Game Artefact
Mind Map
I made a mind map to help me come up with an idea for what character I wanted to create. I found this very helpful to get the ideas flowing straight away. As I was writing down words I started to get an idea in my head of the sort of character that I wanted to create and I found that I automatically started writing down things that were more connected to the idea that I had rather than completely random. So, I went with this idea and continued writing ideas that linked to it, creating more options and interesting elements that I could incorporate.
Sketches
Once I had a rough idea for the sort of character I wanted to create, I drew some quick sketches. For each sketch I started with a big, mid-grey brush so I could focus on getting interesting silhouettes and shapes. I then added shadows and highlights to bring out the forms and details. This process made sure that each sketch was unique and I wasn’t just changing one small thing each time, as well as insuring the character had a strong silhouette, which is important for creating a good character (especially for games as you usually need to be able to identify the character quickly – if it’s an enemy or friend).
Final Concept
I now had a choice of 7 designs for a character and it was time to pick which one I liked the most. I also had to take into consideration the fact that there was a maximum amount of polys for this project. The concept I chose was this tentacle/skull creature as it was my favourite and I felt like it was the strongest design.
This creature lives underwater in deep, dark areas of the ocean and usually lurks in shipwrecks. It’s orange eyes glow in the darkness attracting scuba divers and sharks to swim towards it. This is when it uses it’s long tentacles to grab them and uses it’s large jaws to bite down on them as it pulls them into depths.
Modelling
My workflow to create this model began by sculpting a base mesh in ZBrush out of a sphere. I manually retopologized this in 3DCoat and tweaked it in Maya to create my low poly mesh. I then imported this back into ZBrush to create a high poly mesh, adding detail as I subdivided it, layer by layer. Initially, I made the eyes, horns, teeth and tongue as separate meshes but when I retopologized I decided to make them all into one mesh.
Texturing
Once I had my high and low poly meshes, I unwrapped the Uvs of the low poly in 3DCoat, so I could bake the details and create the texture in Substance Painter.
I built up the texture of my model by blending lots of layers over each other. I used masks with different brushes to distribute each layer in the desired places. For the eyes, I hand painted various colours over each other and blended them together. I then added a layer with emissive colour switched on to give a subtle, orange glow to the eyes.
Rigging & Animation
I created a rig for the character in Maya, with IK and FK handles to move the tentacles as well as controls for the jaws, tongue and the top of the head.
Since this character lives underwater, I animated the tentacles to look like it is swimming. I also did a subtle squash and stretch animation using the head control so it would appear like it is breathing in and out. I then made the whole model bob up and down which really gave the effect that it was swimming.
Rendering
I imported the animated model into Unreal Engine, as well as the textures and started to set up a camera and lights for rendering. I began with a 3-point lighting setup but ended up adding an additional rim light to help highlight the silhouette of the character. I contrasted warm, orange lights with cooler, blue lights to make it a bit more interesting before tweaking some effects in the post-process volume.
Finally, I added an atmospheric particle effect, using Unreal Engine’s Niagara system, to add some more life to the render.