3D Creation Pipeline for Film and Games : Character and Hard model asset Development Blog
Hello to everyone who is reading this. My name is Hriday Kamath V. and this is my first blog ever. This is part of an assignment of blogging my journey of creating my own character at the end of the semester of my Masters course in Computer Animation at Kingston University. I have never gone to this extent of documenting every thought and every move regarding this process. I am excited and nervous but I believe this is important. In order to become a very good designer/animator, there will be things that will make me move from my comfort zone.
OBJECTIVE : To document the process of creating my very own character along with a hard model asset.
PROCESS : At the time of writing this blog, we are two weeks into our classes and I have realized that I am way out of my depth regarding understanding the software. It has been over a year since the last time I have used any 3d software and I can feel the effects of that. I'm pretty worried about how I will cope with this project. However, Mr Cunningham, our instructor for this module has given us access to ample amounts of practice material which I plan to make use of.
During one of the classes, I was quite blown away with how Mr Cunningham used the tools to create shapes. These were methods which I had come across for the first time.
Along with showing my progress with the software, I will also be providing updates on how I will be conceptualizing the character of my choice.
I have always enjoyed sketching out characters using references as a means of practicing anatomy and basic shapes, however this project requires me to create my own. Of course I do have an opportunity to create a 3d character of already conceptualized characters but I believe there is no fun without tackling problems of your own creation along the way. And I hope these words don't come back to bite me. Fingers crossed.
fig.1 : To begin with, I have written down Ilya Dragunov.
He is a pro wrestler who is currently working for a show called NXT in WWE.
I am a big wrestling fan and have been since I was a little kid. I'm a big fan of a wrestler called JOHN CENA. He was the one who I aspired to be like when I grew up and I still do.
(screenshots taken from video)
Over the years I have learnt to understand how wrestling is more than breath-taking moves and exciting matches, I learnt of how people bring out characters of their own, like a movie, and how they try to tell stories with their ring gear or with how they present themselves etc.
One afternoon I was catching up with what has been happening in the wrestling world and came across ILYA DRAGUNOVs match. During the entrance he wore this cape and it instantly caught my attention and my first reference to the character was born.
The second core reference for my character is a Pokémon named Infernape. He is the final
evolution of a Pokémon called Chimchar.
fig.3 : Image credit to Pokedex
Amongst all the Pokémon I had watched over a period of time, this was the one Pokémon that had a character arc of its own. It gets abandoned by its first Trainer and joins the protagonist but still has trauma about his old trainer and the methods he used to train him. But through all that, he wanted to prove to his old trainer that he can get stronger and towards the final stages of the series he is the one who stands tall when their trainers face each other in a tournament.
It taught me an important lesson at a young age that we must push through our troubles in order to get better, to get stronger, and you are never alone. There are
well wishers watching your back at all time and your hard work will always pay off in the end.
The final core reference will be a popular character in mythology. He is known as Sun Wukong, or widely known as the Monkey king.
| fig.4 : Image credit to AIZE (from Artstation) |
There have been many interpretations of the monkey king from various movies and series. He is arrogant, cocky, a maverick, but considered one of the most powerful mythological beings in Chinese mythology. The version I have chosen for the character development is from the Chinese animated movie called Nezha Reborn. Though he is not the protagonist in this film, the style and flair he carries in the movie is something that attracted me to his character. A pop color suit with a huge mask and immense confidence in his abilities.
07-11-2023
It has been a few days since the last update on the blog. A lot has happened, a lot of meetings, practicing modelling in Maya , panicking about a new software(Zbrush). The internal tutorials in Canvas have really been helping out with Maya.
A few examples of my modelling practice.
Boiler Piece
Cloth Pin
Stick Grenade
Security Camera
During this time I have come to a conclusion on how I want to approach doing the project. I realised the character will need time and a lot of attention in Zbrush which will be a new challenge on its own which then leaves me with the hard model asset creation. A few ideas for what I want to do. I was very keen on doing a model that compliments my character but was concerned about a lot of my other colleagues going down that route. I believed it was important that I stood out with the set of skills I have. Therefore, I chose to model a bicycle.
