Hey everyone, this is a recent commission I did for a VR Chat avatar. The client was kind enough to allow me to share the work publicly and even resell it for others to enjoy!
(something nice for the thumbnail, just a sketchfab screenshot)
There have been a lot of CGI and game Vaders out there, and they all kind of suck, they look great but are all pretty inaccurate. Even when DICE got to scan the original Vader suit a lot of details were lost in the creative process before Battlefront launched (and that game looks unbelievably good).
My client wanted a 100% accurate Vader from Return of the Jedi that would run in VR chat. So we spent months with film rewatches, reference gathering, production details, and behind-the-scenes polaroids.
This model was the final result: a Screen Accurate Darth Vader matched to Star Wars episode 6. Every single detail was vetted with movie footage and behind-the-scenes records. Heck, I was comparing paint codes from old Rolls Royce cars to get the accurate paint albedos.
This was one of the most pain-staking, and most rewarding models I have ever worked on, and a great justification for a lifetime of Star Wars obsession!
You can find the model on Artstation, CGTrader, Sketchfab, and Youtube.
Software used:
Modeling: Blender
Texturing: Substance painter
Deployment/Rendering: Unity (built-in render pipeline)
Proportions/Measurements: Blender with Human Generator V3
References: PureRef
Video editing: Davinci Resolve
Close-up renders, and a combat animation at the end! This setup used dynamic bones for VR Chat, It seems like you cna also use unity cloth system instead now and it works even better (less weird cape clipping) I haven’t had a chance to personally try it, but I’ve been uploading a separate rig without the cape bones in case anyone preffers cloth sim.
View the model in 3D:
Some of the processes:
Creating a David Prowse body double with Human Generator to build the suit on. That man was unbelievably muscular, I had to override most default max settings to accurately mimic his build:
Creating and detailing the leather suit:
Early rigging test for the Avatar, using Unity’s humanoid system you can make a single rig work for VR controls, and it will accept any animation from Mixamo or a custom one you make. The humanoid system lets this character go from avatar to fan animations really easily.
Some of the High Poly details from the helmet. To make it Game ready most of these got baked into the texture, the key is to keep a few around the edges as actual geometry. If a few show up in the silhouette, the rest feel much more ‘real’ even though they’re completely flat.
A ray-traced lighting test to make sure the materials are shading right. Using ray trace lets natural occlusion happen while you validate your PBR values before you spend time setting up a custom occlusion map for real-time engines.
The final High poly Vader and lightsaber hilt:
The game ready Vader, and some details about the material and texture setups for VR:
