Development

After our Style guide presentation I began modelling grim in ZBrush, as I wanted to get ahead in the project so the asset was ready as soon as possible. Although following this, mike had uploaded videos on how to poly model, and this fitted our style much more as we needed to keep the models low poly for the game. So I Began to Poly model Grimm in blender.

Poly modelling ensured Grimms topology was correct, while still being low poly. I really enjoyed this form of modelling rather than having to fix the topology after. This was a much more efficient and time saving technique that allowed me to speed the process up on Grimm. I modelled the head separate from the body, as Grimm is mainly cloak, so I thought it was best to poly model the cloak and then poly model the head, hands and legs sperate. when joined, you cannot see the edges as they are hidden under the sleeves/dresses/collar. This also allows certain parts of the mesh to be slighter higher poly to ensure better deformation when rigging, such as the hands.

references:

Once the main parts were poly modelled, I duplicated faces on his skull to create the hood and adjusted it to fall like a hood and then solidified it.

Hood reverence:

Once the hood was sitting how I wanted it, I pulled out the hood and adjusted the topology.

refs

This was Grimm fully modelled – Low Poly.

I went ahead and repeated the same process as the hood, to create the shoes. After, I deleted all the unseen faces inside the shoe to reduce faces along with other faces within Grimm’s body.

Shoe references:

Final Grimm Model – I honestly am really proud of the outcome of this model, not only does it look like my original designs, but the topology is excellent and I think based on how low poly it is, it turned out great.

As I had experience creating Grimm, Big grim was a lot faster and easier to create. I basically repeated the process for the skull, ensuring they were similar in size while still looking like Big Grim.

I then Modelled the body and hands separate to ensure I was able to keep the hands slightly higher poly. I actually then joined the faces from the neck to Big Grim’s head as the neck was going to be visible and I didn’t want joined edges shown.

Using the same process as Grimm’s shoes, I created a slightly more mature shoe shape based on these references I found.

The tie and mini skull from Chloe’s original design were then modelled separately. I then needed to sculpt to achieve the shape of Big Grim’s Shirt and trousers, these were the references I looked at.

Based on these references and looking at previous recordings from uni, I added seams to my fully modelled characters so that I could finally unwrap them.

I added temp blender materials and armature to my model so that I could show my progress on grim to my team mates and the lecturers and the main feedback I received was to prioritise the top-back view of grimm as that was where he was mainly going to be seen from in the game. Mike Suggested adjusting Grimms hood so that his skull was visible from game play.

I had a few issues uploading the temp walk animation to Unreal and with the help of Chloe, I figured it was due to not having a master bone in the armature, but it was purely just a temp armature set up to see how it looked in the game project. I will better research into rigs before I create a final rig.

Based on feedback, I adjusted his hood so that is sat back more allowing his skull to be seen from this angle as our game was going to be isometric.

After Changes, I began to unwrap grim but there was a lot of stretching going on in some areas so I had to add more seams to fix this.

This was Grimm Fully unwrapped with no Stretching. Based on Proviso models I have unwrapped, I think I have improved drastically as most older models have a lot of stretching which affected the textures a lot.

As our game was a low poly style we didn’t really have much detail but for Grimm, we wanted to see the wrinkles and folds in his cloak. I will be able to achieve wrinkles by texturing, but baking normal will just make the wrinkles and creases stand out better in game, especially as Grimm is the main/player character. I used Multires in blender and then sculpted my details.

These are References I looked at to help me add creases/wrinkle details.

I then Baked my normal map in blender using Cycles. As I only really wanted the wrinkles and creases I decided to paint out the more raised areas (yellow-green) areas as they were raising parts of the hood and sleeve too much and deforming the shape I was going for. Chloe, a member from my group gave me the idea to paint out these areas in photoshop/ procreate.

This is the result after painting out the areas I didn’t want to be raised. I did this by colour picking the lightest shade of purple which means its flat.

Once I was Happy with the normal maps, I decided to begin working on the rig as I wanted to start working on animations for our game. I was aware that you could use a ready made rig within blender with an add-on ‘riggify’ but, I wanted to push myself to create a full working rig by myself, from scratch.

I watched PIXXO 3D on YouTube where he goes into great detail on rigging from scratch:

 

along with DanPro on YouTube where he has a playlist dedicated to Facial rigging:

This really helped me in creating this rig for my character and setting up IK for the arms and legs along with target bones. I have never really created facial rigs before, so this was quite a challenge but I was able to add a rig that allowed me to deform the skull how I wanted it to.  I also wanted to add rigs to the clothing such as the hood and skirt of the cloak to create better animations.

For the skirt I found these images with bones set up in skirts and copied this technique for my own skirt, only adding extra bones to create a more flare effect.

Finally, I went ahead and created my own empty’s/controllers for my rig so it was better set up and ensured it was ready to be used efficiently, especially if any other members of my group needed to use it.

I also set up shape keys for my expressions for Grimm, to ensure his expressions were consistent when animating. I then set up drivers so that these shape keys could be controlled using controllers in the rig.

I used my Style guide Expression sheet to create the expressions for Grimm.

Thinking/Confused   Annoyed

Afraid

   

Laughter/Excitement

I Created a basic walk cycle as a temp animation based on this reference

I then uploaded it to unreal and finally, it worked. I learned how to upload the animations better based on this video, which taught me that you have to upload the mesh and animations separately and then link the animation to the correct skeleton in unreal.

 

The Normal map also looked great in unreal.

After this I was planning on Modelling Grimms Scythe until one of the game members, Ben had suggested it would be easier for grimm’s scythe to be a part of his rig/mesh, so I modelled Grimm’s scythe and actually joined it to the mesh so that it would stay in the same place when walking etc.

Based on these references I animated grim so he could drive the forklift and walk in the game.

This worked fine, but I also wanted to have the option for grim to set his scythe down if needed to, so I needed to change the rig.

 

I separated the scythe away from Grimm’s mesh and added a bone to the scythe and made the hand bone a parent over it, so that I could animate it more efficiently.

This was so much better and gave me the ability to have the scythe away from Grimm’s hand if need be, for example if grim needed to set the scythe down to preform and action.

based on feedback from the last animations, mike said that Grimm needed a better walk with more character to it along with a funny kind of jump to help show off his personality.

I created a walk, idle, pick-up, tampering, push and jump animations based on these references:

Tampering

Push

Walk

Pick-up

Jump

Final Animations

After completion of Grimm, I jumped straight into rigging Big Grim. I followed the same Rig as Grim as i knew this worked well, the only difference being Big grim had no skirt or Hood to rig, just a tie.

I then created a walking/idle based on walk references I used for Grimm and a talking animation based on this video as I needed hand movement while talking (talking with your hands) reference:

 

I will say these animations are not the best but I did not prioritise the walk after our group decided that we were jut going to have him pop up and be idle during the tutorial level. Unfortunately these animations were not updated for the final game, despite being uploaded to unreal for over a few weeks.

The Texturing was one of the hardest elements to me as I have never hand-painted textures like this before. Based on looking at the style guide and these references I attempted to make the textures fit the style as best as I could.

In my style guide, Grimm has a full block out hand (to reduce faces) and then the bones textured on. I found this part very difficult as I didn’t know how to approach it.

It was also impossible to find any references, the best I could find where these:

I began to draw on bone shapes to help me map out where the bones would be.

I then added a slightly more purple tone to shade around the bones.

Finally I used the smudge/blend tool with a sponge brush to blend the two together and then added slight highlights.

I found this method worked best and repeated it across all of Grimm’s bone areas. For the eyes I added the swirly effect with different shades of red that are consistent with the tie.

The Creases were quite tricky also but I managed to achieve Great looking shadows that look great with the normal map too.  for the scythe I looked at my reference images above along with the style guide for the metal and wood textures.

I felt like the bone textures were too grey, rather than purple so I tested it out in unreal and it was definitely too grey, especially around the hands.

After adjusting the colours to a more cool tone purple, these were the final texture outcomes. I am really pleased with these as i have never worked on these type of texture styles before and I think I pulled it off well.

I wanted to achieve wrinkles that resembled a shirt along with wrinkles in the back of the trousers where his knee is, so I used these references when sculpting using multires, in blender, to bake normals.

As you can see, the cuffs have turned out weird, to fix this along with other imperfections, I painted over the normal map. like I did with Grimm.

This was the result after painting out the parts I didn’t want, the cuffs are sharp like I wanted them, while maintaining creases. 

The textures for the bones and shoes were basically the same as Grimm’s so I just copied the same technique. The shirt and trousers however, I had used these references to help me create jeans and a shirt while keeping the stylised painterly style.

                             

I think the results look great and I was able to create creases in the shirt without going too dark with the help from the normal map. I added some detailing around the jeans to make them more stylised. I am really proud of these textures so far.  For the scythe I followed the style guide along with these references to help create the gold toppers which only Big Grimm has as he is the CEO Afterall.

Finally, I added more shading and defined the tie a bit more.

We Also needed grim to have a hi-vis option, so I exported the normal map again and painted out the creases where the hi-vis will be and reimported it into Substance. I then textured a hi-vis on based on references I found:

                                                       

 

The reason for the Hi-vis being textured instead of being an extra mesh on the model, was simply to save faces and ensured it was as low poly as possible.

Here is CEO Big Grim and Rookie Grimm textured in the Unreal Project. I really love how they are both consistent but have clear differences such as the size comparison and accessories such as Grimm’s scythe being a wonky old stick while Big Grim has a Polished looking Scythe with Gold toppers.

Here are the final animations in the unreal project.

 

after I was finished with my own work, I reached out to Nicolle and asked if she needed help with environment. She said she needed help Modelling and texturing a new tree as the one that had been made wasn’t completed and ready for the game.

I looked at low poly tree references and made a few different ones to see what one looked best.

I did not like any of these so I found new refences and poly modelled this tree, which i think looks a lot better. I unwrapped and imported to Substance 3D Painter.

 

References I used to create these tree textures were:

I think these textures turned out perfect for our game and really fitted our style, while being low poly.

Reflection 

– Overall –

Overall, I am really proud of the game my group has created. Our hard work shows as we created a working game while maintaining the style we were going for from the beginning. Yes there were some weak parts in the development, put we pushed through and delivered what we could manage. This Project has really improved my skills in Every stage of the pipeline, along with teamwork skills, from the help of supportive teammates. The Games students were also very helpful and patient with us while we created assets for the game. The only thing that I would say I’m unhappy with is that my final animations and textures were not used in the final game, despite being uploaded weeks before the deadline. One major thing, that could have made the project outcome better, would have been; better communication from certain team members, including myself. Regardless, I am Still very happy to have the opportunity to work with the games team and create a fun game.

– Individual –

I would also like to reflect on my individual progress; Based on the amount of time we had, I have done well and produced 1 textured environment asset and 2 fully rigged models with great looking textures that fit within the game style. There have been some challenges along the way but I believe that I have learned a lot and I am way more confident in my skills. I also have knowledge of how to use GitHub, which was a program I had never used before. If there was anything that could be improved on, it would be managing my time more effectively and improving my communication within the team. In the mean time, I plan to further develop my skills in Animating and rigging as I think this is something that could definitely be improved on, particularly facial rigs.

 

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