Introduction
For 3D Character Design, I was tasked to produce a 3 Dimensional model of a character that is my own creation.
This assignment gave me free reign over what character to make as there is no specific genre or theme like that of 3D Asset Design or Environment Design.
With a new module or new game development process, a new set of skills had to be learned. These skills came in the form of new software and design aspects for a 3D character model. For the assignment I had to use ZBrush, a software often used for creating character models for video games at a professional level.
Considered Ideas
As this assignment had no restrictions of theme or genre, my idea generation became much more difficult than I had first expected. Potential characters kept coming to mind but were quite often dismissed for their own reasons such as creative confidence, current software skills or lack of passion towards the character,
Eventually I had decided on one of three character ideas; an original character from a concurrently running module (Scriptwriting), a Formula 1 Driver or a Red Panda style character, fitting into something like Dungeons and Dragons.
F1 Idea
One idea I had was to produce a Formula 1 racing driver, which linked to my Postproduction and VFX assignment which I was doing at the same time. The driver would have his own face, story and design. A racing suit would be made to fit a racing team with a helmet design to complete his appearance. Another model for him could be his casual clothing/team clothing with race suit and helmet models shown separately.
My story for them would be one of two. Either be that they are a newcomer to the sport, only in their first year of racing at this high level. Or they would be an experience driver who had joined a front running team only recently.
Envisioning this idea, I leaned more towards the experienced backstory as I could make the driver feel more human and worn in.
Scriptwriting Idea
My second character idea was a character from my scriptwriting module I was doing alongside this. The character is called 1 and they would have many extraordinary abilities like throwing fireballs, insane physical power and the ability to just between dimensions.
1’s design was described in my work as follows:
The characters appearance was paramount to the delivery of his character and the way he is delivered. I envision him dressing in quite a similar style to the character Vincent Volaju from the anime film Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven’s Door (2001). The majority of 1’s persona is done by the way he dresses, the look of a trained professional. His suit should give the impression of a trained professional, quite like Vincent Volaju, Agent 47 or John Wick (Figure 3). I chose these characters as visual representations as they are recognized from their respective sources as what I encapsulate 1 to be. Each character has an unwavering personality but always has an underlying issue or motive, just like 1.
The main reason that I did not chose these considered ideas was because I didn’t want to make something in relation to another module I was currently doing. I enjoyed doing it the previous year with the way that 3D Asset Design and Environment Design were linked but I wanted to try doing separate things.
The Character Idea
Eventually the idea I settled on was a Red Panda that would be in a fantasy world like Dungeons & Dragons. The character would loosely follow a race in the game called Tabaxi (the cat people) with changes made to fit my chosen animal more closely.
This character is called Lurrinn Emberwind.
Lurrinn is a short but boisterous little creature that is a trained fighter. Wielding basic combat weapons and teeming with magic, my character fits well into what would be a Paladin. They hold a promise or an oath to what could be a priest, holy spirits or even the dead.
In their fantasy realm, my character is a Guardian of Forrest Wesford. The sworn protector of their local community, all spirits and beings rely on Emberwind to maintain the safety of their home. This feeds into the characters oath and a paladins oath is a powerful bond to which they will give their life.
Making the Model
I was instantly challenged with producing the model as it would be primarily done in software I had no previous experience in, ZBrush.
I first started making the character with a sphere that I made into a blob for the chest with the Move tool.
After that I went to make the arms. Measuring against an actual Red Panda, I tried to keep them as close to realism as possible. Here I also modelled the shoulders. I realised that the real animal had a lot of fat in the armpit and tried to replicate that in my model.
After the arms were made, I moved up the the head. Made out of multiple blocks, it was very oddly shaped and was tricky to get right. Once it was in the right shape, I made ears and attached them to the head. More facial features would be added later in the development process.
Every animal needs legs to walk on. The legs I made for my model were very similar to the arms. The differences between them were the legs had to be more chunky with a different muscle build compared to the arms. After the legs were done I added 2 small blobs for feet that would receive more detail later.
It was now that a main design had been produced. The main shape was there, all appendages accounted for. All that had to be done to the model now was the more fine details.
