Emily Ward

After the sculpt of my character was finished I needed to create a lowpoly version of my model. This was another element in the process that I had never proceeded with before, and on reflection there are many things about this stage of the process that I would change. I understood from my knowledge of rigging that good topology in the retopologising stage is essential for making a good rig- as a result I followed some good tutorials about required topology for facial rigging and around problematic areas such as elbows and knees of characters.

However, later on in the process I found that I was not entirely happy with the topology of other areas unique to my rig, such as the shoes and the accessories. As a result this led to some issues when it came to UV unwrapping, but ultimately this stage was successful. Creating a lowpoly of the model is essential for the performance of both Maya and unreal, as the size of my export from zbrush was roughly 1GB per file, and as a result would not be appropriate for a game or rendering for film. Later in the process I have found that I made some errors in the topology that required me to slightly adapt my model, such as an issue with the pendant of the necklace in the original design. If I have time in the future I would like to adapt this with some simple hard surface modelling inside of Maya.

The final element of the sculpt that I needed to tackle was the clothing, and in particular the shoulder armour that I had designed. I watched this tutorial that was exceedingly helpful in creating clothes that perfectly fit to the form of my character by sectioning off elements of the sculpt and extruding off of it. This was slightly difficult for the armour since there were many layer that intersected with one another, but in general this method worked exceptionally well. after each element of the clothing had been extruded from the body I used the standard sculpting tools to add folds and wrinkles to the clothes. beyond this, I had designed manhy small details on the clothing and the face, such as stitches and safety pins. I created a small sculpt of an open safety pin and created a custom IMM brush so that I could create duplicates of this item where needed. while this worked exceptionally well for my sculpt, later I found that these small details were difficult to proceed with in maya while retopologising. Ultimately though, I found that this process taught me a lot about making sculpts for rigging and animating.

Additionally, before exporting out my model to be retopologised in maya, I revisted each part of the sculpt to make final adjustments to anatomy, polish and stylising. I followed this tutorial as a guide to stylising my character, since I am inspired by overwatch and similar artstyles in creating this character, since it is a style that works exceptionally well in games.

After the foundation of the character was sculpted I moved through into creating more specific detail. I spent a lot of time creating the character’s face, including sculpting a mouth bag, teeth and a tongue. Sculpting the mouth bag was somewhat challenging, since I needed to ensure it did not interfere with the rest of my model, but needed to blend seamlessly with the exterior lips. Initially I considered not sculpting this area, but this would mean this rig would not be capable of much facial animation, which is not something that I want. The extra time put in here to sculpt these details will allow the possibility of a much wider range of expressions, as well as the capability for talking should I take this rig further beyond this project.

I found this process of fine tuning my model to be very rewarding, and I’m extremely pleased with the outcome of this sculpt. Something I discovered in this process is that while I found I was comfortable sculpting and adjusting organic materials such as the face and body, I found it much harder to to model harder surfaces such as the teeth, belts, buckles etc. This was quite a steep learning curve, and this instance I think I would have been benefitted by spending some time prior to this doing some hard surface modelling, perhaps even in a different software such as Maya or blender. Despite this I’m extremely pleased with the outcome of this model thus far.

I began sculpting the model mostly by blocking out the main shape of the body without detail. This was to focus on good proportions and have a foundation to work from later on I found that I was largely aided by the reference for my character that I had made prior to modelling as well as having an understanding of how the body would need to move once it was rigged. I did find there was quite a steep learning curve to learning Zbrush, and I struggled initially with the UI and navigating through the software. Despite this however, I believe I was well able to create a solid foundation of my character to build from.

Moving on with the previous design, I have created a reference for modeling this character. This is so I have a clear understanding of what the back and front view of the character should look like as I’m sculpting, as my previous concept detailed more of the colours and personality of the character. This should be helpful throughout the process as something to refer back to.

 I will be using ZBrush to model, which is a software I have practiced with a handful of times in some course-organised Zbrush classes. However, in these classes I have only experimented with modeling the face of a character, so I am nervous to push myself into modelling a full character, including clothes and armour.  I have researched some beginner level tutorials that address some of my initial concerts with Zbrush, which I have found helpful and encouraging.

The first stage of this project is concepting a character. I have a general interest in games so I am interested in creating a character that would make sense for a game setting. Below I have attached examples of character designs and fashion inspiration that I like. I want to include some modern fantasy elements, in line with some of my previous projects in this course since I enjoy this type of aesthetic. I am aware that I have no experience or prior understanding of modelling, so I am cautious of making a character that is too complex, but I equally want to ensure that the outcome is worthy of a final major project. I am planning on creating a male humanoid rig, since in terms of animation I am more familiar with animating humanoid characters.

Based on my research, below is the concept of my character that I am planning on taking forward based on two iterations of designing. The concept of this character is a modern Frankenstein’s monster in a fantasy setting. While I have a personal taste for character design that include a fair amount of details, I’m aware that I have never modelled before and as a result this design may need adjustment as I proceed. However at this stage in the project this is the design I am going to proceed with. I think this character is fairly interesting, and would be a character that I would be interested to animate and create game cycles with, which is my primary aim for this project. 

For my final major project I am immediately interested in exploring the full pipeline of character animation, from character conception through to animation. My plan for this project will be to develop an original character, sculpt the character and rig it for animation. I am interested in this because I have some knowledge of rigging and have learned a lot a bit animation through the rest of this course, but I have absolutely no experience in modeling at all. I then would like to use the opportunity of this project to learn how to create models that I can rig for the purpose of animation. I think this will provide me with the opportunity to create a huge range of projects in my future beyond this course, whether that is in games or film. I am interested in widening my understanding of the full 3d pipeline so I’m excited for this project.

I am inspired by rigs such as Jonathan Cooper’s Azri (which I have used in previous projects throughout this course) or this Aang rig. This gives me an initial direction for research, as well as an idea of an end goal for this project.