This post marks the end of my work on the Character Creation module and will be a summary of my progress and overall self-evaluation of how I felt I performed in this project.
Initial design Processes.
During the first few weeks, I mostly focused on finding a character idea. At first I was purely following a script that had been developed for the module’s curriculum as a simple prompt. But after I finished the first design sketches, I felt like I was missing an opportunity to develop a character from the ground up and go through the entire process from initial scripting to a finished character with a context. This is how the development of Fletcher began.
Further Initial Character Development.
I started by developing a basic script to get an idea of what my character would look like and what properties They possess. After this, I then began to gather inspiration that related to the script. In this case, archer uniforms, tactical bows and glass-tipped arrows etc. with all the reference images I gathered I then developed a Finalized character design sheet traditionally for use in the 3D modelling process. After I finished the traditional concept sheet I also wanted to create a digitized version of it but before I did this, I sort of thought about my character more in terms of their design. Before this, the majority of the characters I created were male and I felt it was a bit repetitive, so I entertained the Idea of making this character a female instead which I further redesigned my character design in the finalized digital version of the concept art. Along with this redesign, I also made some changes to the script to match the redesigns I had done to my character.
Character Model Block-out, Sculpting and Retopology.
Once I got the concept art down, I began the modelling process. First, I began by blocking my character based on a simple sketch I developed in Krita to get the basic proportions in Blender. After I got the basic shape, I slowly began sculpting and building up my character model over the course of around 2 to 3 weeks and eventually I completed the first initial sculpt. I was then able to begin retopologising the mesh which I felt went quite well and I was able to complete it to a better schedule than my last 3d character model attempt in my previous year. The one main obstacle I faced at this point was how I would create the hair, after finding a helpful tutorial on YouTube by the user “Blender Secrets” known as “Blender Secrets – Easy Anime Hair”, I was able to create my character’s hair easily and after I finished this I then modelled the bow and arrow. At this point I was slightly time-cautious and felt that modelling the short sword and buckler shield that I created in the concept art wouldn’t be necessary for my finalized shots of my character and decided to cut them out of the final model. Afterwards, I moved onto the next stage.
Baking Normal maps and texturing.
The next stage consists of sculpting more intricate details onto my retopologised character through use of Blender’s Multi-Resolution modifier which allowed me to subdivide the retopologised mesh to sculpt more details over its surface. Simultaneously, I also Unwrapped the character mesh and adjusted the UV map to export it as an FBX file so I could then start texturing the character model in Substance Painter. Along with creating a FBX for the retopolgised model in its low-poly form, I also created an FBX of the high-poly version made through the multi-resolution to give the character model more surface detail. This was done so that I could use high-poly FBX to bake the details of the high-poly mesh into the normal maps of the low-poly mesh so it would have more detail while not requiring a massive volume of geometry. This process was probably the most difficult part of this entire design and development process as I still didn’t really understand how Normal maps worked at first, but after I asked my tutor about how they worked, I finally gained a better understanding of what their purpose was and how I could use them to add more detailed textures onto low-poly meshes. After baking the normal maps, the texturing process was carried out extremely quickly and I was then able to export out the texture maps for the character model, bow and arrow easily.
Character Rigging.
The next stage of development was rigging the character and posing it for use in Unreal engine. This was a pretty quick process as all I needed to do was develop a simple humanoid rig which in principle should have been a quick and easy task. But at first, I was having trouble with mirroring bones due to positioning of bone origins which it took me a bit of experimenting and adjustments to get the result I was after. But after this, I was able to create the armature and parent it to the character model. After getting my character into a pose I was happy with, I exported a third FBX of the low-poly mesh in its posed state to which I could then import it into Unreal engine.
Introduction to Unreal and putting together the Final Shots.
At first, I was quite unsure of how Unreal Engine worked and how to use it. So, I needed to take a closer look at the tutorials created by my tutors to get an idea of the software’s properties. But luckily, after watching through them step by step, I was able to get to grips with using Unreal relatively quickly. So, I began by first sculpting and developing my landscape and once I got it to a stage I was happy with, I then added trees, rocks and vegetation using files that had been provided through some of the class tutorials. Overall this process was quite interesting and I enjoyed using Unreal to develop the environment.
Afterwards, I imported my character model and props into Unreal along with connecting the textures and normal maps to all models with no problems. I was then able to position the character within the environment to my liking and added some basic lighting to add a focus point to the character as well as add some more dynamic shadows thanks to the forestry within my environment. With this process completed, the final stage could then begin.
Final character Screenshots and Post-Processing.
I first started this stage by taking a high-resolution screenshot of the character and environment and then I brought said screenshot into PhotoShop and got my hands on a basic blank LUT sheet. I already had used PhotoShop quite regularly in the past so I already had a basic idea of some of the tools that it had to offer and so I was able to adjust various parts of the screenshot with no issues. Once I was satisfied with the final edits I had made to the screenshot, I then copied all the modification layers of the edited screenshot and pasted them onto the blank LUT to copy the light adjustments I had made. I was then able to get the modified LUT and hook it up to the Unreal file which would then transfer the same adjustments made in Photoshop into the Unreal file itself. I then was able to take the finalized screenshots of my character model Which ultimately marks the end of the development process of my character model.
General Evaluation
Overall I felt that the development of my character model was done quite well. I would say the parts of the process I felt went the best, would have to be designing the character’s concept art and also the retopology of my character. This is mostly because I remember I had quite a bit of trouble with retopology during my first 3d character model from last year and I felt I handled it much better in this module as I mapped out the retopology in a much more organised and logical way and it overall felt a bit more professionally put together this time around. As for designing the character, I have always enjoyed designing characters, so this process was done quite easily for me. My first initial design did need some adjustments in the case of its colour pallet as it was clashing slightly in some places but aside from this slight issue, it was an easy and quite enjoyable process of this character’s development, another aspect I enjoyed quite a bit was using Unreal as I found the landscape building feature to be quite satisfying to use and some of the tools and properties Unreal has to offer were quite interesting to experiment with. I do intend to do further experimentation with Unreal in the future to refine my practices with the software.
Despite being satisfied with the final outcome of this project, I do have some points that I think could have been done better looking back on the entire progression of this project. Probably the first aspect that comes to mind is that I felt I could have tried to create a more unique environment for my character, looking at it now in retrospect I feel I could perhaps have made an environment that had a bit more variety in its terrain or even a few more tree and rock varieties to improve the visuals of the environment my character is set in. The next aspect that I felt could have been done better would be the modelling of my characters arrow. Originally, I wanted the arrow to have a glass tip with a green serum inside of it, but I did not do this in the end and instead went for a more basic green serum-infused arrow tip which I feel is lost potential in the final model as this was far more basic compared to my original vision for this character’s props.
Overall I Felt I learned a lot from this module and I was able to expand my abilities in working with 3D modelling and development software. After being introduced to Unreal Engine and gaining a better understanding of how to create models, normal maps, textures etc. I do want to experiment more with 3d animation in general to widen my skill-set and make my abilities in both 2d and 3d far more versatile so I can be more flexible for what roles I could play within an animation Pipeline within an industry setting.
Media Referenced (Bibliography)
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Blender Secrets – Easy Anime Hair. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iqQziLphGE.