Digital Literacy – Cute characters (texturing)

Once exported from MAYA into Substance Painter the first thing that needs done is to bake the mesh, this allows to model to have high levels of detail at a low-running speed. This is done by selecting the “bake mesh” button, changing the quality to match the file and selecting the high-poly to bake into the low one to get the best performance for a high quality model.

Now that the model is baked I can now start adding textures. I chose the assets that come with substance painter that best mimic the materials that the models would be made out of in real life. I drag them onto the specific model I want for that texture and because I gave each part of the model a different lambert texture in MAYA it made it easier to distinguish when texturing in Substance Painter.

Next, any textures that needed recolouring I selected them in the layer tab and selected the right hues etc. in the properties tab to give the effect I wanted.

In order retexture models that need different textures, I dragged the asset over like before but this time right clicked the layer and made a black mask and selected the mesh I wanted to texture. I created another layer after I got the desired textures to add smaller details, such as the spots on the mushrooms and the pupils on the eyes. Here is my textured model.

Finally, to upload into Sketchfab I exported the textures and selected the Sketchfab template in the Substance painter software and uploaded the file from there.

This is the link to my model in Sketchfab

https://skfb.ly/o9XnC

 

 

Digital Literacy – Cute characters (retopology and UV)

Now that the model was completed in Blender and exported as a .obj file into MAYA, it was now time to retopologise the model.

This is done by taking the model and using the quad draw tool in MAYA to create polygons that flow around the model to ensure the model is high quality from the point of being sculpted.

When the new, low-polygonal model is completed we can them start to UV map the model so that it is ready for texturing. Using the UV editor window in MAYA we can take the mesh I created when retopologising and layout the pieces in a way that makes it easy to add texture in the highest of quality. Here is also an example of what my UV map looks like.

It is now time to take this model into Adobe Substance Painter to texture it before sending it to Sketchfab.

Digital Literacy – Cute characters (design and modelling)

For this module we are tasked with designing a cute character and modelling it it a 3D software that is designed to create organic or living models. I will be using Blender to make the initial model for this task as it is perfect or sculpting the living model I am tasked with creating. Once the design and model is created I have to export the model over to MAYA to retopologise it and UV map it, ready for it to be exported again into Adobe Substance Painter to texture it.

First of all I had to come up with the designs for my character. After a while of having a look on the internet I settled on making some type of hedgehog creature. While researching I came across some artwork of some stylised hedgehogs that instead of spikes just had raises on its back with cute, cartoonish features and decided that’s the style I wanted to go for.

Once I had settled on my final design I had to start planning out the model I was going to create in Blender. The model started off as two circular blobs, one for the head and the other for the body. When I got the generic shape of the hedgehog laid out I was able to start sculpting it’s features.

Blender has tools which allow you to treat the digital objects as virtual clay and therefore I was able to mold the head shape of the hedgehog into the desired design I wanted. After that I was able to move onto the body section and sculpt it, using a range of tools such as the grab, smooth and simplify tools I was able to reach my desired design.

After adding more raw objects I was able to sculpt them into features like ears, eyes and a nose. When I completed that I had to make the hedgehogs spikes. For this I used the mask tool and make a mask on the back of the models head and back and raised it out from those shapes. When I had the raised look I was able to pull the back up with the grab tool and sculpt the spikes on the hedgehogs back.

To hide the obvious meeting point of the head and body models, I gave the hedgehog a cute scarf to wrap around it’s neck, not only to fit into the theme but to give the model a bit more validity.

When I had the model completed to where I wanted it to look, I added dyntopo to the model and flooded it with polygons in order to smooth out all the faces in the model to add as much detail as possible. Now that the model was done it was time to export it over to MAYA to retopologise and UV map.