A bicycle has been the mode of transport I used when I was working back in India. It has been in the rain and the sun but made sure to never break down on me and it made me appreciate a cycle even more. I do wish I can get myself my very own bicycle in the UK. However, the aim is to model a bicycle within the 15th of Nov. Let's see how we get along with it.
12-11-2023
It's been a decent start to the hard model asset so far. I have slowly realised there are so many intricate and so many elements in a cycle. It has definitely become quite a challenge already but I stay positive at this point in time. These are a few images to show the progress so far.
I picked out the style of cycle I wanted to model. I chose something simple
to look at but intricate enough to work as a model.
 |
| I started off by modelling the tube of the tires. I understood that I should start with something simple to help confidence to model complex shapes later. |
After the tubes, I made a simple model of the frame and
swiftly moved to making the spokes of the tires.
swiftly moved to making the spokes of the tires.
Here I was able to model the centre of the tire along with the nuts and the washer.
Also started working on the holes that will be connecting the spokes from
the centre to the rim of the tire.
We also had classes on retopology. I had never heard of that term until I sat in that class. I never knew there was a way to retopologize an object. I really enjoyed the process during class hours. I was unable to complete the exercise therefore I worked on it when I was in my accommodation.
I did send these two for review with our Professor, Mr. Cunningham, who helped me out understand the mistakes especially in the retopology, I did not realise I had made so many errors. But I need to put some practice there. Regarding the Cycle, we discussed optimising edge flow for the central element of the wheel. It was a long week in terms of hours put in, but seems like only very little was done.
The focus for next week will be to try and progress more with the cycle, ideally I would like to finish both the wheels but it looks like a tall task, and in terms of practicing, I do have an Eiffel tower looking phone that I would like to model or I focus on retopology exercises. So much to do and learn and so little time to play with.
The face re topologized face.
15-11-2023
Another ordinary start to the week. I thought I would finish modelling the cycle by today. Talk about overambitious. I'm a little concerned about the time now. I believe I have around 45 days left. I may need to start thinking about starting the character, however my main concern is still being able to understand Zbrush in time. I had a terrible first half of the first class which was sculpting today. In the second half of the day, we were paired into groups and tasked to create a new character. It was a sci-fi, human with animal DNA kind of character. We later had to make a few silhouettes of the character which did not do well for my confidence.
Sketching out silhouettes of the character. Exercises like these help out understanding your concept character and help you pose out the character. Creating a few poses should also
help establish the feel and idea of the concept character.
Back to working on the spoke holes. It was tough to try and maintain
the shape and the edge flow when modelling the holes.
While working on the spokes, I had to work on it multiple times, because of the pattern the spokes create. I was so confused on how to connect the spokes to the rim, I had a moment of contemplation, whether to model the cycle was the right choice.
Modelling the spoke holder type pin hole that
comes with the rim.
comes with the rim.
Once I had completed that mammoth task of the spokes and rim I moved to the main gear model.
21-11-2023
There has been a lot of progress I feel in both projects since the last update. A lot has been completed in the cycle project and I now have an ideal map of how my character will look like. Its a tall task since its a human character with a good amount of muscle definition. Am I confident in pulling this off ? I should be. Positive energy all the way. Will I need a holiday after I'm done? Certainly.
Lets start with the cycle. I ran into a few problems this week. I was messing with the shape of the wheel as I was trying to have the spokes attached to the rim of the wheel. I was getting very frustrated because I couldn't understand what and why it was going wrong. As that was happening, I was working on the seat of the cycle. I still haven't figured out what happened, but the frame of the cycle got doubled and it had somehow joined, rather than being inside the main frame of the cycle. I also ran into problems with the faces of the model at many places. There were faces within faces or faces within two faces. When I had discovered these it was Saturday evening and I was concerned that I would need the whole of Sunday to fix these. I was very angry and a little nervous when the week ended. Below are a few images of what the problems were.
