not require any deformation loops so the topology does not need to be created in the same way. The mesh still needs to be neat and square however pads and loops are not necessary for things like hard surface models as they don't need to be skinned and rigged for animation. 

• How does your mesh show the role or use of the animal within its gameplay or world setting?

This question is referring to my animal project in which I made a lynx character asset with a detachable saddle asset. My Lynx is simply supposed to be a mount in which another character can ride around on. It had a leather pouch which a player can use as extra inventory space. I chose to make a snow lynx therefore the environment in which it would be set in would be snowy. the saddle also features a tusk which could be from another animal such as a sabre tooth tiger or a small mammoth coming from the same environment. I chose to do a Lynx as they are some of my favourite animals. 

• Investigate your chosen focus. What are some common employability requirements within this specialism of 3D?

Some common employability requirements within character art can include-

- Having good communication and teamwork skills as character art will require you to work with lots of different departments such as concept art, rigging and any other more specific areas such as props, hair, animation. 

- You must have good self motivation as you will be required to work long hours under a lot of pressure. Also a good motivation in learning new software relevant to the studio or new software that has just come onto the market.

- Good time management skills in order to meet deadlines.

- Meticulous attention to detail.

- Positive mindset as this will help you grow a character artist and produce better work and work well with others in your team.

- A knowledge of relevant software such as maya, max, zbrush, painter, designer, photoshop, unity or unreal.

- A desire to build on current knowledge and be contently developing into a better character artist.

- Good perseverance and problem solving.

-A passion for games and the game industry.