Pink Rabbit By
Lauren Westcott
Contents 1 The Proposal 2 Artstyle 3 Software 4 The Concept 5 Inspiration 6 Reference 7 The Plan 8 - 23 The Sculpt 24 - 30 Retop 31 - 35 UV & Bake 36 - 39 First Pass 40 - 43 Rigging & Posing 44 - 45 Second Pass
46 - 47 48 - 54 55 - 63 64 - 74 75 76 - 77 78 - 80
Third Pass & Facial Pose Experiment
First Environment & Second Pose Final Textures Prop & Last Touches Marmoset Reflection References
The Proposal For this project the goal is to create a game ready character in a stylized hand painted artstyle. I also want the character to be rigged, including facial animations. I will also create a small diorama to support the character’s theme and personality. The concept chosen is “Pink Rabbit” by Dannis Duan. I love the character for this, I think the overall personality of the concept is perfect for what I want to achieve within the project. I’ve actually had my eyes on this concept for a while now- so I’m excited to finally have the chance to create it.
I couldn’t find any other versions of this character therefore I had a blank canvas.
I asked the artist for their permission to create the character and it was granted. Duan Dannis. (2019). ArtStation - Pink rabbit, dannis duan. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VdV6Rb
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Artstyle The artstyle I would like to achieve is hand painted stylised with hints of realism within the facial features. An example of this artstyle is the sculpt “wasteland style� by Jing Wang. I really liked this artstyle as I knew it would push me artistically and improve my technical skills whilst still staying in a style that I believe will portray the Pink Rabbit concept in a accurate way.
Duan Dannis. (2019). ArtStation - Pink rabbit, dannis duan. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VdV6Rb
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Software Throughout the project a variety of software will be needed, I had a lot of experience in these softwares from previous University years and my placement year. However, I believe my weaker knowledge lies within Zbrush and Substance Painter due to lack of pushing forward my skillset. The software I will be using for the character are; • •
Zbrush – This will be used to produce the high poly of the character along with their prop and potentially other environmental pieces Maya – This will be used for the retop of the character, along with UVing. Additional modelling with also be done in this both for the character’s accessories and the environmental pieces. I will also be doing my rigging and posing in Maya.
I will be experimenting in a bunch of industry techniques throughout the project such as; •
Sculpting – I will be creating a high poly for this model therefore I can try keep the poly count low whilst keeping lots of detail in baking.
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Experimenting in a new artstyle – I will be going for a more hand painted artstyle for this project, this is something I have always wanted to achieve for a character.
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Photoshop – Photoshop will be used to help fix issues, such as minor baking issues and fixing texture issues.
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UDIMs – Now that UDIMs are industry standard I will research and aim to use them for this project within Substance.
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Marmoset – I will be rendering in Marmoset this time, I will also intend to use the marmoset viewer option at the end for my portfolio.
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Improve modelling skills – With weaker modelling skills I aim to improve these with the support environments I’d like to produce for this character.
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Facial Expressions and Rigging – I would like to experiment in ways to create a character that is posed nicely with a facial expression to help express the overall final product.
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Substance Painter – I will be doing all my texturing and baking in Substance and using their UDIM feature.
The Concept I knew it was important to study the concept and find the key areas and figure out the best way to approach the character. If I planned ahead I would save time later down the line.
After studying the concept I felt I was prepared to present her correctly- I love the idea of her being short tempered but overwise always hyper. This was something I could really reflect in my poses too.
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Inspiration Before I begun sculpting I found sculpts that were similar to what I wanted to achieve.
Love the jackets in these
Love the way the cloth and eyes are textured
Great presentation
Jacket and shoes good reference
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Reference I gathered also gathered a bunch of reference from real life to help me:
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The Plan With only six weeks to create a game ready character, I knew I had to plan my time wisely and give myself strict deadlines whilst still giving myself some leeway to fix issues if they arise. First Week • • •
Proposal made (Concept Chosen) Sculpt block out complete
Second Week •
Aim for Finished Sculpt
Third Week
Forth Week
Firth Week
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Retop
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Texturing
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Presentation
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UV
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Posing & Rigging
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Final Touches
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Bake
Sixth Week •
Final week left to polish everything
Gather Reference
If I stick to this plan I should be able to achieve everything I hope to for this project- I think the plan itself is very achievable I just have to make sure I don’t get distracted with other things and lose time. I tried to base my plan as closely as I could to the usual industry pipeline for character creation, working within six weeks from nothing to end up with a game ready character will be tight but I believe I can do it.
