Game Production

Year 2 Term 2

Project Analysis - Group (Character) Project

Madea, posed and lit in engine with props.

Close up of her face.

While I am pleased with the final result of this project there are some areas in which I could clearly improve. Firstly, while I did slightly edit the mixamo rig to fix the glaring issues it still isn't perfect. In order to make the rig better fit the model I would have added some extra custom bones for the skirt as well as weighting the skirt top to the legs more accurately.

As a result of using mixamo to create the rigged and posed mesh some areas of the model have become deformed, particularly the coat detailing like the buttons which are now ovals. This is something I would aim to fix althought I'm not entirely sure how. I think each button would need to be evenly weighted with no uneven blending or distortion to prevent this odd effect.

I think the props turned out well, especially the robot arm and robodrone. I think that the topology of the grenade could have been improved and I would like to have used booleans to create some buttons or round recesses to let more of the emissive show through.

Robot arm close up.

A side by side comparison of my original concept and the final model.

One thing that strikes me about this project is how true my final design stayed to my initial concept. I think this shows that taking the extra time to really plan things out is beneficial and this came much more naturally to me with this project than it has with previous projects. Maybe I have a preference for character art?\

Overall I am very satisfied with this project despite the areas highlighted for improvement in this post. I have really enjoyed the character model creation process and I think it is definitely something I am now much more interested in pursuing in the future.

Project Analysis - Creature Project

Hammy, alone in the void of space.

Sometimes you have to do a project just for you, and that is what Hammy was. I have no regrets about choosing to make a space hamster, I think the idea is brilliant and while it is taking liberties with the concept of a saddled creature I think that actually demonstrates my unwavering creativity (maybe).

While the textures are very different to what I originally had in mind I am pleased with how they look. However, one issue is the lack of AO in engine, as this renders the mouth almost invisible. I think the use of gradients was effective and having the helmet to disguise thehead/body seam was a really good idea as well. I would have liked to push the textures further by adding a few stickers, decals and patches to the spacesuit but this is something I can do in my own time. He does look quite plain without them but overall I think the asset is still visually interesting enough.

I think the sculpt was effective and even though I didn't have time to rig him I made sure that the low-poly topolgy included supporting geometry around the elbow joints and face, as well as supporting loops extending up above the thigh area.

Hammy, lit and presented in engine.

Close up on Hammy.

I really like how I presented Hammy in engine. I just think it's pretty neat overall. The simple planet and tiny emissive stars are really effective. Originally I was going to use a flat texture for the stars but I think using small spheres allowed for a much greater depth of scene that was worth the relatively small in engine cost for a presentation like this.

Overall I am pleased with the conclusion of this project despite it's relative simplicity. Sometimes the point of a project is just to practise skills rather than push the boundaries and learn something new, and by keeping this project quite basic I allowed myself more time to expore new skills in the group project.

Week 29 - Unreal Presentation

Rigging/Posing:

I used a basic rig from mixamo to get the major weightings right, however the skirt was clipping terribly.

I reset the weighting of the hips/thigh area using the default voxel settings in 3DS max, preventing any of the strange clipping. Then I deleted the rig (temporarily)!

I manually pulled out the areas of skirt causing issues, leaving me with a posed character ready to go.

Unposed model of my character "Madea" in engine with props.

Rigged model with clipping issues vs unrigged but posed model with no clipping issues. There is some minor texture warping but this is due to a combination of Mixamo deformation and 3DS max's strange UV preservation system which wouldn't be an issue in engine.

Madea, posed in engine with props.

Lighting:

For lighting I chose a simple spot lit backdrop with a 3 point lighting set up in addition to the main directional light in unreal. I think this is an effective set up overall although I know I need to improve my skills for lighting characters as it's very different to lighting an environment. I chose to present both the posed and unposed version of the model as I think both demonstrate different aspects of the character design. Mainly the unposed model has no warped textures.

Unposed model, lit in engine.

Posed model, lit in engine.

Week 28 - Texturing

Baking:

Strange artifact baking in substance painter

High poly arm in Zbrush

Initially the only issue I was having with baking was this odd artifact on the arm. It looked like there was some kind of overlapping geometry, but the low poly was clean and I couldn't see anything on the high poly - very strange.