The first details I chose to produce were the hands. I made a palm for the centre of the paw and then nails as well.
I also made nails for the feet. In the end I wasn’t too happy with their design but time was running shorter than I had hoped.
I then moved the model into Maya so that I could add other things to the model.
Armour Up
Going with my characters story details put earlier in the blog post, my character would need to have the apparel to look like a fighter but also needed to be relatively lightweight as he doesn’t have a lot of strength due to its size.
For that reason I chose a minimal amount of armour, consisting of arm bracers and pauldrons on its shoulders. This armour was taken from a asset pack which can be found here.
I also decided on giving the model some cloth based clothing. A skirt style cloth was hung around the waist and some cloth was put around the shoulders to protect them from metal which would often be rough. This fit the way that actual suits of armour were worn as the user would wear thick leather underneath the metal to protect their own skin.
Overall, the model was finished. I had done all of the main anatomy, added facial features, and then done apparel. Some might think that a tail is missing, however I decided that it could be part of the characters story that they no longer had their tail.
One of the last things to do on this final stretch was to export my model into Adobe Substance Painter and texture the model.
Texturing
Taking my model into substance painter was fairly easy as I had done it before in 3D Asset Design and had done it again recently for other assignment work.
I knew that I would have a struggle making fur in either Maya or ZBrush as they both have complicated ways of doing it so I tried to look for a method in Substance Painter.
It was here that the entire design of the Red Panda model changed, along with other aspects.
While trying to apply a texture to the cloth around the waist, I accidentally applied a denim smart material to the actual fur. Looking at this I found it looked quite good and, after changing the colours of the material, changed the idea to fit the mistake.
Leaning fully into the characters new look, I made the eyes and nose into a black marble type of material, reminiscent of a teddy bear.
After that I looked at the cloth. I tried a few different styles like normal fabric or stitched burlap but decided to take a material called “superhero fabric”. After I changed the colour to a dark bronze and then the depth colour to black, the appearance I got looked very nice to me as it looked similar to chainmail.
For the metal I chose a dark gold material. This would be more difficult to come by in the fantasy setting I had made but would be affordable if the character had the money to buy it or the skills to “acquire” it. I also added scratches to it with a normal pen tool with a lowered height so that it looked somewhat worn or used.
After that I applied a bone texture to the nails and then changed the colours. This gave it the appearance of wood or a weird metal.
After all of that, the texturing of the character model was finished and was ready to have a turntable video made, completing my work.
The Character Idea (again)
As mentioned in my Texturing section before this, I changed my character idea because I decided it looked better. But with this change being made, the character no longer fit the story of Lurrinn. So I had to change my character idea.
The new character is called Malachai (Ma-lah-kai). Malachai is a puppet that is inhabited by a demon. It holds onto the dark memories imprinted onto it from its previous owners for power. Using these dark emotions, it feeds off unsettled children in hopes the accumulated power is enough to reform its true demonic appearance.
The once innocent and soothing button eyes are now dark with a sinister shine. Its fur is discoloured and rotten through exposure to elements and demonic possession. Malachai’s mouth, now sewn shut, would bare teeth like needles that were sharper than scalpels.
Final Product
After the finished texturing I looked to do the turntable recording of the model I needed to complete the entire process. When I tried exporting the textures into Maya to apply them, I ran into an issue of the textures for the eyes and fur did not apply correctly.
For the rendered video, I first wanted to do it in Maya using a Plug in called Viper. I tested this before I tried applying textures, just to see if it would work but I ran onto many errors that I decided not to troubleshoot.
I instead thought I could use a turntable system that was already built into Maya. After research, this method was possible and fairly simple. However I could not do it this way because of the issues with textures not being applied correctly.
With the textures not being applied correctly in Maya, I looked for a way to do it in Adobe Software.
I found a YouTube video that went over how to make a turntable in Adobe Substance Stager and then put that into Premiere Pro. The video can be found here.
When I put the model into Adobe Substance Stager, I had to apply the texture source images, similar to what I had to do in Maya. The textures for the “fur” and the eyes still didn’t turn out as I had hoped but it is the best of the methods I had tried.
Following the video from earlier, I produced a turntable video of the character model. This can be seen below.
References
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