Zbrush
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Maya
Substance
Maya
Marmoset
The Sculpt After preparing some reference and studying the concept It was time to begin sculpting. I started the sculpt using my own base mesh I had created prior to starting the module, I did this to save time as getting the basic body shapes is what takes me the longest. Very early block out of the clothes
I wanted to get the basic shapes out of the way so that I could gather my own insight into what the whole character would look like together
Defining facial features
Blocking out the basic shapes first
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Follygon. (2019). (95) ZBrush Tutorial - Creating a Stylized Female Face - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWXJ3KQwAx E
3D, D. Mac. (2017). (95) How to sculpt a stylized head in Zbrush - Tutorial Part 1 - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjZt0ICfutQ
The Sculpt Experimenting with Polypaint to try gauge better if I am on the right track
Continuing to build the base shapes for the clothes
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I have always wanted to use Polypaint to my advantage to help me produce a better sculpt from the get go- I believe adding poly paint helped me a lot to know weather I was going along with the right style. I still wanted to do my final texturing in Substance so I didn’t want to spend too much time on this. Follygon. (2019). (95) How To Paint Skin Tutorial YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IlcgeJSNzY
First Block Out This was the first part of the sculpt I had shown in the following lesson from the concept being chosen- At the beginning I felt proud of it but after the lesson I realised that It was really far off both the concept and the artstyle I wanted to go for. I believe the initial worry of a smaller module scared me therefore I was blind to noticing very obvious issues within the sculpt, because of this I decided to tackle the sculpt a different way. The first thing I did was study the current sculpt I had and note down all the most obvious issues and go from there and fix them one at a time whilst constantly keeping the concept and reference on my other monitor. On top of reflecting on the sculpt myself I also asked others for feedback and the feedback was along the same theme as the issues I found.
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Fixing Issues After soon realising everything wrong with my current block out- I spent the weekend fixing issues. The main thing I had in mind after reflecting on the previous block out was to make everything bigger-
For the body the only tool I used for this was the move tool within Zbrush, I also reworked the shorts to be have a slimmer fitting and raised upwards to demonstrate them resting on her hips. For the face I decided to strip it way back to what I started with in the beginning of starting the sculpt and start again, this was much quicker this time round as I used my reference to make sure I was on track. Feedback on this new version was very positive, people believed it looked much closer to the concept I chose therefore I decided to keep working on this sculpt with the aim of finishing at the end of the week.
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Mouth When the concept was chosen I fell in love with the facial expressions shown on it, I really wanted to achieve this therefore I did some research into multiple ways I could do this, as I was still sculpting I thought I would try using Layers in Zbrush first. This would give me a general idea if my face is going down the right path.
3D, A. (2015). (82) Zbrush - Creature Mouth / Next Step After Dynamesh - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSsEfd zieRk
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I created a basic mouth in Zbrush and placed it just under her lips on the sculpt- This allowed me make do expressions without any obvious seams. I based the layers off the kind of reactions you would see in an actual facial rig to help my expressions look more accurate.
The Face Now I was in a much happier place with the face, and I knew I would be able to create facial expressions with the finished piece. I could begin properly working into it and getting all the shapes how I wanted them.
Features too soft
Nose too rounded, needs to be flatter
Much sharper features with areas such as the lip, I was happier with this outcome
I found it very tricky to match the artstyle correctly, however I kept making minor changes it going through various eye, lip and nose shapes to try match the style the best I could.
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The Face
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The Hair I wanted the hair to be one piece with some detail sculpted in like the character here; the way I did this was to create different segments then merge them and Dynamesh into one piece then resculpt the detail lost from Dynamesh. Before I merged them Once merged I used “Flatten”, “Dam Standard” and “H-Polish” To add the hairline and match the concept
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The Hair Whilst the main hair part was one piece, I wanted to keep the hair buns separate so they could be easy to change if I needed, and this could easily be done by the hairband. This one is too plain and needs more tufts- but the style of it is more what I wanted
This is more what I wanted as a nice shape without being too big
This one is too soft around the tufts “H Polish” and “Pinch” tighten up the tufts nicely
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The Jacket For the Jacket I wanted to give it some really nice stylised folds like you see in Games such as Overwatch.