After two very puzzling attempts to change bake settings and fix this I enabled two sided view in Zbrush and saw that a hidden backface from underneath the arm had clipped through the outer arm and that is what was causing the baking issue - I just couldn't see it because of Zbrush's one sided default view! This was an easy enough fix and so I reimported the clean arm and baked again this time with no more weird arm artifact.

Despite enabling bake by mesh name I was still having issues with artifacting caused by the robot arm - I planned to bake and texture it separately but I didn't want it leaving a mark on this versions sleeve so I went into the AO specific settings and set ignore backface and self occlusion to both be by mesh name only.

This worked and the result left me with a relatively clean bake. Thankfully a lot of the model would have dark colours on which is not an excuse to leave visible artifacts that could be fixed by painting them out, but it is a good way to hide them! In addition AO maps no longer work by default in unreal engine so as long as my other maps are clear I saw no reason to waste time making the perfect AO bake besides perfectionism.

Base Colours & Skin:

For the base colours I colour picked from my original concept sketch. I think this colour scheme is balanced but is also clear and iconic enough that it would be easy for a player to read from a distance.

For the skin texture I used the method of building up several layers of colour onto a dark red base. This allowed me to leave some areas like the tip of the nose and under the eyes to be warmer and more red. I resisted the urge to smooth out all the tones because although this would have been more reminiscent of the styles of games like overwatch I think it would have lost a lot of character.

Clothes:

Original flat striped texture.

For the turntleneck originally I just used a striped mask and flat colour changes but I realised I wanted something with a bit more detail to look less plastic-y. As a result of this I used substance painters ribbed/jersey wool pattern and applied it so it scaled over the lines. I used only the height information and kepy my own colour varition to add to the percieved depth. I then significantly increase the roughness so it looked much softer and overall I'm pleased with how it turned out. I did realise I probably should have smoothed the transition around the neckline but overall I think this harsh shape transition works in the given style.

Texture with pattern alone, no roughness or colour variation.

Boot attempt #1

Boot attempt #2 (much better)

For the boots I knew I wanted a leather material but I had never created stylised leather before and so my first attempt was, farnkly, awful. It was far too high detail and too dark to see anything so I decided to do some research for a stylised leather tutorial. I ended up finding this tutorial on youtube which I found very helpful purely for introducing me to the concept of the light generator and 3D linear gradient generator. These were both immensely useful across my project for getting that stylised look.

In addition it also introduced me to the idea of adding a smart mask for something like scratches and then simply blurring the result so it is less crisp and more cartoony. I don't know why this didn't occur to me before because it's such a simple and effective trick! I'm going to be using that one all the time in future stylised materials.

In my first attempt at the coat material it again looked very plastic-like and I really wanted to push my materials further than that. I liked the edge detailing and the use of gradients via the light and position generators but it just needed something more.

I ended up using the texture from one of the wool materials in substance painter as a mask to add some shadow across the coat. This created a nice illusion of texture and I think it is much more effective than the original. However, it did hide the gradients so I had to increase the contrast there.

For the trousers I kept things simple - I used the paths tool to create a line and add a bit of height and colour to give the impression of a seam. In addition to this I used the creases texture to add a slight bit of variation to the colour which is incredibly subtle but does make a big difference in the readability of the underlying forms.

I think the clothes textures have been well executed. There are definitely things I could have pushed further such as the intensity of the gradients on the coat for example, but for this project I have really struggled with the inconsistency of colours across different monitors. Now I understand why so many artists have expensive colour corrected monitors for making game art! However, considering most players will be playing on far cheaper screens I'm not sure how worth it it is.

Eyes:

Eye pass #1 - slight shadow and flat colour for the eye. This looked fine but I thought I could push it further as the character was looking a bit starey and was reminding me of the early days of Mass Effect Andromeda before the eye textures were updated.

Eye pass #2 - I think this is a big improvement! The difference is noticeable even from far away, darkening that upper shadow and adding a small bit of highlighting to the lower iris has massively increased the depth and helps the character seem much more alive.

