Vivi Mat: Meet Mat 3 Contest

Update #4 - Final Update

Added materials, Energy Aura (achieved), Rendered

The day has finally come.
Welcome back (for the last time), my name is Andrea, also known as Niidoru, and this is my final update for this Meet Mat 3 Contest.
How many things changed since last update? A LOT! As you will see down here, I worked hard to make every detail previously done stand out, with all materials applied and after render phase.

Texture maps overview

Substance Painter Layers

Requested Front and Perspective Renders

Due to the displacement done for the hat, these renders are cropped on the upper border, but here they are as per contest rules.

End of the journey

Everything you saw has been done using exclusively Substance Painter and Iray.

I want to say a big "Thanks" to The Rookies, all the judges and sponsors to giving us the opportunity to enhance our skills, joining this special contest. This entry gave me a lot of new tools that brought my workflow to a higher level, making me even more curious about texturing.

I am really happy about the outcome, I couldn't even imagine how cool Vivi would look inside a Meet Mat body. But hey, now everybody can figure it out! I hope I have done justice to Square Enix's original character.

I wish all the best to every partecipant of this contest! There are stunning entries that I can't wait to see finished!

Thanks for your attention and see you in my next projects!

Update #3
Coat details added, Trousers, Gloves, Shoes, Belts (front and rear), Energy Spheres (palms), Energy Aura (testing..)

And here we back with a new update!

Since the last one, I did a big step further to the final result. Yeah, still no materials applied, but a lot of works have been done using of course Displacement and, finally, the Curve Feature! I really thank Pablo Muñoz Gómez that explained this feature into The Rookies YouTube channel tutorials. It really gave a boost to my workflow.
Let's check all the changings done to Vivi! But first..

New references

I needed more reference images to get the original details, so I checked into Square Enix merchandise website, and this came out! Awesome, now I am able to get more inspiration.

Texture Updates

Almost done with the displacement works, I will add some fabric folds (in addition to the ones already placed on coat and trousers). Then I will start doing some materials, finally.

Energy Aura (testing..)

I was figuring out how to work on base part, so I got back in my memories and I thought, since Vivi is a wizard, he often casts spells, so I imagined to use the base with some displacement, opacity and emissive masks to help giving him the look of casting a spell. According with this, he il holding a couple of Energy spheres in his palms.
I'm still testing on this, but I think I will go for that.

This is how this Aura looks like into the viewport, nothing special or exciting. But something good happens when you go into Iray, modifying a couple settings..

That's it for today, Folks!
See you in next update!

Update #2
Hat finishings, head roundness and coat displacement

Hat finishings

Welcome back folks! Another update.
This was a several amount of works update, since I refined hat side "cuts", making them become smoother (as per 3D model reference I took). It was not so easy to get this result, but I am pretty happy about that.

After that I worked on the recess between the hat base and its point. There are some bends that are winding up the hat in that area, so the struggle was to give them a wrapping appearance.

Head roundness

I tried to give this little guy a round head, playing with displacement, gradients and filters. I played around for about half a day, and I was going crazy, but I achieved a good result.

Coat Displacement

Time to start adding a cool coat on this little boy.
I started figuring out where the coat end would be positioned, and then I played around with some displacement with gradients masks and this is what it turned out so far. Pretty cool result for the moment.

In addition, I started detailing the coat with these tiny sleeves, starting from displacement and continuing with that color line running all around the corner.

Let's take stock of the situation!

That's the result as per today update. I will move on and come back with some new details at the soonest.
See you in next update!

Update #1 - Hat works

Hey there, I am back today with a couple updates regarding the hat displacement. It was not so easy to understand how to get the result you will see below. I started using a simple gradients, but soon I understood those were not enough, so I began painting on height map.

Let's make Vivi  come a bit more alive!

I barely started seeing a possible path to follow, but I noticed that I was working on a flat character, so I needed a bit of colour and a simple expression on this Meet Mat face to get a different look!

The road is still long ahead, but I feel confident about a good outcome for this project.
See you in next update!

Hello everyone, and welcome to my entry for the Meet Mat 3 Contest!
For my entry I took inspiration by a Square Enix videogame character back from the 2000s: his name is Vivi Ornitier (or Vivi Orunitia in the italian version), from the masterpiece videogame Final Fantasy IX. 

Let's begin!

This is a PureRef to get back memories about how Vivi was in the 2000s. I checked also for some 3D models made by other artists on web, and I found this one made by artist Laura Gàmez and shared on Sketchfab. I am using it since it is posing like the MeetMat and as my principal reference to get in touch with proportions and shapes.

What AI thinks about a wizard into a Meet Mat body?

I decided to use an AI Image Generator to check what happens if you ask it to create:
"a 3d model of the substance painter meetmat look like a wizard, with a beige straight pointed hat, with dark bloody-red color gloves, vertical helliptic yellow gloomy eyes without pupils, deep dark matte color head with sphere shape, pants with vertical large white and green stripes, brown leather super mario style shoes, sky blue coat with high collar that hides the face, side view, studio light, detailed"

and this is what happened:

They are incredibly tiny and detailed! I will just take them as additional references to help me reach what I am aiming to.

First Displacement Attempt

Before getting too excited with the concept I chose, I instantly started to check if displacement could work on the head part, since I just saw how this feature works (I am kinda new with that actually). I think it is going to be a real challenge, but I am excited where this would keep me.
This is the first attempt with the pointed hat.