Follygon. (2018). (95) A Quick And Easy Way To Sculpt Seams In ZBrush - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z3D0 ZXyVoU
Nabanaita, A. of. (2020). (95) Zbrush cloth tutorial | how to make cloth in zbrush 2019 | Anna PART 4 - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=267wm2JSlY
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Creating stylised folds seemed to have lots of different possible ways therefore I researched into different ways then came to my own conclusion on the best approach
The Jacket After watching multiple tutorials on the best way to produce folds like that for jacket- I came to my own best method from the videos I watched
Working on a low subdivision I masked out the area where I wanted a fold – Then I inverted the mask and built up the area using the “Standard” brush lightly until I got a raised part. Then I used “Clay Build Up” and “Dam Standard” to work into the fold and lastly neatening it up with “H-Polish” and “Pinch
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The Jacket The other aspects of the jacket were made using extrudes and the “Move� tool to get their position nicely on the sculpt.
Overall I was really happy with the jacket- I think the folds came out nicely. I am glad I spent time research into how to do them better.
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The Shorts I was really unsure how to tackle the shorts from the start- I wanted them to have the rips however it was really difficult for them to look right in Zbrush. This is why I decided to go for just being cuffed shorts instead- as this would be easier in the retop phase and for rigging when I get to posing.
Comes out so messy when I try to do rips in Zbrush
Whilst this approach is neater, I wish I could figure out a way to properly do the rips. With little time left I have to move on with the option to revisit them if I have time
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The Shoes In the concept the shoes left a bit to the imagination therefore I based them on a couple shoes to get the final design. I also made a quick sketch so I knew the design I wanted to go for. The goal for the shoes is to keep their base sole on how real shoes are made.
Based on the images I gathered I decided to change the shoe design slightly to match a cuter aesthetic
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The Shoes I have never made shoes before for a character so I had to do a lot of research into the best way to do this. The method that appealed to me most was getting the base shapes down in Zbrush, then into Maya then back and forth until you’re happy with it. This method suited me best as I’m not the best at hard modelling. Simple block out made in Zbrush using primitive shapes and the move tool
Used Quad-draw in Maya to neaten them up, this was so they are neater for when they go back into Zbrush
MK, C. with. (2020). (95) Tutorial modeling cartoon ? shoes ? in Autodesk Maya - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wxl6u22aD M
The process for this went by quickly however, I should of made the basic shape in Maya first then Zbrush rather than Zbrush then Maya. This would of assured my model would have been cleaner for when I retop them the second time, thus saving time.
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Tips, 3D. (2018). (95) Speed modeling a Shoe for my Character - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLoI MCKp3U&t=503s
The Shoes Once the shoes had a hard model version from Maya I took them back into Zbrush and made them more in style with the rest of the sculpt. Whilst this was a new learning process for me I think the shoes came out OK- I’m hoping to improve the overall quality of them once I begin texturing them. I will add stitching detail and other detail in Substance. I also changed the design more to match with the concept as the bunny ear tongue looked awkward on the sculpt.
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Retop Plan Before I started retopping I thought about tri count I should aim for- I needed to be realistic and have a good amount for the kind of character it is and not have too little or too many. Tracer’s model in Overwatch is approximately 35k and I believe this is a good enough game to go off as the texturing style will be fairly similar.
As I had a mouth already made I had to make sure the facial topology would be fit for purpose, I needed loops in the right places.
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Retop Plan I wanted to retop everything as neatly as possible so it would work when I rig it, but I also wanted to keep some parts separate so I can keep the poly count low. I know floating geometry is fine if its used correctly.
Blue = One Part
Purple = Floating Green = Facial Parts
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Retop Time Now I have everything planned out and a poly count to aim for I could begin. I had a lot of prior experience from my placement year on retopping so I felt fairly comfortable at this stage.
