Game Modelling

Game Character

For my 2nd term at 3dsense in the Game Art diploma course, I created a game-ready 3D character. This model was based on the original concept art by Kwansoo Ha on artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1xRLRq

I was thrown into a lot of new things and workflows during the production of this character, all of which I tried my absolute hardest to fully understand.

It was an invaluable experience, one I’ll always remember and be grateful for. This wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for my amazing mentors, friends and seniors.

Turntable

Beauty Renders

Breakdowns

Referencing 

These were my references. I had to do my own sketches for a part of it as it was either unclear or not visible from the reference image.

Zbrush sculpt

I sculpted the hi-res model in zbrush which was later used to bake details.    

Hair cards, retopo, UV

I retopo-ed over the hi-res model then UV-ed it using autodesk maya. Hair and fur cards were also done with maya, doing it layer by layer as I slowly built volume. As a finishing touch, flyaways were added to break the silhouette.   

Retopology

All UVs. Split the UVs into head, top, bottom, and accessories.

Baking

Baking was done with marmoset toolbag 4. It took some time to fix the maps and readjust certain meshes.

Texturing

Texture was done with substance 3D painter. It was a lot of trial and error, as I had trouble determining which colors were correct and/or accurate to the reference, and it’s shown in cold lighting. During this process, I’d often go back and forth from substance painter to marmoset toolbag, in order to ensure the colors were not off.

Lighting & rendering

This process, too, took quite a bit of back and forth, particularly with my lecturer. As each shot had to have its own lighting setup, it took some time to complete.  

Game Environment

For my 3rd term at 3dsense, I produced a game-ready 3D environment based on Shao Yen Mac’s concept: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rJ5VLE

The creation of this exposed me to even more workflows and softwares, and really taught me the importance of texturing and how you can manipulate them. In contrast to the character, this one was heavily stylized, adding on another challenge. This project was largely done with Unreal Engine 5.

Establishing Shot

Beauty Shots

Breakdown

Referencing

As there were a lot of assets, I did a breakdown of assets in the environment, which I divided into sections labeled by letter. In total, there were about 300 or so assets in the scene.

Afterwards, I compiled a PureRef for all the different assets.

The Pureref consisted of 3d model references and real-life references, which i constantly referred back to during the entire process.

Blocking

Blocking started in autodesk maya. I started with deciding an acceptable scale, which I used the beer can to approximate.

Human scale in Unreal Engine 5

Detailing

I improved on some of the shapes of the mesh itself during this stage.

Unreal materials

While it took me some time getting used to, Unreal provided an arsenal of asset manipulation methods, which I used very often to adjust certain materials.

Trimsheets & Tileables

I used a combination of both trimsheets and tileables for multiple assets.

Texturing

There were still some unique assets I needed to texture individually at this stage. As such, there were a number of unique texture maps. Below are a few examples.

Lighting and rendering

This was perhaps the biggest challenge for me, personally. With how differently unreal works compared to previous softwares, I made use of post processing functions and raytracing. As well as some fake lighting in order to achieve the closest lighting setup I could as the concept. Shown below is the lighting process.