Game Production

Textures:

• Skin: 1x2048

• Clothing: 2x2048

• Eyes: 1x512

• Alphas: 1x1024

• Hair: 1x2048

I followed a modular anatomy guide when I explored Zspheres, placing each new landmark based on the separated colours.

I decided to start with the hips as a strong anchor point, dragging out the pelvis to create the thigh's origin points. Dragging those down, I reached the knees. I began building up the digitigrade anatomy by scaling up the size to accommodate for the large legs, rotating their poisiton, finally building the toes.

After the legs, I built upwards to get the torso. It's very compressed but I will add to the completed version to achieve muscle definition and the actual placement of organs so she's phsyically plausible still. With the chest dragged out, I added some shoulders. I brought out the arms at a small size so they began thin, scaling out at the elbow to get the thick forearms. Finally, I added the rough implication of a head and my Zsphere experiment was complete!

(Back Side)

The final addition for the ZSpheres model was the hand and fingers.

Turning on adaptive skin gave me this result, which I confirmed to start sculpting.

With the adaptive skin version made, I started using clay build-up and inflate in tandem to apply the muscle mass and secondary form to the character with consideration of skeletal structure.

(3/4)

(Front)

(Back)

When Will came over for feedback, I asked for help with the eyelids since I seemingly never jive with them every project.. he helped achieve the correct shape by lasso masking the shape of it and inflating in reverse for a clean result, polishing that masked area.

He also advised cleaning up the shape of the arms by splitting it off and reducing the topology to simplify the shape, smoothing it out for a better appearance.

Following this, I started the clothing blockout by using the extract tool for the skirt and stockings.

For the singular hair strand, I placed a sphere and used snake hook to gradually drag out the correct shape.

I brought it way down to the correct length before cleaning it up, as it appears to stretch topologically here.

Applying ZRemesh at half helped relax the form, which I followed up with more snake hook to get the curves at the end.

Starting on the collar, I followed the clean method we've been taught of using polygroups to create an empty cylinder.

Next, I scaled it down and tapered it outwards to fit the neck properly.

After this, I used the move tool to make it sit mores snugly on the neck and gave it more of a curve.

I blocked in the shirt using spheres, using the move tool to push its form into shape, followed by the standard tool on normal and inverse to create a subtle implication of folds. I also used it on inverse to accommodate for the strips in the centre and back which will cause it to dip inwards.

I had to alter the design of the gloves and take away its singular finger wrap as it kept causing mesh errors, but I made sure it still stayed consistent, using a sharp V to remain cohesive with the design.

I repeated the same process as the collar for the sleeve rims.

Following this, I adjusted the collar's shape to fit V.A.L's sharper design but it appeared messy so I reworked it at a lower resolution for cleaner topology.

Next, I extracted out the shapes on the top's stripes at the back.

I crudely blocked out the rest of the clothing panels to fix up in the next session as I wanted to use the rest of my time working on the face.

To gain more detail on the head, I split it off from the body rather seamlessly as it was covered by the collar. 

This allowed me to sculpt in detail at a higher resolution, which I worked on by softening the eye ridges, adding secondary forms like the mouth muzzle and lessened the sag of the eyebags for a more natural position.

I worked on the shirt's strip by implying a zip at low detail, using a masked stripe and the inflate deformation tool. I followed this up by using a plane and splitting off the corners to create a triangle, and extruded it for thickness.

Next, I worked on something of a crest with this extruded plane to sit in the area between the collar since it looked a little empty. I flattened the corners and duplicated itself for a more sci-fi look.

Dev Log Evaluation:
I spent the rest of the lesson cleaning up the minor details using the process of Zremeshing to bring down the resolution, maintaining the polygroups to keep the planes distinct. From here, I increased the resolution for smoother detail and less faceting, using the move tool to ensure the curves were clean. I also began to add the implication of clothing folds with the standard brush, showing where tension occurs and tightens.