Gap for mouth to open and close
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Retop Time Modelled the chains in Maya
Jacket kept separate from the body so I can toggle the visibility for presentation
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Shorts Again Once I had the shorts retopping and ready to UV, I just knew I didn’t like them. Therefore I tried multiple ways to get the rips to look accurate to the concept.
Idea two was similar to idea one except I would use an alpha rather than have them extruded. However in the end I don’t think this would of looked too good.
This idea one was to extrude the rips from the low poly – however this would not work due to non manifold geometry
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Shorts Again After a few failed attempts, I thought it was best to go back into Zbrush and try making the rips in thereThis attempt went much better than the others- however I knew it was be difficult to retop them along with the body. This is why I decided to keep them separate and make sure the topology is as similar to the legs underneath as possible.
The new sculpted shorts look much cleaner than the previous ones, I was happy with these.
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Checking Retop I was now happy with the retop and ready to UV however, before I did that I wanted to check if everything would rig ok. This is why I decided to use Mixamo just to do quick tests.
Some minor issues in areas like the armpits but this would be fixed when I manually rig it
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UV I was very comfortable with UVing in Maya, I have unwrapped a lot of characters now I used the tools I thought were best. I add seams in areas more hidden to make them less obvious in the final model
The main UV tools I used throughout were “Unfold” and the “Cut” and “Sew”
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UV I wanted to keep the UV space as low as possible but still having enough room that everything can be a good resolution. I’ve separated the UVs into four sections; One – The head, hair and head accessories Two – Jacket and top half of the body Three – Legs, shorts, belt and shoes Four - Eyes The reason I wanted to keep the eyes on its own UV is because it’ll be easier to move the pupil later on if It was ever to be animated.
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UDIMS UDIMs are quickly becoming industry standard for both environments and characters- therefore I wanted to use them for my character. This required some research into the topic. Setting up UDIMs within Maya seemed easier than I thought it would be at the beginning, I had to utilise the “Layout UVs” tool, I have used these before for texture packing so I was feeling confident in this for my character.
Hermes, M. (2019). (84) What are UDIM’s and how do they improve your texturing workflow ? ( My 1000th video !! ) - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97cgb OCfk9A
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Hermes, M. (2019). (84) What are UDIM’s and how do they improve your texturing workflow ? ( My 1000th video !! ) - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97cgb OCfk9A
UDIMS After I did some research into UDIMS, I set them up for my character. It was easy to achieve the set up for this, however I was nervous for baking them. Marmoset does not support UDIM baking therefore I’d have to use Substance Painter.
I set them up across the order I thought best for them-
Baking I have never baked in Substance, but It was easy to use- The bakes weren’t perfect but they will be easy to fix within Photoshop.
Unfortunately despite everything working with the baking, my Substance kept constantly crashing after this. After troubleshooting multiple times I had to give up due to limited time and resort back to Material IDs. For my next project I Intend to use UDIMs fully.
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Baking I was really happy with the output for the bakes. I only had a few minor issues to fix which didn’t take long to sort out. Now I can get on with the first pass of the texturing.
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Texturing I knew from the beginning of the project I would be using Substance to do my texturing- I had some experience to this prior with my placement year but I have never done this style before in it.
I wanted to make sure my layers we’re neatly organised. This was because when I begin to work further into texture passes I don’t have to spend ages flicking through layers. I watched videos to help me with stylised textures in Substance as I was working. Station, S. (2020). (84) Mastering Stylized PBR Texturing Using Substance Painter YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8iox opCT0E
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First Pass
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First Pass The main goal of this first texture pass was to get the base block colour down. Then reflect on the current progress and see what changes needed to be made. After getting feedback from peers and making my own judgements, I noted down changes that needed to happen for the next pass. • More colour values in the skin with colour and roughness • Work on hair texturing • Redo eyes After this reflection I did some research into texturing skin in Substance Painter.
Williams, G. (2019). (95) how to texture dark skin in substance painter. #tutorial #darkskin #africanskin - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coBdXWG6shg
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Alphas On the concept she features some really clean shapes and designs on her jacket and vest, rather than drawing these in Substance, I decided to make them as Alphas in Photoshop then stamp them on in Substance.
I think these alphas came out really clean and matched to the original concept accurately.
