Month: December 2022

I prefer to sculpt than to model in Blender. I enjoyed designing and sculpting the Character model. I found sculpting difficult but got the hang of it after watching YouTube Videos. I now have a better understanding of UV’s.  It was easier to group the objects instead of having all the model in one UV. This is because the main body of my character took up a lot of the space. This made it easier to bake the normal maps with the multires modifier. I do need to work on my UV skills in the future.  I have a good understanding of the texturing process, but, again, further work is needed. I found creating the armature for the model pretty straightforward and I’d no issue with parenting the model with automated weights.  I did have an issue with the wings warping with the movement of the arms and head.  This was fixed by adding in extra bones to the wings. I’d a problem with the top two teeth which I could not fix. No matter what I did, I could not get them to move along with the head even if I joined them to the body of the model. 

Once I finished the model and got it posed I now have to import it into sketchfab. To do this I have to export the as a FBX file and upload it. I after ready have a Sketchfab account from tech I didn’t need to worry about create one.

I have already used sketchfab before so the process was pretty straightforward. I uploaded the fbx file into sketchfab and edited the 3D setting so I can add in the model’s textures into the Website.

For an object I decided to do a mirror.

This is the mirror design I came up with, I didn’t want it to be a simple design however, I didn’t want to over complicate the design and make it to difficult to model.

When modelling this I made sure not subdivide and have a low poly model. I then will add the mulitres modifier and create a normal map

I made a low poly model so I don’t need to retopologise the model.  This will also make fixing the UV’s easier.

I used a curve to create the vine that raps around the mirror.  I used a curve then gave it thickness and converted it to a mesh so I can add UV and texture to it.

Normal map of the mirror:

This is what the model ended up looking like after the normal map was applied to the texture.

 

Now that the model is finished, I can now import the model and normal map into substance and add in texture.

Just as with the character model, I used the jade smart materiel as a base for the texture. However, this time, I added a wood texture over the top of the mirror texture to give it a wooden jaded look.

I imported the textures into blender adding them to the model.

renders:

Turntables:

Mirror turntable:

Now that the character has been retopologised, I need it to edit the model’s UV’s for the normal map and textures.

I added a checkered texture to the character model so I can clearly see how the UV’s look and if they are even.

When marking the seams for the UV’s to unwrap, I mark out the places where joints would fold and when I came to marking out seams in the face, I marked out seams around the horns, ears and had a seam down the back of the head.

I experimented with marking out other seams to get the checkered pattern on the face even.

I did this with the rest of the model, trying to make the checkered pattern as even as possible.

This is the fix UV’s on the body.

I originally had all the UV’s in one material but changed this later on by putting them in different groups. This made things easier to create the normal map and add textures.

 

When I imported the character model into substance I discovered that the main body of the model was transparent, this was because of the normals. This is an easy fix, all I need to do is go back into blender select the body and go into edit mode and flip the normals. Once I have done this all, I need to do is re-export the model and import the model back into substance. This has fix the problem.

For this model I used the jade smart material as a base texture, changing the colour value on different parts of the model (making the wings, dress and hair darker).

I textured the model doing the dress separately that so when I bake the textures I didn’t have unwanted shadows baked into the texture. (If I bake the hair and dress together I will have permanent shadows on the dress which don’t shouldn’t always be there when the Character moves)

I also added small details to the model like cracks and scratches.

Normal maps is a type of bump map.  A normal maps allow you to add surface detail to a low poly model. Normal maps catch light as if the map was the real geometry. (Normal maps are use to make a low poly model look like a high poly model.)

To create a normal map you first need to have a good topology on the model and after the model has been UV’ed.

Once the model has been correctly repologyized and UV’ed we can now add the multiresolution modifer.

The multiresolution is similar to the subdivision surface modifier, but allows you to edit the levels in sculpt mode.

Now I can go into the shader editor and add in an imager texture, making sure the level viewpoint is at 0 and the render engine at cycles. I can now bake the textures.  Now I have high level details on a low poly model.

I can now save the normal map as an image and this will allow me to add into substance painter for when I create the texture for a model.

Character Normal map

Using the multires modifier I can now add back the detail to the character’s face, eye, horns, hair and dress by baking the image textures to create normal maps. Once I have created the normal maps I can now export the model and import it into to substance paintier adding in the normal maps along with it.

Character normal maps:

Retopology is recreating a model’s surface to make a cleaner mesh, having a simplified version of a model will be better for animation.

Character Retopology

Now that I am happy with the character model I can new start retoplogy.

Good topology is usually just quads. Occasionally you can have triangles. Anything more than 4 sides (polygons) is a sign of bad topology.

The topology should flow in loops (this is rings of quads) the loops should flow along the shape. However, there will be areas where that this isn’t possible.

I was finding sculpting hard at first so I decided to watch a couple of YouTube videos on the topic and sculpted a head to better understand sculpting

When creating a character it’s best to start with low poly meshes making simple shapes.  Being general and using rough shapes when modelling a character you need to use symmetry.

Once the basic shape is done I can start to add in details adding asymmetrical details at the end.

This is a character turntable I made for a reference for this character model.