Hidden faces were very troublesome during the modelling process.
It made it hard to create seamless edge flow.
Then there was the sudden appearance of double/duplicated faces on the cycle frame.
I just did not know how it happened.
I then emailed my Professor, who has become the saviour of my project at this point, and the fact that our professor recorded a video in regards to the problem of the center and spoke part of the wheel, I was quite taken aback. This may sound a bit cheesy and out of the ordinary, however, I really appreciate the professor putting that much effort to help me out. I believe such little things help out with confidence and with the eagerness to do a good job at the project.
with the model. Very pleased with of how it has turned out so far.
like the long distance cyclists use, and this model would be the
closest I will come to having one of this style for a while.
 |
Once I was able to rectify the mistake with the wheel, which turned out very well, I was able to move on to the other parts of the cycle. I seemed to have carried a lot of momentum after Sunday because Monday, or the day before this update on the blog, I made a lot of progress on the cycle. The two gears for the chain, the pedals, the seat, the handle, all done in these two or three days. Very happy with how it is turning out. Still a long way to go, one step at a time.
The elements left to be done at this point of the update are the chain, the brakes, the brake cables, the outside of the rims, the tire, the tube within the tire, the brake callipers and the little details. Not too bad I guess.
Now onto the character. It was a gamble to create my own character with the time and software learning constraints. I'm already getting my excuses ready in case I fail to complete this project. I was excited about creating this character and as you must have read in the intro of this blog, the inspirations were all there and there was a vision of what the character will look and feel like. Following are images of the initial process of the character.
The Initial reference collection. The pots were something I thought will help shape the face better since I have the liberty to exaggerate the features as its a stylised character. The collection below is the face of a Bollywood actor, Ranbir Kapoor, who recently played a protagonist in the movie titled "Animal", he has a pointy chin, with a face shaped like a cone in some way. The collections on the right were ones that would give me an idea in terms of exaggeration and stylised facial features.
The very first sketch of the character in mind. Just trying to see what I'm looking for.
Not trying to get it right.
Working on the shape of face, nose, eyes. These things are important as
they are the first things people notice when they look at you.
The idea of hair was just my admiration for a man bun.
A lot of movies depict a lot of samurais having a man bun as well.
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The final concept for the face. I made sure I drew the face
at different angles to get myself accustomed to the face.
at different angles to get myself accustomed to the face.
I was going for an athletic build. But not very skinny. It was a bit
of a cross between a swimmer and a sprinter.
Working on a bit of posing. Drawing as many poses as possible.
Again getting accustomed to the body type along with the head.
Again getting accustomed to the body type along with the head.
The clothing idea for the character. I'm very much wanting to have a fur based cape
on the character because of my interest in capes in general.
on the character because of my interest in capes in general.
In terms of character inspiration, it was highly influenced by the monkey king, along with the inspirations I talk about in the beginning of the blog that sparked the idea of the character.
Initially while I was sketching out the character, I was really not getting a hang of what he should look like. However as I got sketching it showed up slowly. The more I sketched, the more I got comfortable in figuring out what the character will be like. The last time I had created a 3d character I had made it cute and lovable. And for this the intent was clear inn regards to how the character will be. It should represent the struggle of long hours and hard work to get to where he is.
The challenges and the opportunity to create something new, all there to be taken advantage of. Its a patient race against time. As of today, I'm 40 days out to the new year, and the submission will in the 3rd week of January. It will be close and it should be fun.
27-11-2023
It was a pretty low productive week. At the time of typing this, I don't remember doing much. I do know that I had to drag myself to finish the Cycle model, which I did. Very happy with the way it came out. I believe I may have taken a day or two more than what I intended (lets please forget the part I wanted to finish the model by 15th).