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Rigging Now that I had block colours done- I thought I would work out the best way to pose the character for final presentation. I have little to no knowledge on rigging, therefore within six weeks learning this within six weeks would take up too much time. I have heard previously that you can pose in Zbrush- so I looked into that. My last idea if this didn’t work, was to use Mixamo. After doing some research I had two options- Zbrush or Maya’s “Quick Rig” tool. In the end I decided to go with both and weave both of them together to get the best results. The “Quick Rig” results
Tutorials, Q. 3D. (2017). (95) Maya skinning tips & techniques for low and high polygon - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ97Q84dOdU
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Channel, M. L. (2016). (84) Quick Rigging and Skinning a character for beginners - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c538zkwxgTQ
Channel, M. L. (2016). (84) Quick Rigging and Skinning a character for beginners - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c538zkwxgTQ
Rigging Whilst the quick rig did save me a lot of time , there were multiple issues with the skinning. It also didn’t come with fingers- this wasn’t so much of a problem as I could do the fingers easily in Zbrush. As the rig was almost perfect, I decided to manually fix the skinning issues myself. This required me to quickly learn how to use the skinning tools within Maya. Thankfully I picked up skinning in Maya fairly quickly as I had a lot to fix up.
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Posing The next step was to use my rig and get a general pose made then take it into Zbrush to fix areas.
I had to keep everything separate in the model to keep the UV’s and make it easier to pose as I could “Mask by PolyGroup” in Zbrush
Throughout this whole process I had to keep in mind the UVs to avoid stretching
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Posing All I had to do now was take it back into Maya and sort out the smoothing groups as Zbrush doesn’t keep them- then I can check for obvious texture stretching and manually fix it. Thankfully as I remembered before hand to always consider the UVs when I did this, I only had a few minor fixes. This method worked really well- And it didn’t take me long at all to prepare it, this makes me hopeful that I will be able to achieve multiple poses by the end of the project. Zbrush also allowed me to easily do facial expressions which really help push the character to have more personality. Later with in the project on I would like to create multiple expressions so that I can show a variety of different emotions based on the original concept art. Now I was confident I wouldn’t have to rely on Mixamo for a pose- I was ready to go back into texturing for my second pass.
Eggleston, B. (2016). (95) 5 Ways to Make a Character More Likable - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHSTa7XPeHc
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When I finished this pose, I thought her personality wasn’t shining enough for me. Therefore I decided to research into other areas into ways to make a character have more personality, then take that information and implement it into my own.
Second Pass Keeping in mind the differences I needed to change in my next texture pass- I went through each thing one by one.
Added more colour value to the skin
Tried giving the hair different roughness values to give a shine to strands Tried to go a different look for the eyes and make them harder egded.
Redness to knees
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Second Pass With the second pass complete I could reflect on how to improve for the next one. First thing I noticed when I bring the textures into Marmoset was that they were still so much darker than they appeared in Substance- I believe this is because of the lighting I have set up in Substance. I will keep this in mind for further passes. I attempted a different style with the eyes this time but I prefer the softer ones I had previously. So I will go back to that style. Overall I think this pass is going in the right direction but there is still a lot of work to be done. I was still struggling with the skin therefore I did even more research into this; I looked into real paintings to see what kind of base colours they used to reach a desired skin tone. Mandy, E. (2019). (95) BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE // OIL & Acrylic Painting Process // Dark Skin Tones Portrait - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Zy0WN371Xuk
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Third Pass Now I knew where I was going wrong previously I decided to go straight back into texturing to fix those areas- The key purpose of this pass for me was to fix the skin. The first thing I did was change the values of the skin to make it glow more and improved the roughness values throughout the skin. I made sure to make areas such as the nose and knees caps shinier than other areas of the face.
This pass improved the skin a lot when put against the second pass- I was still not entirely happy with it but I was ready to move onto other areas that needed attention so when I go back to texturing I will have a fresh mind.
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Facial Poses One of the major things I wanted to do when this project started is to give the character facial expressions, at the beginning I intended to do a full facial rig for this but I soon realised this was too much work. Despite this I knew there were ways around this by using Zbrush- I learnt how to do this in my process with my posing, for the expressions I wanted to go for busts and also display the character without her jacket. I used the same base model and aimed for three different expressions.
