From Concept to Game Character ... learning all the way !

Hi All,
I’m new to Blender here, I want to learn the whole process of making a high rez character and breaking it down to a low res, and maybe some basic rigging. So, starting here; just a drawing …

This Pirate chick has a wheel instead of a peg-leg; So she can scoot along on it like a skateboard :stuck_out_tongue: though I’ll design an alternate ‘normal’ leg too so I can practice making a walk cycle. Figure.

So what’s next ? I guess I need a front and side view to work from. So I’m still on paper for the minute …

If you’re reading, feel free to pitch in with advice !



The green shirt and red head band are throwing me. I’d recommend playing with some other colors maybe.

I think now before you draw your modeling sheet that you decide what your limitations are going to be. Texture sheet sizes, types of textures sheets, final poly count, etc. Some of these may influence the model sheet.

Thanks Jessegp, I’m not going to worry too much about the colours for now, I can come up with a bunch of alternatives later.

I don’t really have enough experience to alter my model sheet for the target model size, that’s one of the things that I’m hoping to learn by trial and error ! I want to make a high rez version, and then bake a low rez version from that.

Here’s my model sheet :slight_smile:

I’ve removed her tailcoat and wooden leg for clarity, I anticipate modeling both seperately.
And I’m currently panicking about the ruffles :wink:

The head/face isn’t in in a great deal of detail - I figure on roughing that in for now, and sorting out decent reference for her face when I need it.

Attachments


Nice drawings I love your character design, if you are stuck for specs you could use what the dominance war guys use 12.5K triangles and 2k texture maps. I will keep an eye out for this thread because am dying to see where you go with it.

Thanks TM, especialy for the specs - 12.5k is a lot higher than I was expecting, that’s kinda cool. Last time I was in games we were making 500 poly models :stuck_out_tongue: It’s been a while !

I’ve been building away at this, getting a rough shape ready and trying to keep the topology good - its still a bit hokey in places ! This is what I got so far


The overall shape is going well, I think, although she’s somehow put on weight from the concept :stuck_out_tongue: - the hand aint right, I need to fix her ‘ET’ thumb ! Oh, and add knees. The topology is more of a problem than the shape …


At the moment there the edge-loop around the shoulder where the arm joins on is discontinuous. Some of the polys in the mesh in her upper body have no clear purpose - they’re there because they’re there, rather than to hold shape, provide edge loops or combine loops.

Oh, and I put in some polys to add a bit of definition to her butt and gained a triangle. Foolish :stuck_out_tongue:

Still an all, I’m happy with it as a start !

I’ve been working away at the head … I want to get the topology right, and then tweek it into shape. This is my progress so far ( No eyelids ).



I’ve coloured in the face loops to make them apparent. I’m kinda happy with them, MOSTLY, I guess when I get to animating I’ll find out.

However, the area around the nose that I’ve highlighted in red is NOT AN EDGE LOOP, and I’m not happy with it - I have this feeling that the groove coming out from the nose flange ought to run straight into a loop going around the mouth edge. Would appreciate any advice.

Also, a question - are there any tools that allow you to select a set of edges ( or verticies ) that will then fit them to a curve, as a way of getting rid of the crinkly irregularity of it ? Or should I be smoothing the smeg out of it ?

Oh, and orthogonal and smoothed views -



And today I learnt …
that you can’t mirror a sculpt. Ratfish.


I can’t boil it all down to the high-res mesh, because my computer isn’t powerful enough to cope. It only just manages with the figure chopped into parts, only working on one high level part at a time.

So I’m looking at copying and reflecting the arms, legs & boots - the head doesn’t have a multires modifier on it and the body I had already doubled before I mutliressed it ( because I wanted asymetrical creases on her clothing )

Note to self: 2.4 GHz single core processor and no graphics cards is not up to scratch :frowning:

Go old school and do it without sculpting, google this artists-FirstKeeper- she has a talent of doing really cool old school game models I believe her husband was the winner of the last Dominance war. So they are the talented duo. I brought a few e-mags from 3dtotal where she has a tutorial currently running.

… and an update on the head, while I’m here ! Shape is improving, still needs ears.


Thanks TM, Will do :slight_smile:

I love seeing this character come alive :smiley: keep up the good work :wink:

Thanks MM.
Well, I got about this far; I’ve figured out how to bake maps from the multires, but I’m leaving that for the minute. In the meantime I’m going for a hand drawn map. I’ve UV mapped a version of the model, and aproximated the colour areas to test it out.

It looks find in 3D BUT in rendering, it doesn’t map right. It looks like a planar map on the Z axis ?

Are there any common gotchas that would cause this ?


This is really obvious, sorry, but have you made sure to check all the texture settings? Make sure the texture is set to UV, etc.? Anyway the model is looking really snazzy!

Ah, got it. I was hoping that this was enough;
properties->render->layers->UV
But it needed this too ;
properties->texture->mapping->coordinates:UV
Thanks AA :slight_smile:

Early version - in plastomatic vision !
Really should do somink about those ears …


This is about ~9k tris. I got a level of subdivision somewhere that I applied, that I’m kind of stuck with now :stuck_out_tongue:

First Baked version - just the ambient occlusion here, multiplied into the colour map from the above version. The belt and wheel are a bit hokey, because they don’t exist in my sculpt. Quite liking this, but still keen to try a photoshop’d version for a more cartoon look.


Oh, and how do you do eyes for game characters ? Anyone know ?

Some more work on the head - some slight reshaping, plus ( not that you can see ) have cut slit into the mouth for animation later - alos fitted a bandana. I’m just guessing here, but I’m doing the hair as a bunch of layers ( that will have transparent ‘strand’ textures on ) - if there’s a better way to do this, I’d love to know.

Oh, and she’s got ears now. Phew.