Working on the brakes here.
Modelling the brake pad. It was definitely an interesting understanding of
the significance of each element which I have overlooked while riding a bicycle.
Modelling the individual bit of chain.
Once I modelled the individual bit, I used the MASH tool, which has an option to add selected polygon into the shaped curve. I had made a shape of a chain with the curve circle then added the curve option in MASH. I used this video from
REINS ACADEMY (https://youtu.be/Ai4KR28XcfA?si=MU_oHLowm46v1SQ6) as reference to help me out.
I will probably be uploading the full model probably in the next update, after I have shown it to the Professor and figured out the next few steps. I have the UV mapping, which then allows me to add textures and the aim of the final product will be to make it as real as possible or a PBR (Physical Based Render). It is a way of trying to replicate a model made in 3d, and make it look real with the help of lighting and textures. That is how I have understood it.
07-12-2023
Its been a little too long since the last update. I'll get straight to the point. We were shown a few examples of blogs that were written by our seniors. Our professor showed us a few pointers on how to write it. Making it as explicit as possible was the bottom line of the session we had in class. I did think about what has been written in this blog up until this point and wondering if it requires any changes.
I don't think I will change anything except add descriptions to the images I add, because our professor raised a good point stating that an image with no context serves no purpose. Therefore, moving forward I will try to be as explicit as possible, and at the end, if necessary compare the two halves of the blog as this paragraph will serve as a mark of the possible change.
Lets start with the cycle asset. At the moment I am almost done with the UV mapping of the asset. The plan is to finish the mapping by this week. That will help me plan the next few steps as well accordingly.
One of the hardest things to do while UV mapping for me is having to work
with small elements or sharp corners. I always have to think two steps ahead while
I cut to get a shape that will work for texturing later.
with small elements or sharp corners. I always have to think two steps ahead while
I cut to get a shape that will work for texturing later.
Here I had some issues with the vertices, it was for some reason pointing out
instead of curving like the rest. Upon further investigation, 4 different vertices
had occupied one spot and were not merged together.
had occupied one spot and were not merged together.
Fixing overlapped edges, as they can be destructive in the process going forward,
can impact the texturing process.
I'm positive that it should not look like that. I will have to take this up with our Professor because it
looks very goofy. You know something is off even if you may not know about UV mapping.
11-12-2023
I have started my process with the character asset. First challenge was not to rage quit Zbrush every time I did something unusual and then not knowing what to do. However, thanks to the suggestions of the videos to watch from our professor, it became a little easier.
An Intro to Zbrush by Michael Pavlovich is a series of introductory videos with very simple and in-depth teaching of Zbrush (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzopwqcFevYP1Nm3wIKsyH-jQTkk8AhS&si=UiUCpFHW_z6G5A7G)
Then there is a video from FlippedNormals (https://youtu.be/_yKGfcp2z3k?si=qDMNnLyfwvPrMBOv) that did calm my nerves regarding the way Zbrush is because I was a lost soul during the classes. I had never felt so out of sync with anything.
| I had no clue what transposing was. I happen to see one of our Guest lecturers Mr Carlo Bautista using it. This short video helped me understand what it was (https://youtu.be/dne3tanKjP4?si=gw3Y6zldiD0H4EYa) |
Using the DamStandard brush to mark out the elements on the face.
Claybuild brush was a brush that most of the tutorials seem to favour as one of the 4 -5 brushes to use.
It was a very powerful brush to use as it gives you the feeling of playing with endless amounts of clay.
It was a very powerful brush to use as it gives you the feeling of playing with endless amounts of clay.
Adding the hair to the character.
The First look of the sculpted head. I'm getting better with the interface and the controls.
Will not be focusing on the details at the time being.