Happy
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Angry
Sad
Environment On top of facial expressions for my character I also wanted them to feature an environment, something small but to help give her some personality and some possible backstory. I had two plans for these environments, based off poses I wanted to create.
The first plan I had was to improve the pose I had created earlier and make a simple stand for her to stand on, the idea I had for this was a road to match with her stop sign. This is also something similar that wouldn’t take long to produce.
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My second idea was something that’d express a different side to the character- The idea I had was to feature a simple diorama of her playing a game. I didn’t think this would take too much time off the character as the assets would be very simple.
Environment I’ll make the more basic environment first since I already have a pose for that- I knew I wanted them to be fairly basic in shape so that they won’t take up too much of my time.
I will revisit these textures later on, I just wanted to get a base down so I can judge the current presentation better overall
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Environment For the second environment I want everything to have a bit more detail and personality than the first, this because its main purpose is to give the character more personality.
The key points to this environment is the TV and GameCube so I made sure these were more detailed than the smaller props
I modelled everything in Maya and aimed to make them as simple as possible
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Environment None of these props were going to have high polys as it would take too long, I wanted to just try paint on as much details I could without spending too much time on texturing them.
I did a basic pixel art design for the game over, I knew this wouldn’t me long and it gives context to why the character will be in her pose. I tried to add a good variety of colour across the scene to make it match nicely with how colour the character is.
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Environment I added more shading on the more important, bigger objects but I still kept it basic.
I had a lot of fun adding detail here as the model was just a cube before.
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This environment let me add cute little details which I love doing to my projects.
Second Pose Now that I had this environment done, I wanted to get the pose sorted then create the floor. I wanted her to be sitting down looking angry as she has just lost her game, I knew the expression would be possible from my previous practice making emotions.
This pose took a lot more skinning than the other one but I think the final output came out nicely
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Second Pose Once I have finished the texturing I want this scene to be darker with most of the light coming from the TV screen
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More Texturing I am aiming this to be my final pass for texturing- And only aim to go back into it to make minor changes as I see fit when I begin the final renders.
I gave the face much more orange that I did previously, and I blended the colours better throughout
I made the eyes much softer and shinier
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Retextured the hair to have a gradient effect
More Texturing Shaded the vest
More colour values to the belly
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Added different pink shades on the creases to make them stand out
Shading to the back design
More Texturing
Added purple values to the shorts to mix up the blue
Much more shading around the legs and socks
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More Texturing From previous feedback I knew I had to work on the PBR values a lot, I was too scared with them previously so I went too soft so the difference wasn’t noticeable
Roughness
Metalness
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More Texturing These are the results of this pass- overall I am really happy with how this came out. It is such an improvement compared to the last one. I am happy to move onto the final parts of the character now unless issues arise when I begin the final renders.
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Final Textures
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Final Textures
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Final Textures
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Final Textures
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Props In the concept art the character has a key prop- her stop sign.
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Last Touches I was happy with the overall character now, however there were still a few minor issues I wanted to fix-
I received feedback and also noticed that the hair and ears are quite different to the concept
I received some feedback that the rips on the shorts were too flat on the rips
I manually moved the topology for these in Maya, I think this really helped the silhouette
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This is a change that I think I could quickly do and won’t be too difficult as the hair is a separate mesh
Last Touches I thought if I wanted to change the hair I would need to do it quickly therefore I was going to do my best to aim to avoid going back into the high poly if I could.
These hair attempts we’re quickly done in Maya so I could gauge what changes I actually wanted to go for.
Original
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Out of the attempts I did, I liked the direction of one and three, I think a mixture of the hair buns bigger and slanted matches it better to the concept
Last Touches I much prefer the outcome of the new hair to had to the original. I also exaggerated the ears more to match the concept.
I didn’t want to go back into the high poly as I didn’t have much time left so I hoped to fix it within Zbrush using the “Move” tool.
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Last Touches I realised when referring back to the notes I made earlier that I completely forgot to do the badge on her jacket- this would be fiddly to fix but it is possible.
In order to make this work I will have to change the Uvs round as they’re overlapped.
