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Part 1 - Model
Part 1 - Model
Project Beginnings
For this project I wanted to try and create a 3D character rig suitable for TV or social media production. Basing the characters design off one of the protagonists (Scout) from my comic.
The primary audience for this project would be fans of speculative fiction and mascot horror.
I went with this idea for the major project because adapting my graphic novel into something that I can actually 3D animate is something that Ive been wanting to do for a while. It also allows me to hone and develop my rigging/modelling skills and create a final product that I can take to industry as additional skill sets to my 3D animation work.
The final deliverable for this project will be this character fully rigged and usable for portfolio animations, social posts (Insta/Tik Tok/YouTube) and the potential also for it to be used for an animated pilot later down the line.
For this semesters submission I focused on developing the character model first and then using next semester to rig them.
Planned timeline for the project
Prior to semester 1 I started with developing their design. Creating a pure ref board, doing some concept sketches and block-outs.
I used the pure ref to collect not just reference images but also helpful rigging and modelling references.
Once I had references collected, I started working on a few rigging tests and the concept art.
Here are some early block-outs of the character in zBrush, the first 3 weeks of semester consisted of me just iterating on the design to get it as high quality as I could.
First Rough Block-out
Ill also started making some blog/social content videos on my progress as I go!
Semester Starts!
From the discord blog:
Update 8/3: Got some good progress on the main blocking out of the body. I squished the torso down a bit, and I think it really suits the character a lot better. The side profile still bugs me a little bit but I'm unsure where the issue is (I'll have to have a think on it). Since the model won't be highly detailed/mainly painted in substance I will be likely moving to clothing modelling soon. Not worring about texture detailing. I've booked in a mentor-sesh with one of the 3D mentors for this week and I'm hoping that I can get some good constructive feedback on the model.
Update 15/3
Started getting into the body modelling today, took me ages to figure out how to merge it all without destroying all my geo but we got there! I will likely have to go through and sharpen a few of the edges to make sure that I'm staying close to my ref.
Final Character Model!
Weeks 4 - 5 - Creating the clothing
23/3/26 Discord Update: Started the rough block-out of the clothing today! I mainly did this using a combination of masking, extruding and then sculpting out the details. This is to make sure that all clothes fit the character.
Week 5 - Completed outfit!
Honestly, I was a bit unsure if I would be able to finish it in the 2 weeks, but I managed to get it all done! Really happy on how it came out, and excited to start getting this character into retopology.
I strayed away from the original design a bit by adding in some straps to the pockets and a V-shape on the chest. I think this helps the overall design.
Starting some of the retopology on the hands. I decided to start here as I struggled alot getting the topology right on the hands/feet on my last character and decided to just bite the bullet and focus on it first.
Week 7 - Retopology of the body was completed!
This was arguably the longest and most tedious part, but I'm quite happy with how the body came out. I think it took roughly about 30ish hours. Did the math later and its roughly 60 hours ☠️. I was talking to the 3D students in class and they suggested clearing history which absolutely sped up my process by the end.
I paid special attention to deformations and edge flow, making sure things that would move a lot had plenty of loops. I also started with the most detailed parts first as these can become near impossible if you do them last.
Next week I will be doing the clothing retopology, so unfortunately, they will have to stay naked till next week.
Week 8 - Clothing retopology (mostly) done.
Completed the retopology of the clothing, not super happy with how the vest was done so Im going to take it to the mentors and see if they can offer some advice. I also adjusted the time-line since I won't be doing any rigging for this part of the project, and to give me more time for retopology.
Week 9 - Oh god UV'ing was so much quicker than retopologising.
I think in total I spent around 5 hours doing all the UV's for this project and the base character is now done. I'll be planning on taking them to texturing by the end of this week.
Since this is something that I want to take into photoshop to hand paint textures I made a deliberate effort on the body UV's to put them into a readable order.
This video was super useful in helping me setting out the UV's correctly. I also checked out these videos as well for reference.
Week 10 - Clean-up week
This week I sent some time tiding up the UV's and adjusting some of the topology of my character. This consisted of fixing texel density, topology, fixing the shape of the tights and increasing the size of the character.
Fixing characters size: They were a bit small when imported in from zBrush so i just scaled them up by 10.3.
Fixing characters clothing: fixing pants silhouette, and vest topology.
Week 10/11 - Bringing them into substance painter
Brought the character into substance to texture. This phase was easy as the character has a simple cartoony aesthetic.
First pass on texturing (no secondary detailing).
Also there was no way that I would have overlapping UV's... absolutely not...
Secondary detailing added/blue tint.
Week 11 - Back to Maya
Brought the scout back into Maya and applied their textures. Also modelled up some eyes and had a bit of fun doing a rough rig set up for them. This was set up using aim constraints and a nurbs curve.
Week 12 - Chaos, nonsense and first poses
At request of Jason, I had a go at setting up the character with a Mixamo animation. The base animations were... interesting to say the least. I did attempt to make one look somewhat normal however even with mocap cleanup it still gave an uncanny look. This clean up caused the model to have a few weird glitches as well since I had to directly edit their bones/re-attach their eyes. What I did find interesting was that Mixamo was able to identify that the character only had 3 fingers and a thumb which I thought was a neat detail!
Though I didn't really end up using a Mixamo animation for the final submission, I did use one to act as a pose base! This made things like foot positions easier to set up.
Week 12 - Pose version 1
This was my first pass at doing a pose for the character, honestly really happy how they have come up! I'm thinking I'll do a few tweaks before final submission, but yeah we are on the home stretch now!
Week 12 - Final Pose!
Week 12 - Model finished
Week 12 - Closed the characters mouth ready for rigging!
Had a lot of fun with this project, it was really cool seeing something that I had been drawing 2D for years now actually in 3D!
I'd say I definitely learnt the most doing re-topo on this one, since it was the part that had the most technical focus and I forgot that deleting history was a thing. Texturing was the most fun, it really was the stage where the character started coming to life and genuinely felt like all my work was paying off.
Looking forward to work on this more next semester! The plan-ahead is to do some rigging practise in the holidays and maybe get a start at watching some tutorial's and blocking in the joints. I'm thinking since the rig might take longer than 12 weeks I might set the project out with stretch goals, having the end result focus on adding more details/quality of life elements.
Also I want to give myself the challenge next semester to write some python for my scripting. Maybe work on adding in an effective FK/IK switch or bend/anti-pop solvers. But that is research for the break...
Part 2 - Rigging
Part 2 - Rigging
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