Sculpting a videogame character based on BSpheres

TobiasRusjan · November 22, 2021, 9:42pm

Hello, everybody! How are you?

This is my first post here, so I want to introduce myself:

I’m from the video game world. I have been using 3D Max for about a decade now, creating low poly models, collisions, grey boxes for level design and other basic forms for PC games we developed at Saibot Studios.

But this year I started working as a solo developer and I decided to move to Blender. Btw, I’m loving it so far!

I recently made a full game for a jam called Out of Bounds, it’s free on Itch.io. All the 3D there was made in Blender. Super basic stuff though, but they were all made in only 7 days together with the logic and sound effects.

So I wanted to enter in the sculpting area, did some research and found the add-on BSpheres by @mifth (based on the ZSpheres from Z Brush):

What I loved about it is that you can build a base mesh from the Edit Mode, just like creating a low poly. And once you’re ready, you can get into Sculpt Mode with a solid base.

Here’s what I did in one entire day:

And this is how it looks like in Edit Mode with X Ray, just some vertices connected like if they were bones:

The addon has some limitations and bugs, but it works pretty well for what I was looking for: just a base pose of my character to start sculpting on

I’ve already started doing the sculpting, I’ll be posting the progress in the replies below as soon as I have some interesting progress.

Do you guys have any suggestion about sculpting a character? I mean like references of anatomy or any specific tutorial video. I’m just using all I found on You Tube and Google Images

Thank you, guys! Take care!

Tobias

humanartist · November 22, 2021, 11:25pm

I recommend going to proko.com to learn anatomy of the human body. It’s based on digital painting, but would still apply to sculpting. And they have some clay sculpting tutorials to look at also. Learning things like the planes of the head, and also the planes of the body is very helpful for doing humans. And the knowledge can be carried into other creatures.

3DTotal has some good books on the subject. “Anatomy for 3D artists” was my favorite 3D Total book. But after this book going to a tutorial like proko is still good idea.

It might take long time to get good at human anatomy surface sculpting and modeling. This is a part where most artists give up artwork. That is what I have heard.

TobiasRusjan · November 23, 2021, 12:02pm

Thanks a lot, @humanartist ! I’m definitely taking a look at those

I have been making some progress on the body. I’ll upload some images later today.

Cheers!

TobiasRusjan · November 23, 2021, 7:46pm

Alright! Here go about two days of sculpting the muscles of the full body:

I’ve detached the hands to work them apart since it gets pretty tough from the current position.

Any feedback on the body so far will be welcome! As you maybe have noticed, the idea here is to have an athletic guy with sharp muscles, but not all pumped up like a body builder.

Thank you!

TobiasRusjan · November 25, 2021, 12:00am

I’ve been working on the hands and feet outside the rest of the body:

The foot was a really tough one, maybe I can return to it at some point. But I’ve already spent an entire day just to it

Now I need to attach both things to the body and keep working on the entire model. And the final stage would be the head…

Feedback is always welcome, thank you!

TobiasRusjan · November 27, 2021, 5:14am

Damn, this took me forever… Two complete days for the head, and I think there’s still work to do:

By far, the most difficult part were the eyes

Now I want to merge everything and see how it goes. Unfortunately, I can’t get into small details because my computer can’t afford them. I can work with better definition (polys) with the individual parts, like the head, hands or feet; but as soon as I try to merge them with the rest of the body using that same remesh value, my PC freezes.

Feedback is welcome, thank you!

TobiasRusjan · November 29, 2021, 2:41am

Finally! I did the full merge and worked some more on the body and face.

Here are the final results with a super basic render:

Next step would be to break the symmetry, adding the interior of the mouth and details like veins. But I need to get back to other areas of the game now. Also, my computer can’t handle it no more right now because of the amount of polys/voxels; I plan to buy a new one next year, so then I will be ready to continue working on it

Anyways! Hope you like it and remember that your feedback is more than welcome! Both from the character design aspect to the anatomy side.

Thank you, guys! Cheers!