Luckily I had room in another UV to perfectly move one to another This was easy to do as I made the alpha for the back
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Last Touches I wanted to improve the eyes by doing what you do for realistic eyes but more simplified for a stylised look-
A mask gives a shade under the eyelid at all angles
Jethani, S. (2018). ArtStation - Marmoset face breakdown, Saurabh Jethani. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nnvR6?fbclid=IwAR3miaBcqhKMxZRm42SkOI pQ7wHzy-YDwkuRa3yef_OBn0EKL_s6DGo1FRg
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The height map gives the eye a more realistic look on the side views
Last Touches I no longer liked the base I had made previously, the texturing wasn’t good and I thought it was too dull compared the colourful character. Too plain
I was inspired by these two figures, I liked the way they had floating elements and interesting poses
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Last Touches Without much time left I had to quickly sketch this final environment design, similar to the gaming pose- I wanted it to be more of a mini diorama. A sassy pose to imply more character
Desired facial expression example
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Last Touches I wanted the pose to have some attitude to match the concept’s personality. I think having a leg up and exposed fangs really help this pose.
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Last Touches All the assets we’re hand painted and contained no high holy as if the assets had high polys it would take too much time.
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Last Touches I was really happy with the outcome of this diorama, it only took me a couple of hours and the result improves the overall character so much.
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Marmoset I haven’t rendered in Marmoset for a while- therefore I refreshed my memory with these tutorials; Sokolva, Y. (n.d.). Stylized Character Presentation in Toolbag | Marmoset. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://marmoset.co/posts/stylized-characterpresentation-in-toolbag/?fbclid=IwAR2p4AR2pQvN
From watching the videos I set up different lighting variations per pose
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Jethani, S. (2018). ArtStation - Marmoset face breakdown, Saurabh Jethani. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nnvR6?fbclid=IwAR3miaBcqhKMxZRm42SkOI pQ7wHzy-YDwkuRa3yef_OBn0EKL_s6DGo1FRg
Reflection Despite making a plan at the beginningg, the ending look more like this; First Week •
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Proposal made (Concept Chosen) Sculpt Started- Didn’t like result so lost time
Second Week •
Finished basic sculpt after redo, had a lot to go
Third Week
Forth Week
Firth Week
Sixth Week
Extra time (Small extension)
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Finished sculpt
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Finished Retop
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Posed
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Begun Retop
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Finished Bakes
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Rendered Videos
Started Texturing
Finished Texturing
Fixed issues found
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Set up proper render
Managed to finish extra parts for submission
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Environment done
Gather Reference
Even though I did not stick to the plan correctly, I still managed to achieve everything I wanted to and more. The plan still helped me throughout the project as it gave me something to always look back on.
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Reflection I was really nervous for the six week modules originally but in the end I think I still managed to reach a good end product; Positives•
Poses; I really like the poses I ended up producing in the end, the technique I have learnt through this module will help me in all further projects
Negatives•
Texturing; Whilst I am happy with my texturing I still think they could be improved a lot, especially in the skin area and the jacket.
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Shoes; Making shoes was something I had never done before so I think these could be a better quality. Currently they are a bit too clunky and blocky from what I desired.
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Texturing Skills; My texturing skills have improved so much over this product and my general Substance Painter knowledge
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Facial Expressions; I think the facial expressions really help the characters overall personality and the technique I learnt for this will benefit my future projects
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Rigging; Whilst I managed to achieve poses and facial expressions without a proper rig, the character would of improved majorly if It had a proper rig.
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Environment; My modelling skills are by far my weakest skill for characters and for this module I’ve had to do a lot of modelling for my dioramas therefore I’d have good practice and I think they came out nicely.
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Time Management; Despite managing to reach what I achieve to in the project, I still didn’t stick to the plan I made correctly. Due to this I caused myself a lot of stress which I believe may have held back the overall finished product.
I have learnt a lot of skills throughout this module and I believe this will improve my next module massively, I also believe I have got a good portfolio piece as this is the best character I have ever done.