A video from Danny Mac 3D (https://youtu.be/cjZt0ICfutQ?si=YLdeFbFlPU0HO3jv) was a great reference point to start the sculpting of the head. I was all over the place when I started off, and maybe after rage quitting the software a few times, it was a pleasant sculpting session.
16-11-2023
In this update I will be sharing the sculpting of the body. I had a great time sculpting this because of my profound interest in human anatomy. As an aspiring character designer, one of the things that I have seen and heard from teachers and artists is the importance of understanding the flow of the human body. It definitely is one of the most fascinating things to learn because of how complex yet simple the human body is, how very well structured it is which helps us function the way we do.
I first started off by having a reference of the muscle in the upper body.
It had these sections which made it easier to mould the muscles in their respective places.
The idea of blocking each muscle group into chunks was something our lecturer Mr. Bautista mentions in his workshop lectures. It helps one to get the basic shape ready to go for the next stage in sculpting.
Here I used Dynamesh to almost melt two blocks of muscle and by using the
smooth and claybuildup tool worked on getting the shape and definition of the muscle.
I must admit that the Dynamesh and Zemessher options are quite powerful and dangerous options in Zbrush. Though one gives you an option to use multiple polygons to help you shape the sculpt and the later helps in reducing the number of polygons to help you sculpt, they both can easily ruin the details on the sculpt you made.
Adding muscles to the thighs. Having references makes your life so much easier. If not
for referencing, there are so many limitations to how things could be. There is always
the do from memory, unfortunately I do not trust myself. Long live references.
Adding markers for the muscles on the back. A simple way of understanding where each muscle will be.
With the cycle, I am at the final stages of unwrapping the spokes of the tire. Unfortunately I have run into a bit of trouble regarding it. I'm still trying to figure out how I manage that issue.
A small example of using the cut tool in the UV editing tool kit. You select an edge flow, click cut, click unfold and it separated it into two.
And stich together does the opposite. You select two edges, click stich together, click unfold, and vola!!,
they are now together into one shape.
I'm getting a little nervous as now I have 15 days left until the end of the year. The plan is to have both the assets ready for render by the end of December. Its looking like it will be close, However I will go through with this and it will turn out well.
23-12-2023
Its the most wonderful time of the year. Its Christmas. The most wonderful time for me would be rendering these two assets and that is hopefully happening next year. My character finally has clothes on him. I conceptualised a few designs and came to a final decision of the design. Looks very simple, royal, and gives the character a very wise and authoritarian look and feel.
These were the key elements in the brainstorming of the costume for the character.
mix of samurai and military force uniform.
The following images are the concept designs I came up with after going through the references. I was looking for something that would fit to be worn in a courtroom, in the early centuries, in the
times of the kings and queens. The fur was something I was certain about as I was excited to
explore the possibilities of how I could create it in a stylised manner.
By the time I designed these designs, I felt I was getting closer to the vision
I had for the character, along with the feel I was going for in terms of the design.
The final design I chose for the character. It was a simple design which allowed me
to focus on texturing in Substance Painter.
I initially started off with a cape, which was not a part of the final design. It was a little too simple, as this assignment is a way of pushing your creative ideas, showing off your skills, I believe, is important. It definitely varies from person to person, and your grasp on necessary software.
But I really enjoy capes in general. Something about them that makes
the character ooze with confidence.
The addition of shoulder plates gave the character a bit of the army or armed forces feel. A few of my clothing references have these big shoulder plates on them. A bit of 2000s era Vegeta influence as well. For those who don't know, Vegeta is a very popular anime character. A very interesting character in my opinion. |
My other inspiration for the shoulder plates were these art pieces by COLE MARCHETTI
(https://www.instagram.com/cole_chetti/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet), which I happened to stumbled upon on Instagram.
fig 5 : Chole Marchetti, 2023
fig 6 : Duke Leto Atreides, Chole Marchetti, 2023
Instead of a cape, I went with a long fabric falling off one of the shoulders.
The long fabric is an influence from a few Indian kings or ministers from back in the day.