Hair:

For the hair I kept things simple. I didn't want to hand paint the hair as it would be time consuming and cause a mismatch with the rest of the model so instead I skimmed through this tutorial and learned about using the curvature map to accentuate forms of the hair.

Using the curvature map as a generator I created 3 layers, a dark base, mid tone and highlight all with different parameters. I think the end result is effective and while it could be pushed further I don't think the hair is one of the most important areas for this character. I also made sure to vary the roughness in line with the tone, i.e the highlighted areas are slightly shinier than the shadowed areas.

Overall I'm satisfied with how the character textures turned out. Finding the right balance of detail for this style took a few attempts but now I can definitely appreciate the stylised approach. I think that the main area of the character is the face, turtleneck and coat collar and these all work really effectively in tandem. The dark clothes and hair frame the face really well and overall I'm impressed by how accurate my design has stayed to the original concept - there is something to be said for taking the time to initially develop an idea before jumping into executing it.

Props:

Initial sketch

In my initial sketch I couldn't decide if I wanted a full willow pattern style narrative drawing or a simple floral pattern so I sketched out both to compare. I ended up liking the top part with the flowers much better and thought the vines looked somewhat reminiscent of blood vessels which I thought would be a really cool aspect to incorporate into the design.

I ended up using the substance painter flower decal as this was more consistent than me hand drawing each one, and then used the paths tool to create the flowing veins/vines that connected them all. I gradually made the flowers smaller as they approached the wrist, giving the impression of the vines growing down towards the hand.

I ended up adding a dark colour to the lines of the arm which I'm glad I did as the AO isn't captured as well in engine as it is in substance painter. I really like how this turned out!

Final material

Grenade with metal and emissive textures

For these textures I created a base layer of plain metal and then used the edge wearing smart mask to create some interest. I then ended up blurring this to create a more stylised look but help the edges still pop.

I also added two screws via the height/normal map and preset shapes in substance painter's asset library. I think these little details really help small props come to life. I had to add the emissive channel to the file so I could map out the lights but I chose to keep them white as this means I could add any colour I wanted and even change the colour in engine.

Robodrone with two screws textured onto the top

Week 27 - Unwrapping

Unwrapping this model was fairly straightforward due to the nice simple shapes and clear material boundaries. I intentionally thought about how easy it would be to unwrap while retopologising so I'm glad that extra thought paid off. I decided to prioritise normalisation and maintaining a consistent texel density over maximising the use of UV space because in a character model that seems like the more important approach. This approach will also save future me a lot of time when texturing as any grain of fabrics or hair will easily flow in the correct direction.

Skin unwrap

Hair unwrap

Clothes unwrap

Grenade and RoboDrone unwrap.

WEEK 28 UPDATE: I had issues with the unwrap of the robodrone legs exploding and attaching their edges to completely separate objects. This is the second time I have had this issue but at least this time it was fixable. The fix isn't perfect but seeing as the legs are tiny, mostly hidden and made of one simple material I just re-unwrapped the legs and roughly aligned them by importing the texture sheet to 3DS max as a reference. This looks fine on the model. I only noticed the original error due to the emissive light elsewhere on the texture sheet showing up on the legs so all in all it's no major loss.

Robot arm unwrap

Week 26 - Retop

The finished high-poly sculpt

The sculpt has turned out really well I think and because of the blocky shapes I think it is going to be fairly straightforward to retop.

I started by retopping the head as this is the most important area in terms of deformation topology. I made sure to maintain the mouth loops, eye loops and mask areas and then filled in the rest of the geometry accordingly. I extended the neck down into the clothes but didn't attach it as this will be hidden.

The hair took several attempts to retop but I ended up just following the spiral pattern as cleanly as I could and then added extra edges where they were needed to support the geometry. I tried to keep the edges following the flow of the hair so it will be easier to normalise when unwrapping.

Face and hair retop

Front view of the retop

For the skirt I tried my best to make sure the inside and outside loops matched up so when animating it will deform naturally. I kept the boots and legs as one subobject, which I think is okay but it might have been cleaner to have them separate and overlapping. However, I have no plans for the character to ever remove her boots so I think this will be fine.

