3D Creation Pipeline for Film and Games - Character Creation

About me I am a traditional 2D artist venturing into 3D to see how often the two can meet on the screen to create multiple visual narratives in different ways. Currently, as a master's student in Computer Animation, I have set this 2D and 3D visual mash into motion with two CG assets that I have created based on my own concept art.   Click here for character design and concept idea s:      Character_The_Travelling_Elf   Final Character Wireframe, UV and Beauty Passes: Stills_ArnoldRender Stills_ArnoldRender Final Wireframe, UV and Beauty Pass: Windmill_Hard_Surface_Model click on:  Windmill_Hard_Surface_Model  for the design and modelling process

Hard Surface Model based on Character  For this model, I wanted something that visualised, “To take a piece of home with you”, a heartfelt memento for my travelling Elf to carry with him. Maintaining narrative continuity is something I realise is an essential driver of my creativity and ability to apply much-needed constraints to the brainstorming process. Very rough concept sketch notes Concept sketches  The ideation process went from musical instruments, to travel collectibles, potion bottles, to stopwatches, until I landed on the idea of a portable windmill scene fixed in a glass jar. I thought that an Elf travelling for the first time would indeed carry a memento that reminded them of home, so I played with the idea of a ship in a glass jar and applied it to the logic of the Elf’s context. I established the context, design genre and type of object I wanted: Stylised, Medieval, portable memento. I decided to finalise the design and plan the components. Reference To help i...

Baking Baking was a constant back-and-forth in trying to get the right amount of max frontal/rear distance. Thankfully most of this process was somewhat less arduous however, I did come across some issues where I had to troubleshoot things by going back and adjusting UVs and coming back to see if there were bleeding/"melting" issues.  Texturing   Testing my own paintings from above to be used as Eye_Texture stamps To make Textures: Handpainted Style Fill Layer = Roughness Max Fill Layer + Black + Mask + Generator (Either dirt and/or metal edge) +Blur Slope Blur Slope is an incredibly underrated and important part of the handpainted style as its parameters allow you to adjust and create the illusion of handpainted textures, this filter helped diffuse the harshness of the generators.   I played with ambient occlusion (generator) and position, to make sure that there were textures even where I was not painting. I wanted to make sure that the base colours themself were s...

Beginning the Retopology process Retopology before the start of the semester was an elusive process to me however after learning about the importance of it, I have finally started to retopologise my own character.   I first practised using topology edge flow and routing methods. Practice in Maya Knee topology I modelled in Maya while following materials collection of Pinterest images A Rough start  I found, due to the stylised and albeit exaggerated planes that I sculpted on my character, the planar changes helped to indicate where the topology would sit for example the prominence of the brow bone, to the top of the cheekbones which meet around the hollows of the eyes.   Going forward, I will spend less time sculpting/modelling and more time invested in the “nitty gritty” of things, which is retopology, UV unwrapping and texturing. I believe even with my planning and scheduling some things unexpectedly took longer than expected. Final Retopology:  Topology i...