Student Portfolio 2022-2023

Palpatine

For this student project, I wanted to try and capture the performance of one of my favorite actors, the great Ian Mcdiarmid. His classic voice and demeanor are a defining component of many Star Wars films, and I hope I distilled some of his character and body language in this piece.

It was also a chance to demonstrate the modeling, texturing, groom, and lookdev skills I have built during the last two years studying asset creation for film at Think Tank Training Centre.

For the sculpting I used Maya and Zbrush in equal parts, with all the primary and secondary forms established in Maya, and high resolution detail in Zbrush. Skin detail was achieved with Texturing XYZ's VFACE. All skin/eye textures were created in Mari, and the rest in Substance Painter. Clothing was drafted and simulated with Marvelous Designer, then finished with Maya/Zbrush. Groom was created in Houdini and finished with Xgen. Shading and Rendering with Arnold, Composited in Nuke.

Clay/Lighting Renders

Substance Painter and the Adobe Substance 3D fabric assets made texturing the garments very straightforward and relatively painless

Eight texture maps for the skin were originally created in Mari, although in the end only the Color, SSS Radius, and Bump were used. Specular, SSS Scale, and Coat were accomplished in-shader using RGB masks

The hair guides were created in Houdini and refined in Xgen. Four Descriptions were created: hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, and peachfuzz.  Clumps were placed manually for some areas in the hair. I was constrained to Xgen for this project, but Houdini offers a much more robust grooming solution that I will be using in the future.

During the process of the project, over 130 screen captures were taken from various Star Wars films to get as much visual information on the actor as possible

However, using reference from film format for lineups in Maya needed an extra step. A little research revealed that Revenge of The Sith had been shot entirely on a Sony HDC-F950. So all that was left to do was create a virtual version of this camera!

Zbrush BPR renders showing final sculpt. Each subtool was quite heavy, and the total character is over 100 million polygons.

Rather than show another character floating in space, it was important to me to ground him in reality, and light in a physically accurate way. To do this I decided to treat the project like a real life photo shoot in a studio. Because time was a factor, I started with the very cool Lookdev Photo Studio Environment courtesy of CAVE Academy, modeled by Jahirul Amin. I then created new UVs and textures, and changed all the lights to IBL textures.

Arkham Knight Catwoman

My first CG Character. I was responsible for all elements of this project, from planning to final comp. I attempted to take the Arkham Knight game version of Catwoman and create film quality portrait using cosplayer Xenia Shelkovskaya as primary reference. This was a challenging project, specifically the facial sculpt and garment topology. Workflow wise, I started from the Genesis 8 base mesh to leverage the built in Rig, from there everything was modeled/sculpted in Zbrush and Maya, (except the suit, which was drafted and simulated in Marvelous Designer). Skin texturing in Mari, all other textures made with Substance Painter. Lighting, Look Development, and Rendering in Arnold.

Side-by-side comparison with the model. Cosplay by: Xenia Shelkovskaya. Photo Credit: Aku

Before moving on to creative lighting, color and exposure calibration were done in a neutral lighting environment, which was essentially a gray box with white lights.

I treated the goggles like a hero prop, and improvised a more functional design and mechanics than the reference. I first created the general shapes with dynamesh in Zbrush. This allowed me to quickly block out things like the stylized frames without worrying about topology. Also, it allowed me to fit them to her face, which was important for showing them being worn.

I used Female 30s 07 Multi-Channel face from Texturing XYZ.

For the texture transfer, I used the popular “plane wrap” method, utilizing the amazing software R3DS Wrap

All organic texturing was accomplished in Mari, with eight different channels. The makeup masks were created as separate channels, then instanced into the diffuse channel as masks on fill layers, to create non-destructive flexibility.

All fabric and hard surface elements were textured in 4K using Adobe Substance 3D Painter.

The first set of eyes was created following a method commonly used in games, but ended up not being used as I wanted to try a more physically based approach.

Breakdown of the final eye setup, which used 4 pieces of geometry with an opacity ramp on the corneal bulge.

Small bits of simple geometry were scattered on the eyelash primitives via a MASH network to create a "clumpy" mascara effect.

Starting with an A-pose version of the base in Marvelous, I took standard measurements, then drafted a bodysuit based on patterns from Fashion Patternmaking Techniques Vol. 1. This gave very important information, such as where the seam lines should be, appropriate wearing ease, etc.

Final simulated garment. Pressure was added to the leather patterns to give them volume.

Final lighting setup in Arnold. A photo studio HDRI was used as both the key and fill, with a single area light for a rim.

Thanks for taking the time to view my work, it's appreciated!

-Thrace