For the knees and elbows I made sure to include some supporting geometry to prevent deformations in the mesh when animating the joints bending. I think overall this topology is good. It isn't wasteful but the silhouette isn't too faceted either. The head and hair have a much higher topology density as is to be expected as they have a higher level of detail.

The final tri count for the retop is 23.5k (plus an additional 4k for the robot arm). I could have added more loops to fill out the budget but frankly I didn't think it was necessary. The stylized shapes work well and don't need any more unnecessary geometry.

Back view of the retop

Week 25 - Props

Buggy the RoboDrone

For this little guy I I started with a cylinder and scaled it appropriately. In fact the entire main body and eyes are just made out of cylinders with various extrusions. I decided to separate each portion of the eye because that way he could be rigged to make his eye move in and out and rotate in the "socket" as it were. I like the idea of his eye acting like a camera lense allowing my character to use him like a remote drone to scout out areas for their exploration mission in advance.

Basic Grenade

The grenade was very simple to build, I started with a sphere, added extra edges and then extruded to complete the look. My vision for this asset is a very simple silhouette with a brassy metal material broken up by bright areas of emissive light. I would also like to set this emissive to have parameter control so that in theory the grenade lights can change colour to signify what explosive effect it is primed with and how long it has before detonation. It would both look cool and serve a gameplay purpose which I think is the entire point of being a game artist.

Robot Arm

I am justifying a whole arm being a prop by virtue of the fact it can be removed for multiple gameplay purposes. For example:

Combat: loading a grenade into the hand and then using the arm as a would-be catapult to launch it at extra long range.
Puzzle-solving: removing the arm to have it lock in and hold down a button or lever while you are free to walk to the other side of the room and do another task
Humour: removing it and throwing is at somebody every time they ask for a hand

As the hand is hard surface I took the original organic sculpt from Zbrush, reduced the subdivisions and then imported it into 3DS max to create the clean detailed lines. I achieved this by adding extra loops and then extruding around them. For the elbow I used an elongated sphere and did the same process. This arm would be really easy to rig and animate as it would only need two bones and there is no need for deformation loops or supporting geometry at the elbow.

Week 24 - Face Sculpt

The face sculpt has been the most intimidating part of this project by far as I've never sculpted anything as detailed or organic as the face (unless you count the pumpkin face from my project last term). I knew the key was to find a strong reference image to work from and then make any proportion changes afterwards, so that is what I did.

I blocked out the forms of the skull in a very low subdivision level. It looked mildly demonic but everything I researched about face sculpting said this is of the biggest "trust the process" moments and so not to worry about it looking really weird. At this point I also made sure to align the ears with the facial features correctly.

I continued working into the sculpt and at this point I thought it was looking pretty good, although I knew I needed to adjust some of the proportions. For example, the distance between the eyes and mouth is too long, so I shortened that. I decided against fully sculpting eyebrows as in the design they are quite sleek so I will just texture them on in substance.

In my initial concept the hair was meant to be braided but after spending some time trying to sculpt a braid it just didn't look right. I felt like her hair needed to be sharper and sleeker, and the traditional braid was too round looking - it didn't match the vibe.

As a result I decided to change my idea from a traditional braid to a more stylised and sharper twist. I am not entirely sure what gave me this idea as I don't think I saw it in any reference material, but I am really pleased with how it turned out.

The finished face sculpt with hair

Overall I'm happy with how the face has turned out. I'm definitely glad I fixed the proportions by shortening the middle of the face and moving the eyes slightly. I also added some eyelashes as a separate subtool because I think having the stylized eyelashes really adds dimension to the face and eyelash alphas would look incredibly strange in contrast to the sculpted hair.

I chose not to sculpt in any minor face detail like small wrinkles or creases because I want the freedom to experiment with these in the texturing process rather than risk baking down some detail I decide I want to change later. This way is much less destructive and is the same approach I took with the clothes seams and detailing.

