If you follow my art thread, you might remember this character model. I'm slowly finishing it.

I have everything modeled and retopologized now. Currently working on fixing all the projection issues. Here are the untextured clothes, although there are still a lot of issues you can't see in this shot:


I spent a lot of time today fixing the shoes, then textured them.

Unsure in retrospect of my decision to put the zippers on the back instead of the side to add visual interest, but whatever, it's good enough for now. I may revisit it later, though. Unfortunately I made it too low-poly and didn't realize the folds are messed up until it was too late. :[ But it looks okay from a distance, so I guess it's fine.

I resimulated this goddamn sweater for like the 500th time (seriously I cannot tell you how many times I have fussed with the simulation of the clothes) because I realized that I needed the pieces to be rectangles on the UV map so the argyle pattern can wrap around correctly.


Now I gotta retopologize it and reproject everything all over again ffffff. On the plus side, I can take this opportunity to make the sweater higher-poly. I made the boots too low-poly, and the folds look really bad from some angles. Current sweater mesh has the same problem.

I also briefly played with making maps for the hair last night, but it looks really shitty:


I'm going to need to do a lot of research to figure out how to make hair look good. Also, Unreal doesn't support anisotropy right now (makes the highlights flow along the length of the hair), so that's going to be challenging.


Maybe I will use this thread as a diary to post about how incredibly tedious and laborious making 3D models is, including all the shitty steps no one cares about but are vital.

Edit: Retopologized and repacked the UVs.


If you don't know, UV mapping is the process of telling the model where to put the texture. You put a checkerboard pattern on the model while UV mapping it so you can check for UV distortion and make sure the resolution across all parts is similar. I have four texture atlases altogether (and will get another one for skin), so they're not quite the same resolution.

Well that was a pain in the ass, and there are still issues. :[ I think the bag or skirt needs to change color, but idk what to do with it. Also, something about the sweater material looks a little off to me, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to improve it.

Edit: Working on the wool texture more. I'm struggling to get it to look appropriately fuzzy and woolly.

cute shoes

Oooh. Looking very nice. The closeup of the wool looks blurry though. I don't think wool is blurry. Maybe it's just the resolution of the texture, though. I'd guess you might get a good wooly texture by applying a noisy normal map if it's high enough resolution. You wouldn't want it to be too noisy, but blurring it makes it worse. And of course normal maps make the drawing more expensive if you aren't already using them (and can you even apply them without shader rendering? I'm not sure).

The texture is actually very high-resolution, but yes, I did intentionally pixelate the albedo a little bit. I was trying to imitate this kind of texture:
http://contentinjection.com/wp-content/ ... r-vest.jpg

See how it's made up of a bunch of little boxes? I do want a better way to get that effect, though, since the shapes of the cells aren't actually square. I've been thinking about redoing it by hand, but it'll probably be a pain in the ass.

Also, part of the problem is the normal map of the sweater edges, which unfortunately looks pretty bad because of the source mesh. I've tried to fix it, but I may just redo their normals from scratch so they look more like the photo I linked.

Working on a method for creating hair materials.


Better video:
http://i.gyazo.com/0acd1a50ef09d2ae56832b1b5a4c7027.mp4

Doing some work on skin and eye materials:

Getting flashbacks of PS3 tech demos...

Did you use high resolution photos for those eyes? It also looks like you have the cornea of the eye there with the pupil/iris behind it

I'm using physically based materials for everything, so the tech is actually current gen, not PS3-era. My goal is to get the finished product looking as good as a modern AAA game, but we'll see if I can meet that bar, hahahaha. And yes, I started with photo textures for everything, and the iris is recessed (with a displacement map).

Anyway, I revisited the texture on the sweater:


Maybe the new stripey things are too crisp now? I dunno. also, I still think the shirt looks pretty bad up close, but I'm not sure why or what to do about it. :I

I guess my next steps are to finish fixing up and retexturing the glasses (I decided they looked bad), get AO from the clothes onto the skin, and then get it into Unreal and see what additional maps I need. After that, I'll probably tackle the tattoo.

Now with glasses. Hair is next.

Through a hilariously convoluted series of steps, I've managed to convert my poly strips hair into high-poly hair. Next I'm gonna bake a bunch of maps from it. I really want to figure out how to do a direction map for anisotropy (the particular kind of highlights hair has), but you can't do it from geometry because polygons don't have any notion of direction. But the high-poly hair is generated from splines, so maybe I can figure out a way to do it?? idk

This all looks awesome!

...and kind of fun!

Thanks! It is fun, but it's very technical and a LOT of work. Very rewarding when it comes out well, though.

Okay, so my previous approach to hair didn't work out, so I'm trying something different now. I made some high-poly hair in ZBrush:



I'm not sure I like the bangs that long, though. It looks a little silly. I may shorten them.

Edit: Here we go.


I'm pretty pleased with myself. This looks much better than the last iteration imo.

I actually think the first bangs worked better. The second version looks much more realistic, but having them long on the side like that adds a unique element to the character design imo.
But it's definitely an improvement either way. How many polys did this new hair cost you?

Yeah, the first one is more distinctive, but I think it's out of place in the game. It's a really gritty and realistic story, so I feel like the design should look like something a real person would wear.

This hair is probably millions of polys. I'm working on creating a low-poly version and projecting the high-poly details onto it.

All your 3d work is so epic! Are you making a game with this stuff or something?

I'm liking this a lot. I must say graphics look better than PS3/Xbox 360 but it still not quite current era. It's so difficult to assess why, though. I do love the model. It reminds of a Final Fantasy character sort of model.

The advances in 3D tech over recent years have left my flabber ghasted and left me feeling even further behind in my game making ability. These are astounding.

Yep, I'm working on several projects in varying capacities. This lady is the protagonist of an RPG I'm working on that's currently on the backburner. Unfortunately I decided not to proceed with photoreal-style models, though. They're an insane amount of work compared to painted, and they don't stack up well against AAA graphics.


Funny you should say that! I studied the FF13 models for proportions. And yeah, it's so hard to make stuff look current-gen. :( I eventually kind of gave up. It's not worth the amount of work when I can make something stylized in far less time.


Thanks! I put a ton of work into it.

RE:: I would love to see the painted models in a game, Keep up the work and your going to be world class at 3d art!