Now that the model is cleaned up, I'm going to start adding subdivisions in the next session to bring in maximum detail, polishing the sculpt to completion to start the Max phase. My goal for the next session is to complete the Zbrush phase entirely so I can get into Max by week 4 to start working on the tech props like the belt and arm-wrap, finally finishing with retopology. This will leave me 3 weeks to texture and present!

To start the process of retopping, I'm decimating my meshes to lower their resolution while maintaining the detail so a clean mesh can load into Max easily.

Will Feedback:

• Go more in detail with clothing folds and break up the silhouette, really push them further and strengthen the folds.

• Add tear ducts for final detail in the face.

• Will helped block in the belt with clean polygroups for a good foundation to take to Max when I model the rest.

I opened a new Max file, importing the head and scaling it by 1000. I ensureed the metric was set to cm for Unreal's setup, and started my retop.

Starting with the head, I retopped around the eyelids, extruding them inwards and collapsing them to finish it off, maintaining loops around the mouth, eye, and up the cheek for animation.

Once I wrapped the topology around the back of the head, I took the loop at the bottom and extended it downward to cover the neck area.

From here, I selected the vertical loops on this area and used the connect tool to add horizontal loops at the right distance.

Next, I used the symmetry tool to mirror over the topology. I activated weld seam to close the holes that appeared in the middle.

For the eyes, I just grabbed some spheres and aligned them into position with the high poly version.

I followed the usual process of retopping the hand taking some liberties with the more unique shape and lack of fingers...

Next, I retopped the hair by following the form all the way down and reducing the topology to create a less dense ending. For the smaller piece at the front, I worked outwards from the fold occurring in it. I made sure all visible areas had topology, but I cut it off where it merged into the head to save tri's and ease the unwrap process.

For the sleeves, I started with the unique topology of the elbow, as a joint needs accommodations to allow bending in animation. Next, I extended this out on either side with the method of extruding far, selecting the vertical edges and using the connect tool to proportionally add more loops, finally conforming it to the shape.

As seen here with the belt, I retopped half of the surface. Next, I used the symmetry tool to cover it across the whole object, followed by the shell modifier to give the inner area thickness, creating a proper mesh.

Cheeky progress check - since we didn't attend the Friday session due to comic con, this is the result of my work for week 5. At the start of week 6, Monday, I worked on my retop to compensate for this fact.

I started with the stockings, trying to match the general topology count of the feet so they move in unison, and building the joint areas. Next, I extruded upwards and used connect to add more loops, finally completing this area.

I also retopped the thighs just so there isn't a void beneath the skirt. For the crest, I used the simplified shape from Zbrush as it usually has a second, smaller triangle within it but I can just duplicate the mesh now that the retop is done.

Next, I sorted each mesh by the categories I made for the UV sheets, following the list carefully to visualise in colour coding what unwraps will go where.

Starting with the skin felt easy as unwrapping these areas is a familiar process to me; I started with hands, adding a seam along the middle to split both sides of the hands.

Next, I tackled the feet. I made sure to create a seam that ran across the flat soles of the feet to split off that bottom face. Next, I hid a seam under the stockings' sleeve which prevented distortion in the face of the toes.

The head was easy, as it floated which already established a seam. I just needed to split it down the middle at the back, hiding most of the seam under the hair, then peeling the whole face.

For the shirt, I followed the logic of fashion and textiles, adding seams where the sleeves split off, although I didn't add seams at the sides of the main shirt as usual since I had a large zipper in the middle which perfectly hid this seam.

I added seams where the ends of the sleeves occurred so the inner face could be split off and shrunk down for UV space. Next, I added a seam along the whole of the mesh to flatten it out in one large face, putting it under the arm to hide it.

The skirt required the same approach of a textiles mindset, adding seams at the side and bottom to split off the faces like stitched fabric.

The crest's unwrap demonstrates how most smaller details with more faceted designs were approached, adding seams to major plane changes and straightening the sides.

Skin areas like the hair, face, hands, thighs, and feet.

Eyes peeled by the middle edge loop hidden in the eyelids, shrinking down the hidden face.

Major clothing pieces like the shirt, skirt, sleeves, collar, and stockings.