Next I will have to begin retopping. I do think the hair is going to be a challenge to unwrap and retop and this is something I will need to plan for. This new braid is likely going to need a spiral unwrap to properly capture the geometry but thankfully only one side of it is visible so the seam can be well hidden underneath and against the coat. I plan to keep a lot of the unwrap separate - for example I'm going to retop each part of the collar separately rather than try to do the whole coat as one single subobject as this will lead to the cleanest unwrap and make it much easier to texture in the long run. I will also keep the hair and each piece of the hair separate for the same reason. Hopefully this won't impact the bake too much although having multiple pieces does increase the risk of AO artifacts in my experience.

Week 23 - Clothes Sculpt

My initial blockout of the clothes

Sculpting the clothes has been surprisingly fun and straightforward. I started off by just messily blocking out the kinds of shapes I wanted to use and then worked on refining them afterwards.

I used Zmodeler to extrude cloned areas from the base mesh I made and this allowed me to quickly build new shapes without starting from primatives. For the skirt I did use a cylinder and then deleted the front faces, but I decided I needed a different approach and so ended up separating out the skirt and deleting it until I could work on it separately.

I started building up the collar using planes and then adding dimension by extruding it after I had the basic shape down. This was much cleaner than trying to manipulate an already 3D form and is a technique I then used for a lot of the other areas such as the sleeves and boot folds.

Adding some of the smaller shapes - collar, belt, boots

The lower skirt area, now it's own subtool

Here you can see where I split off the skirt from the original build so that I could work on it individually and have better control of the shape. This allowed me to make more drastic changes to the silhouette of the skirt without worrying about influencing the rest of the dress, and if anything went wonky I could easily tuck it back behind the separate belt subtool.

After fixing the skirt I added more to the collar area. Having all of the collar layers does look really cool and adds a lot of interest but I knew the gaps around the edge might cause issues when retoping so I added a flat block to disguise those gaps. This block could then just be textured like the rest of the fabric to prevent any odd visual artifacts or clipping issues.

At this point the only details I knew I needed to add were some buttons to the coat and then sculpt the whole face and hair. Most people had started with the face sculpt and then moved onto the body but for some reason I felt it would be more suitable the other way around. Thankfully I have a strong concept to work from so this shouldn't be too tricky.

All clothes sculpted, some detail still needed

Week 22 - Base Sculpt

I initially started by blocking out the general forms in 3DS max because I am much more used to its tools than Zbrush. However there's something to be said for using the right software for the right job so I eventually imported that base into Zbrush and began sculpting into it. However this made changing proportions very difficult so then I started again with basic cylinders to block out the main forms. I think if I had tried doing that initially I would have struggled but because I started off the way I did I knew that this was the better option and so I got on with it.

I imported an example of loomis proportions on to a plane to use as reference because I thought these best matched the kind of silhouette I wanted. I blocked out each area independently which allowed for me to sculpt them without affecting other portions of the body. This was very fiddly at first but eventually I got used to it.

This is the result of my base sculpt after some time spent refining the original cylinders into more organic forms matching the silhouette of the body.

I focused on the body first because I was very nervous about sculpting a head and face as I had never done anything like that before. In first year we used an already existing base mesh for the gladiator project so this was a big step up in terms of expectations.

My goal for this stage of the sculpt was to just have the basic proportions correct. I knew I needed to exaggerate the waist inwards a bit to allow for the bulk of the clothing to sit on top of it and still give a somewhat corseted look, but other than this I stuck to fairly standard proportions.

I didn't bother sculpting any hands or feet as these would need a more specific approach which I wasn't prepared for at this stage. I knew the general proportion they would need to match so I wasn't too worried about creating them at this early stage.

Overall I am pleased with these proportions and my plan is to merge down some of the shapes so I can duplicate them and use them as a base to build the clothes from.

Blog Task: Character Art

What are some common employability requirements within this specialism of 3D?

After some basic research into current and past job opportunities these were the most common requirements:

experience with 3D modelling software, particularly Maya, Zbrush and Substance Painter
knowledge of human anatomy, clothing and hair
experience designing characters and a portfolio demonstrating this

Less common but also seemingly important requirements were:

experience with rigging and/or animating character models
experience using engines such as Unity or Unreal

I'd say these hard skills make up only about 40% of the job requirements I saw and the rest was all about soft skills like teamwork and collaboration, communication and having a general desire to improve and create good work.