They had a long-shawl-like fabric on one side of their body.
For the pants, a direct influence of what the samurais wore. Very baggy,
and big with a lot of folds.
| They also wore these socks-like pieces of clothing on their shins, but they are long pieces of cloth that wrap around their shins. I made a mask on my shins and then extracted the shape from there. This way the shape can hug the shin better and look natural. I was not familiar with extracting shapes after masking, therefore I referred to this video from ZINTERACTIVE (https://youtu.be/EUnRehFpe0w?si=ee8YAIGbPYkYJiEh). |
I have been trying to solve a major issue regarding the cycle. Unfolding is something that is done in Maya which allows a shape to be flat but still retain its shape. It makes it easier this way to add texture.
My problem was the unfolding of the spokes and the part in the middle of the tire which holds the spokes. I have spent days tiring to figure out on how to unfold it, each way I tried led to the same issue where the ends of the spokes fell off.
As problem solvers in some way, animators will always encounter problems big and small. Pushing your mind to find effective ways to solve problems is the best way to improve your problem solving abilities, and a classroom assignment is a perfect vessel of experimenting multiple ways to solve. Helps with your confidence if you get it right, and you learn something new if you get it wrong.
I had to spend close to 8 hours to finally solve the issues. My butt was not pleased with that.
It does feel good at the end of it to know it turned out much better than expected. It was a long process which was quite rewarding in a way in terms of confidence in understanding the software and yourself.
Here I'm cleaning up the UVs. Doing this helps you avoid issues when you
go for texturing in a different software.
The character is shaping out well. At the moment I'm working on the details which I hope will be done before Christmas. I'm excited about how it is turning out. The cycle has the UVs ready for texturing, the clean-up is done as well. Need to start understanding Substance painter. I have had a few opportunities to work with the software. Very powerful, and versatile. I'm looking forward to the challenge of a new software. Merry Christmas.
01-01-2024
A happy New Year to everyone that is reading this. My best wishes for the year ahead.
Lets start with the cycle today. Unfortunately, I have run into a major issue. The file has become so large that it has started lagging. To make matters worse, I made a big mistake while changing the model from low poly to high poly. I have had to halt proceedings regarding the cycle for now. I would have been able to finish texturing and most probably move to the rendering part. I'm very nervous at the moment, especially because I will need a low poly model to add the textures. I will need to run it by our Professor and figure it out.
I have started adding the elements to the body. I'm very happy with how the body is sculpted, especially the back muscles. I wish I could sculpt my back muscles like how I have sculpted it for the character.
The addition of the ponytail is a nod to the old man/samurai characters in anime.
A lot of the elements you will find are very anime/samurai influenced type of characters.
Once I had completed the hair along with the facial hair as well, I added the shoulder plate which I modelled in Maya. I could have done the modelling for the clothing in Zbrush itself,
but I was curious to see if the opposite of the workflow worked for it.
I have always followed certain workflows to the T, and it was a refreshing challenge, a different approach that I used while modelling the clothes.
The wound on the abdomens was definitely one of the main focal points in the character.
Therefore it was important I spent some time working on it.
One of the main problems while working on the wounds was that you don't get good references. And the ones you get are very graphic and would not be ideal for a blog setting. I had to then move to animated movies, tv shows that could possibly have a reference to the wound I am going for.
(https://in.cdgdbentre.edu.vn/anime-burn-scars-3f85x194/) The in.cdgdbentre website was helpful in terms of reference for the wound.
The final element of the attire of the character was the fur on the shoulder pads. Since this was a game character, I did not want to make the fur have pointy ends like how it should be. I looked through a few references and decided to have a very dense and lumped up fur.
Building up the shape of the fur without the point ends.
Here I was trying to adjust the shape and position of the fur around the neck.
It came out better than what I expected in terms of how it looks.
Adding elements to
the shoulder plate as it looked very plain.
