2022-2023 Game Character Art Best-Of

Hello everyone,

Here is my collection of game-ready characters made between 2022 and 2023. Hope you'll like it!

Wattson (from Apex: Legends)

I had this sketch of Apex Legends' Wattson lying around in my drive, I thought its somewhat chibi-esque proportions would make a cool base for a full-fledged game-ready 3D character.

Before looking for references though, I first decided to determine a budget. I think this is an important step, even more so if I want to use this character in VR, which means it will require as much optimization as I can do wihtout compromising visual quality.

For the polygon and materials limit, I decided to take a look at VRChat's technical limitations for custom avatars. The best tier requires 32,000 polygons and 4 material slots maximum, among other criterias. It's a tad strict, but seemed reasonable enough for me to try it.

It also means I will not be able to use SSAO, since this is usually a way too heavy rendering feature to be used in VR, which means I will have to rely a lot on the model's precomputed AO texture.

Since Wattson's main design cues seem to be inspired from space and astronomy, I took various references from space shuttles, Rovers, as well as several astronaut outfits (Thomas Pesquet <3).

However it's important to remember Wattson is also a character that has a strong affinity with electricity. Hence, I grabbed some references of electrical transformers and various power supplies, as well as insulating gloves (the references I took are kitchen gloves, but I thought they were close enough).

I also picks original concept artworks and character turns, both of which allowed me to notice potential differences between the original concept and the game's final model which may come in handy.

For the modeling in Blender, I usually begin with a base sculpting of the character's body, which allows me to grasp the idea and proportions of the character itself before elaborating further on the clothing and accessories.

Then, I blocked out the clothes and accessories using classic polygonal modeling.

I tried to use Subdiv/Multires modeling as much as possible, as it simplifies a lot my workflow (much faster than remeshing, base geometry can be used for retopology, lighter files, among others...).

I relied a lot on Creases, which gave me more control over how the subdivisions behaved.

For small details like zippers and clothing stitches, I created an object duplicated using an Array Modifier, which is then deformed along a Bézier curve.

For the back straps, I decided to model ratchet straps. The idea seemed so absurd and funny at the same time that I could not resist!

Aside from that, not all geometrical details were modeled within the high-poly. It was not worth the trouble, since I could make those smaller details directly in Substance Painter.

Once the high and low were both ready, I jumped right to Marmoset Toolbag to bake my mesh maps. I could have baked those directly in Substance Painter, but while being easy to use, SP's baker lacks some of the functionnalities I needed for the bake to look good without having to clean anyting in Photoshop.

Once the baking was done, I loaded my low and my freshly baked maps in Substance Painter, in which I made all of the textures.

As I said earlier, not all of the smaller details were embedded in the high-poly, which meant I had to make them in SP using height and normal variations.

In order to make them more authentic, I added more roughness in the cavities, which (if used wisely) can fake occlusion, since higher roughness will hide specular highlights.

Furthermore, I created custom PBR alphas, which I used to add more details to the model easily. However, they ended up in smaller zones, which leads me to believe maybe baking a full set of textures for this was a bit overkill.

At least I can use them for other projects...

Once everything was done, I skinned the model and integrated it in Unity.

Final polycount: 31,915 tris

Ardo

A slightly simpler school project, based off a concept by concept artist Gouf Gouf.

This one was also oriented for game integration, however I didn't go as far as I did for Wattson. Also, I imagined this character not for VR, but more for something like mobile (I thought the overall stylized look was fitting for a good-looking mobile game, don't ask me why), which might seem high for a mobile character, but I think that's appropriate if it's the main character at LOD0.

Final polycount: 17, 098 tris (staff included).

Other projects

Original character by Sam "Samdoesarts" Yang, 108,726 tris, 1 texture set (This one wasn't meant to be game-ready anyways)

Ahri KD/A, 80,808 tris, 2 texture sets

(WORK IN PROGRESS) | Cyberpunk corpo lady, original concept by Chengfang Luo

Thanks for watching!