Week 21 - Group Project Concept & Design

For our group project we chose the theme of "Exploration". We had a large range of initial ideas, but knew we wanted to take a stylised approach, particularly in regards to the shape language of our characters. We agreed on having the characters be influenced by late 19th century silhouettes, so long skirts, hats, etc. Mixing this aesthetic with the practicalities needed for exploration seemed like a fun challenge to pursue. For the environments a more modern aesthetic was chosen - Art deco. This would provide an interesting contrast of old fashioned characters in a relatively futuristic environment which we thought would be a cool juxtaposition and help the characters stand out.

We decided out characters would include 3 protagonists and 1 antagonist. For the enemy an android, and for the protagonists 2 mums and their roughly 10 year old kid was decided upon. We thought that making sure the two mums had distinct silhouettes was important so we chose to have one be a dedicated ranged scout kind of character and one a melee brawler type. I have gone into detail about the brief we made for ourselves below:

My initial concept sketch for the ranged scout character.

Aesthetic

Victorian Futurism (Steampunk Sci-fi)
Bold, low-detail shape language for silhouettes (like TF2 or Overwatch)
Exaggerated stylised facial features including larger eyes (like Arcane)
Mid-detail stylised textures, focusing on large blocks of colour
One clear main colour associated with each character for readability in gameplay

Narrative

Our main characters are a ranged scout (my character), melee brawler, and techy kid
In a world partially destroyed by rogue androids, humans have returned to relying on steam power, although some skilled individuals (including the kid) can still get limited electricals to function
Our 3 main characters are exploring a large seemingly abandoned manor (study/office, greenhouse, and hidden speakeasy/bar) in search of supplies to repair an important piece of equipment. They head to the manor as it looks relatively untouched, unlike all of the surrounding areas so they assume there may still be resources inside.

Gameplay

Third person adventure/puzzle game with limited combat
Focus on exploration
3 main characters each have distinct abilities which can be used in relevant areas to solve puzzles - Sometimes a combination of characters is needed to solve puzzles
One player controls all 3 characters and can switch between them

For my character I decided on the following:

Her gameplay purpose is to be a ranged scout so I focused on giving her a long slender silhouette to give the impression she can see far and move gracefully and quietly.
For the props she will have a small drone which she can use to scout, and a set of adaptable grenades with various effects (i.e fire, EMP, flashbang)
Her main colour is blue. This can be seen in her coat and the porcelain willow-pattern inspired prosthetic arm she has.
Her arm is stolen from one of the expensive but rogue androids, unlike the prosthetics other characters have which are more steampunk DIY.
Her hair is tied up practically but prettily
She wears little to no makeup but tries to emulate high society with her outfit
Her collars are layered to emulate an explosion, like those her grenades would cause
There is a focus on sharp corners juxtaposing with curves in her silhouette

Week 20 - Hammy in Unreal

A Hamster in the vast void of space.

My idea for presenting this project was to have Hammy the Space Hamster sat alone on a planet in the void of space. I liked this idea because it was really funny to me, at least. I created a basic material for the planet in Substance Designer by blending a bunch of flat noises and grunge textures and then applying a gradient map. I think the planet has turned out well although I'm struggling to get the lighting to really pop.*

*this is a note from 5 weeks later when I discovered that there was some kind of bug/issue in my unreal level preventing the lights from working properly. Hammy now looks much better and you can see that update at the top of this page.

Week 19 - Texturing

Fur #1 was created in substance designer and while it is a really cool stylized look it is also very overpowering.

Fur #2 using alphas in substance painter was less intense but now just looked kind of flat and muddy with no real sense of style. I decided I needed to reduce the detail significantly and focus on colour first.

Fur attempt #3 was a success in my opinion. It is significantly more stylized and yet looks much more realistic at the same time. I think reducing the detail was the right way to go and this is much more effective.

Here's a fun fact - for the props I actually colour picked directly from NASA's web design palette! You can find that site here. It was a really useful resource for finding space-y colours, although I should mention Hammy the Space Hamster is not affiliated with any specific space agency - he's more of an independant rogue.

