I managed to finally get Gus into substance painter without any warping to his mesh around his face or otherwise: I had to separate his head, hands and tail into one FBX file, his hoodie into it’s own FBX file, his legs into it’s FBX file and then his ears into separate FBX files.
Whilst I was organising his model, I altered the high poly mesh so that his hoodie came down lower on his legs, as I didn’t like the appearance of the legs when it was further up. I conformed his low poly hoodie to the high poly hoodie and the details came through well! I’m really happy with the quality.
I started texturing Gus:
I felt like there still wasn’t much visual interest with this – I wanted the stitches around the seam of his shoes to pop a little more, and I wanted some more noticeable creases in his trousers:
I added some creases to the model, applied to add a baked stylized lighting filter to give it a little more contrast:
I duplicated them and added a filter with a slightly darker colour to add more variation:
However, after I looked at this along side the staff, I wasn’t happy with it – I felt that it looked a little too complicated and that it wasn’t the look I was going for. I decided to take back some of the details to give it a simpler look, whilst trying to keep the characteristics of a Gus’ explorative personality: I didn’t want his clothes to be immaculate, because he travels a lot – but I didn’t want him to look too detailed either:
I’m really happy with the end result, and I’m happy I scaled back all of the grunge and stains. I think that he looks like he’s a little worn and torn from all of his adventures, but still very cute and childlike!
I textured his staff:
After the scale back of Gus, the staff started looking a little too detailed for me also; I decided to take out some of the grunge maps and dirt masks to bring it back to something a little simpler; I also added a baked stylized lighting filter to make it pop:
I think the two look quite coordinated! All that’s left now is Gus’ backpack, however I’m not happy with it at the moment – I want to add the back of the bag to the main body as I’m worried that the inside of the backpack is going to show after I pose Gus’ body.
I also modelled a low poly cliff for Gus to stand on: I’m still not 100% sure about the grass on this, and I need to figure out how I am going to get the stars around the entire scene, but I’m sure it’ll be fine:
I am quite apprehensive to finish this project and get everything sorted, as I want to dedicate as much time as I can to the Animated Narrative module!