08 - 01- 2024
The final week before the submissions.
The final stretch, the final few miles, the final few steps before I can sleep for more than 4 - 5 hours. And of course, making sure we get the project done. It was a very insightful process so far, and important to finish strong this week.
The agenda for this week was to get the models prepped for the rendering process.
Once I had finished the sculpting part in Zbrush, I imported the FBX file into maya for re topologizing.
I started off by creating areas that are important in creating a good edge flow
for the face. Areas like around your eyes, the lips, the bridge of the nose.
The half cut pinkie finger was a deliberate design choice. As my character
was a warrior once, I believed it was important to have scars on your body to
remind the character of the times he was putting his life on the line.
Similar to the face, the body has places where the edge flow is important
i.e. the knees, the elbows, the neck, chest.
The wound on the abdomen was my focal point of the model. I made it look like it was a weapon fired at close range and the effects of that wound was still lingering for all the years past the event.
In one of the review sessions with our Professor, he mentioned how to make sure to keep the folds of the pants by creating the topology around the fold and then working with it to retain the fold. I feel the patterns I was able to create would make for great pieces on their own.
The low poly model had very hard edges which I did not realise at
the time of re topologizing. One of the internal tutorials had a solution for the problem.
The pink here represents the hard edges in Substance Painter.
Trying to fix the edges in maya. It was very alarming that the whole body
having hard edges instead of 2 or 3 places.
This was my first time texturing/painting a game character. It was a difficult time as my mind was trying to make it look realistic instead of making it look like a game character. But there are games with realistic textures/painting i.e. God of War, Red Dead Redemption etc. However I made a conscious decision to have the textures similar to games like Fortnite, Valorant, where I find the characters highly statured and with minimal textures.
The first I saw the rendered version of the model. Until this point of the process I was not exactly sold on how it would turn out, but reinstated a new belief which really helped me catch a second wind to complete the project.
Here I am trying to see if the colours are working or not with the skin tone. Very important to go back and forth between Substance painter and Maya to make sure it is turning out well.
This is the base light set up for the character. I'm going with 3 area lights to mimic a studio step up but with having the sky dome light as an added help in terms of the ambience before adding the area lights.
The 3 light set up is what most of the studios traditionally follow, with one being a key, one being a fill light and one of the highlights in the back.
Regarding the cycle, I want to believe we have solved the issue. In the latest review, our professor suggested to me a few ways to work with it. I want to believe its alright now, however unfortunately, I have to keep moving the process and look back at better alternatives later for the time being.
The final set up of the lights and position. I went with 5 lights because I was struggling to get highlights with 3 area lights. One extra can help me focus that light to add highlights to the model.
For the cycle, I went with a studio light setup HDR for the ambient light, paired that up with 3 area lights.
I will need to start texturing the cycle as soon as possible. I am a few days behind in terms of the cycle asset. The character has come out well. I will need to start compiling all the resources as well. A long week to go, hoping to finish strong.
11-01-2024
All the texturing is done. Unfortunately, I did a poor job of documenting the process. I was occupied with completing the task and the documenting part totally slipped my mind.
Well, this will be the final update of the projects. All my views and take aways will be put together after this. I have started rendering both the assets. I will be posting the renders of both the models here.
Final Render
Wireframe
UV checker Map
Final Render
Wireframe
UV checker Map
In this section of the blog, I will talk about the timetable and will try and critically analyse myself in the course of the assignment.
To start off, the main concern I had was time, moreover, the possibility of finishing the project in time.