The helmet looks very plastic-like, which is what I was going for but I think maybe some stickers or decals to add more detail wouldn't go amiss. I ended up using a lot of position gradients as the design is quite stylised and this was an easy way to add the impression of some lighting.

I think the backpack could benefit from some patches or badges but overall I'm happy with how he is looking at this time and I will aim to push it further depending on how much time I can divert from the next project.

The next steps will be to get him into engine and start presenting the scene. I think I either want him stood on a tiny planet with a flag, or perhaps floating in a void of stars. I think both could be quite funny effective in terms of presentation.

Week 18 - Retop

I started at the ankle and worked upwards using stepbuild. At this point I wasn't worried about being neat I was just focused on getting the loops in where they were needed.

I did decide to add some supporting geometry to the elbow as this is a key area for deformation.

This retop was functional but some areas could be improved. I wanted to add some more supporting geometry around the ears and extend the loops around the thigh a bit more.

For the eighteen digits I used cylinders and conformed them to the base mesh. One thing I didn't consider was the number of edges on the cylinder so I had to rectify this and decrease the geometry later on.

Attaching the toes to the foot was challenging, there was a big difference in the density of the topology that I had to account for while maintaining relatively clean deformation geometry. I don't think this is ideal but it will do for now.

This definitely needed cleaning up the edge flow isn't the worst but the quads are far from neat and regular.

Final retop gallery:

Overall this came to 8930 tris. This is far below the 23k budget but hamsters are not exactly high definition creatures and adding a bunch of extra loops for the sake of meeting a budget didn't feel right to me. There's no faceting on the silhouette and areas of higher detail get the attention they deserve. The only thing that could be improved would be to add some supporting geometry to the knuckles but I don't think it will have a large enough impact on the final result to justify dedicating what I expect would be a significant amount of time to.

Blog Tasks: Creature Project

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

Meshes which need to deform need to have more consideration into the way their topology will look when squashed and stretched. Static meshes only need to have geometry which supports the shape and doesn't mess with the lighting (i.e by having super long thin triangles or wonky edgeflow). In an animated mesh areas of deformation need supporting loops and polygons to prevent clipping, spiking or other strange looking issues when areas bend. This geometry also needs to extend around areas that bend to make sure that there are no sudden shifts in topology density that become visible during certain movements.

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

Ok so I will be the first to admit I took liberties with this brief by creating a space hamster and I have no regrets so I am going to attempt to answer this question as seriously and concisely as possible; Hammy is a Hamster in a space suit, which shows that he is able to survive and traverse in space.

Week 17 - Detail Sculpt

IMPORTANT QUESTION: How many toes do hamsters actually have? Eighteen apparently - four on their front legs and five on each back leg. Sadly, they do not have opposable thumbs. They also technically don't have hands, they have paws, but I'm not sure that distinction is particularly important when it comes to sculpting.

I used zspheres to create all EIGHTEEN digits and attached them using dynamesh which was a challenge because they're so small they kept merging. I also sculpted in the basic face details. I decided against implementing a mouth bag because I don't think it would add enough believability to this character to justify the possible issues it could cause.

I cleaned up the mesh using polish by features and added some basic spheres for the eyes. I think I'm going to have to hand paint the masks for the facial features but that seems appropriate in this case.

Proof of concept because sometimes laughing at your own ridiculous designs is the best way to keep morale high.

Week 16 - Basic Sculpt

I started my sculpt with a simple sphere and used the move tool and zremesher to pull the geometry into a rough shape. I initially decided to model the hamster in a neutral position, despite the fact I knew I wanted it to be posed sitting up. This way I could get the proportions laid out properly before posing.

I started blocking out the face and used zSpheres to place the legs but at this point I was getting frustrated with how fiddly the tools were to use and considered going back to 3dsmax just to make life easier. However, I decided to give it 5 more minutes because giving up at the first sign of challenge rarely leads to growth.

At this point I decided I needed to see more of my final vision for the hamster so I rotated the head and limbs to be closer to my idea for the final pose. This, despite being marginally less optimal from a rigging standpoint, made me feel a lot better about the direction this sculpt was heading in.

Week 15 - Idea Generation

Two words: Space. Hamster.

Initial sketches

Reference board

Google Sites

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