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References Duan Dannis. (2019). ArtStation - Pink rabbit, dannis duan. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VdV6Rb Wang, J. (2019). ArtStation - wasteland style, jing wang. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVEkxk Jethani, S. (2018). ArtStation - Marmoset face breakdown, Saurabh Jethani. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nnvR6?fbclid=IwAR3miaBcqhKMxZRm42SkOIpQ7wHzy-YDwkuRa3yef_OBn0EKL_s6DGo1FRg
Sokolva, Y. (n.d.). Stylized Character Presentation in Toolbag | Marmoset. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://marmoset.co/posts/stylized-character-presentation-intoolbag/?fbclid=IwAR2p4AR2pQvN70df4eMeVWrCDm3EA5a2FyZh2JCCTBgeVGtTVXqTFa3w_po Mendes, A. (2020). ArtStation - THE BADDEST Akali, Ana Mendes. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oAZBAB Channel, M. L. (2016). (84) Quick Rigging and Skinning a character for beginners - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c538zkwxgTQ Perez, E. C. (2020). ArtStation - Matilda - Real time character, Eva Camba Perez. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ZGJ5nX Savelyev, V. (2020). ArtStation - Sculpt practice, Vladimir Savelyev. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NxEKxq Station, S. (2020). (84) Mastering Stylized PBR Texturing Using Substance Painter - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ioxopCT0E 3D, A. (2015). (82) Zbrush - Creature Mouth / Next Step After Dynamesh - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSsEfdzieRk 3D, D. Mac. (2017). (95) How to sculpt a stylized head in Zbrush - Tutorial Part 1 - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjZt0ICfutQ
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References FlippedNormals. (2018). (84) Posing Characters in ZBrush - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJKIOWMjB20 Team, S. P. (2020). Paint Across UV Tiles (UDIMs) in Substance Painter. https://magazine.substance3d.com/paint-across-uv-tiles-udims-insubstance-painter/ Wilde, M. (2019). (84) Understanding UDIMS - Maya, Substance Painter and Mari - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ua3Tajatw&t=525s Hermes, M. (2019). (84) What are UDIM’s and how do they improve your texturing workflow ? ( My 1000th video !! ) - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97cgbOCfk9A Troost, R. “Breoder.” (2015). Overwatch News: Interesting insight into Overwatch Tech Art | GosuGamers. https://www.gosugamers.net/overwatch/news/35188-interesting-insight-into-overwatch-tech-art Follygon. (2019). (82) How To Create Shoes in ZBrush - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wsy-q-o73vg Hwang, J. (2019). (82) [Modeling] Modeling/Texturing Men’s Dress Shoes # 01, Maya, 신사화, 구두 - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV4aV0jeg_A Chan, N. (2020). ArtStation - Demon GF, ninJason Chan. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/68wKK5 Savelyev, V. (2020). ArtStation - Sculpt practice, Vladimir Savelyev. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NxEKxq Follygon. (2019). (95) ZBrush Tutorial - Creating a Stylized Female Face - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWXJ3KQwAxE
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References 3D, D. Mac. (n.d.). (95) How to sculpt a stylized head in Zbrush - Tutorial Part 1 - YouTube. 2017. Retrieved November 18, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjZt0ICfutQ Mandy, E. (2019). (95) BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE // OIL & Acrylic Painting Process // Dark Skin Tones Portrait - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy0WN371Xuk Eggleston, B. (2016). (95) 5 Ways to Make a Character More Likable - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHSTa7XPeHc Tutorials, Q. 3D. (2017). (95) Maya skinning tips & techniques for low and high polygon - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ97Q84dOdU Williams, G. (2019). (95) how to texture dark skin in substance painter. #tutorial #darkskin #africanskin - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coBdXWG6shg
AntCGi. (2019). (95) Face Rigging in Maya - Part 1 - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9qT9kmRCAg&t=814s MK, C. with. (2020). (95) Tutorial modeling cartoon ? shoes ? in Autodesk Maya - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wxl6u22aDM Nabanaita, A. of. (2020). (95) Zbrush cloth tutorial | how to make cloth in zbrush 2019 | Anna PART 4 - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=267-wm2JSlY Follygon. (2018). (95) A Quick And Easy Way To Sculpt Seams In ZBrush - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z3D0ZXyVoU Follygon. (n.d.). (95) How To Paint Skin Tutorial - YouTube. Retrieved November 18, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IlcgeJSNzY Xu(羿), M. (2020). ArtStation - star girl, Marko Xu(羿). https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ZGJam1 Tips, 3D. (2018). (95) Speed modeling a Shoe for my Character - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVLoIMCKp3U&t=503s
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