Using the blockout of the belt made in Zbrush, I was able to get a solid base. It was already very optimised so I could directly use it, shelling it as the first step. After this, I chamfered it for softer edges.

I did the same with the arm straps, removing loops to match the arm's topology, and ensuring edge chamfers.

After adding the gizmo to its position, I created buckles.

I started with the base colour with decent roughness.

I followed this up with some height information and extra roughness using a woven fabric generator.

Next, I found a checker pattern that I exclusively added a colour channel to, which brought in the white squares.

Finally, I added in some dirt and implied ambient occlusion with an extra rough layer at a darker orange tone.

I used a smart material as a base and changed the circles pattern for height to cloth folds for a better material read and inverted the curvature map so it looks to have darker worn edges on the collar.

For this waist wrap and every other leather object, I started with a brown base with varied dirt spots and a curvature map to get lighter edgewear. Next, I added a "scratches" filter and painted in some hue variation.

For the secondary detail on the skirt, the cuffs, I added a noise map to the roughness channel and turned up the metalness to give it some subtle sheen. This screenshot also shows how the leather looks complete on other assets.

I mixed roughness and metallic together with the channels to get a glossy, glass screen akin to a retro TV. 

Next, I made a layer with a lighter green tone and more roughness to paint in the edgewear and scratches.

For the gizmo itself, I imagined it to be like a sturdy plastic similar to a TV remote so I showed that with lighter edgewear and evident wear in the middle sections where contact has smoothed out the texture.

I started using height and colour layers to paint in the details of the gizmo, following my orthographic design, before realising I did it upside down!!!

Imagine my surprise when I go to the effort of restarting this step to get it the right way round, and still end up doing it the wrong way round again.

Finally I got it right!!! I also used the normal alphas provided by Painter to add techy details to empty spaces.

Starting with the eyes, I applied a glossy base. From here, I deepened the colours to paint in implied ambient occlusion.

Enrichment time consists of painting in anime sparkles.

I followed the usual sub-dermal texturing process for the skin, taking some creative liberties to accommodate for her alien biology. For example, I used a deep magenta for the underlayer.

I added a darker colour of magenta with a liquid noise map to get some colour variation, increasing its tiling for more subtlety.

Next, I gradually built up the skintone by handpainting for a less uniform, even layer.

Next, I added a human pores smart material with only the height selected to start conveying the more toadlike, bumpy areas of her skin.

I added a black mask and started painting in the bumpier detail with smooth transitions in major areas like the face, midsection and top surfaces of each limb.

Hue variation was the next goal as she has transitions from pale indigo to teal, which I followed up with teal bumps painted in with splatter brushes.

Finally, I added some makeup!

I'm feeling pretty confident right now given that 90% of the texturing was complete today! I tackled all the scariest parts like the gingham pattern and the transitional frog/toadskin. My final goals for texturing are to add some roughness variation to the latex skirt, make the hair match the skin better, and touch up small areas like the claws. Next, I'll polish any areas to add a more Dishonored II flair and get Will's approval to move onto the posing/presenting stage!

As I'd finished the texturing, it was time to move onto the stage of posing the character. I uploaded the low polys to Mixamo where I selected a feminine pose that exhibited her lethargic personality. It looked good initally, but a little wonky on closer inspection as the hand didn't reach the waist and it wrinkled the wrist too much in its bending. While I did try to manually fix this in Unreal Engine using the skeleton editor, it didn't entirely rectify the issue. I moved the hand to the wrist but the odd bending still occurred.

I did end up finding a solution in having the topside of her wrist resting on the waist rather than the palms which fixed the bending, along with tilting her head up and away to show her lack of acknowledgement towards us.

Evidence of the cinching at the wrist being fixed with the change of posing, along with the great VAL lineup showing the editing of poses.

With posing complete, I started on setting up the lighting.

The typical 3-point lighting setup was the goal here, with a subtly warm glow on the key light, a cooler complemented light for the rim and a neutral one for the fill. I just wish I'd gone for a more obviously cool look on the rim!!! I also added a brown tone akin to the leather clothing accents for the background.

(bonus gadget shot)