The Northman

The Northman

Introduction 

With 'The Northman', my entry to the 2023 Rookie of the Year contest, I'm venturing into uncharted territory in more ways than one. Not only is this my first attempt at creating a human game character, but it's also my first time putting my work up for judgment in a competition.

To me, this character represents six long months of study, hard work, harder self-assessment, and artistic and personal growth. I am excited to be able to share the fruits of this labor with you today.

The goals of this project were twofold: create a worthwhile piece of character art to add to my portfolio and to expand upon my artistic understanding and capabilities in relation to game art. I wanted to make a character that would force me to improve my fundamentals (e.g. anatomical understanding, texturing, composition) while also learning entirely unfamiliar techniques such as hair and clothing creation. It was also important to me that the project would be something that would hold my interest throughout the process. After a lot of thought, I decided to create a viking character. 

Gathering Reference

The first step was research. I wanted this character to be as authentic as possible to what a Scandinavian warrior actually looked like rather than some hyper-stylized meat log in full plate armor with big horns on his helmet. To that end, a lot of my references were derived from historical texts rather than traditional concept art sources. While there are a LOT of shows, books, movies, and video games centered around vikings, most of them are entirely fanciful in their portrayals of what they actually looked like (yes, even the show Vikings). The concept art I did draw from was predominantly from Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and For Honor. 

Blockout

Once I had my references squared away, I began a blockout phase of the character in Zbrush. Since I was drawing from various sources of inspiration rather than a single concept piece, this was one of the more time-consuming portions of the project. I used this time of trial and error to better my understanding of Zmodeler and dynamic subdivision to create effective primitive shapes with excellent topology that set a solid foundation for high-poly sculpting. This period was also my first foray into completely unfamiliar territory: clothing creation. To say that there were growing pains is an understatement of impressive proportions. The initial blockout results speak for themselves but the time spent in both programs using these unfamiliar methods has proven to be invaluable to my development artistically.  

High Poly Sculpt

Eventually, after numerous reworks and countless hours spent creating fashion nightmares, I arrived at the high-poly portion of the project. This is one of my favorite phases of the pipeline as I get to start bringing life to the character/object in question. It’s also extremely important as it sets the foundation for better texturing later. I used both the morph target and layering systems religiously during this time as it gives me excellent control of what changes to the mesh I keep during each iteration of detailing. I tried to be methodical while sculpting the various assets and used reference as much as possible to capture the aesthetic of viking art. Additionally, each material (metal, leather, fabric, wood etc.) needs to be detailed using distinct methodology to create the proper level of realism for the piece as a whole. This is doubly true when sculpting anatomical features and, while I certainly have a long way to go, I learned quite a bit about facial portraiture during this time. 

Retopology, UV Mapping, and Material Assignment

With the high-poly done, it was time to retopologize and UV map the character. I have several friends who enjoy the “zen” of retopology and they are mad, dangerous, lunatics. Still, it is an extremely important aspect of the pipeline so I gritted my teeth and got on with it.I used Maya for both retopology and UV Mapping and I was pleased that I still knew where all the buttons were after my time spent away from the program. I wanted to make sure that my viking reflected the efficient polycounts and topology flow of modern-day AAA games so I spent quite a bit of time on artstation and elsewhere during this period drooling over proper quad placement. I am pleased to say that, all said and done, the viking is sitting at approximately 140k triangles which was within the budget I set for myself. 

Baking and Texturing

After both the retopology and mapping were complete, it was time to bake the meshes. While still in Maya, I made sure to assign each mesh grouping I had decided on beforehand with a distinct material. For the base figure (no helmet, shield, hair, or cape) these materials were: Skin, Gambeson, Pants/Sleeves, and Accessories. This was my first time creating a character

with multiple meshes so I tried to be very meticulous when creating the hierarchy in which I placed these materials. When I was satisfied with the organization I brought both the low-poly character model and the decimated high-poly model into marmoset for baking. Although I texture my models through Substance Painter, the baking system in Marmoset is incredibly intuitive and allows for a level of control that Substance can not yet match. I typically use Marmoset to bake the Normal and AO maps and then bake the world and ID maps through Substance.

Texturing is another aspect of the process I absolutely love. In my opinion, it is during the high-poly sculpting and texturing portions of the process that visual storytelling can most effectively be done by the artist. I typically avoid smart materials when creating my textures and instead rely on a well made simple material or even just a base color. I like to build up from that base so that I’m not having to wade through a bunch of masks and generators that may or may not be doing what they’re supposed to be doing. I also see the texturing portion as an opportunity to add features that, for whatever reason, I did not include in either my low or high poly sculpting work. I’ve had mixed results with stitching specifically in Zbrush so I chose to stitch the gambeson entirely through Substance. I made sure to utilize anchor points when doing any additional detailing like this to ensure that any generators I had created would include these changes into their algorithm. Since I knew I was going to be rendering the character in Marmoset, I also regularly exported the texture work into a Toolbag scene to ensure that they were being effectively translated. Also, since the purpose of this whole endeavor was to broaden my artistic understanding, I decided to texture the viking’s skin entirely from scratch. I know that there are means of automating skin textures these days, but I’m of the opinion that automating a task without first understanding the underlying principles involved can hinder an artist’s growth. 

Hair Cards

Once the texturing was done it was time for hair cards. This was another first for me and I was rather intimidated by the concept of hair cards in general. After taking some time to familiarize myself with the concepts and disciplines involved, I was much, much more intimidated. I used the standalone program Fibershop to create the hair card textures and then used a (incredible) maya plugin called GSCurvetools to import those textures. Hand placing each hair card is a time consuming - but enjoyable - process. Through a LOT of trial and error, I found myself comfortable with the software and with the concepts involved. 

Posing and Scene Composition

Finally, it was time to render the character. I posed the viking through the Transpose Master plugin in Zbrush (another first) and then began setting up the lighting in Marmoset. The posed shield presented a bit of a challenge to the traditional 3 point light system so, after building that base foundation, I began adding additional lighting nodes to better highlight the composition as a whole. Finding a proper composition was both challenging and rewarding and I couldn’t be happier with the end result. 

Thanks are in Order 

From start to finish, this has been a journey of growth for me. I wanted to become a better artist so I forced myself into a project that demanded a much better artist to see it to completion. I’m eager to keep growing and blessed to be pursuing a career that will never force me to stagnate.

I am so grateful to have great friends and fellow artists who constantly push me to be better and never hold back with their critiques. Glenn, Markus, Chidera, you guys have helped me improve so much in such a short time. Professor Ryan, your class was where I discovered my love for 3D art and you’re also the person who pushed me to enter this contest. I can never thank you enough. Lastly, I want to thank my mentor and friend, Nick. You’ve taken me from shakily modeling crappy water coolers to making entire game-ready characters. It’s because of you more than anyone that I can realistically pursue this dream of mine.