I did not have a very well structured and written down schedule, however the cycle asset was the first model I started off with. My plan was to finish it as soon as possible, which I believe I did complete in about 10-12 days . During these days, I had to figure out a new software in Zbrush. Once I had done the modelling of the cycle, I took a week for the UV mapping process and by then I was getting accustomed with Zbrush. Though I knew I could only get a better understanding of the software once I kept at it, I was patient enough to not force it on me. It took me at least a week to be confident enough to start my character sculpting in Zbrush. While I was working with Zbrush, I took the opportunity to start conceptualising and sketching out my own game character. Once I had done that, it took me about 3 weeks to fully sculpt out the body of the character. And I was where I wanted to be by the beginning of the Christmas break. The focus during the break was to get the character and cycle render ready, which meant I had to model the aesthetics of the character and work on the problems of the cycle which I will talk about later, by the end of the break. I had about 2 weeks left, and I had to then figure out Substance Painter. Thanks to the internal tutorials by our Professor, it sped up the process and I was able to add the textures in about a week. Setting up the lights for render was done in a day or two which allowed me to have about a 4-5 for rendering. After I figured out the issues with the cycle which I still believe haven't been solved, it took me over a week and left me with like 2-3 days to render and submit the assignment.
Now for the juicy part of the blog. I hope I don't lose points for using the word juicy for critical analysis. I had the most struggle with the cycle asset. The initial model was good, then I ran into trouble when I did not realise the mistakes I made while connecting the spokes to the rim. That ended up being a major problem which spilled over while I was UV mapping it. The edges seemed broken, I was not getting the required edge flow. After one major flaw came another major blunder. We were told that there were 2 workflows to be followed for 2 different models. One is a Sub division smooth preview method and the other being the baking high poly to low poly method. I tried to do the high poly to low poly bake in the sub D workflow because of how I wrongly interpreted a few of the reference videos in our internal tutorial videos. I also did not UV map the Low poly model, instead I UV mapped the high poly model and by the time I realised the mistake I made, it was un reversible for most part. This also has affected the wireframe render which allows us to see the edge flow of the model. It has become too dense and not very pleasant looking. It also affected the textures that were added on later. I was disappointed with how it turned out because I had a promising start. I can only hold myself accountable for not doing more research or not doing better understanding of the workflows. I realised how one wrong step can create a domino effect on the entire process.
Now for the game character. The things I would like to improve are definitely the texturing part of it. I should do more studies with substance painter. A lot more exploring of Zbrush as well. I believe I did not fully commit to go all out with this software, I wanted to play it safe. The focus was more of making sure I have a good enough project where I push very little to minimise attention to the mistakes I make. I felt if I tried very hard in my first attempt with software I have no idea about, I would end up not putting up a completed project at will.
I did not test out things to the extent that I would like to. A few of the reference projects I got to see, they made time to test out things. I tried very few things but nothing to really showcase if asked. I would like to try and be more experimental moving forward. Less safe, simply put.
As I was typing about the time table part, I realised I should have made a visual structure which would have made it easier for viewers to understand my work timeline a little better. Timetabling is not one of my best assets, the only time table I have always followed is, do it as fast as possible. However I do not think having just that will work in the long run, a little structure should make it better.
Also, during the time of texturing the cycle, I was unable to texture the spokes in the Substance Painter, therefore I used a default material, changed the setting of the material to my liking. I chose to do that as my only option at that time was to use a material present in Maya. I could have used the old fashioned way of taking the UV to Photoshop and added texture there, however, doing that would compromise the quality of the texture, which will be depended on the resolution of the texture image, which are never a great of adding textures for a PBR model asset. I do a poor job of explaining that, as well as do a poor job in explaining the textures I have added. I can only attribute that to not taking sufficient images to explain, as I was trying to figure out the software and complete the project at the same time.
To conclude, a roller coaster of a process with a bitter ending of sorts. Learned a lot of how I work, found out a few pointers I can take away in terms of a better project process for the next one. Blogging was fun, I hope I can do more of these. Thank you to whoever is reading this. I appreciate the fact that you took time to read through this. Very grateful for your time and take care.
References
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Fig 4 : AIZE (2022). Monkey King (fan Art) | New Gods : Nezha Reborn. [online] Artstation. Available at : (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lxv6zG/ )
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