Etugen: Sculpting and Texturing a Stylized 3D Character

Julian Hoarau did a breakdown of the project Etugen: sculpting in ZBrush, texturing in Substance Painter, and creating custom idle animation.

Introduction

Hey! My name is Julian Hoarau, I'm a french student from Artside, a game art school based in Bordeaux. Before that, I studied for 3 years at New3dge but I wanted to specialize in Character Art. So I made the decision to join online training at Artside. I'm currently building my portfolio, until early December 2020, with the courses and the feedback from my artist group the “Pernety squad”.

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Etugen: Concept

One of the school’s modules was about creating a stylized game ready character. My group of friends is mainly composed of concept art students. We are in the same school so I thought it would be a great idea to collaborate and use one of their designs! I chose this one from a school project called “Oyun”, directed by Lise Elsoght and Max Maury-Martineau.

Modeling the Character

I decided to go for a PBR stylized render inspired by Overwatch. I first set a render target and a reference board before moving on to 3D. With those resources at hand, I took a female basemesh and started moving the anatomy around to fit the concept.
After that, I made a block-in of the different clothes and accessories to make sure it fit the concept. I sculpted her head to match the proportions and the concept targeting the personality more than the facial expression. She looked intense and sharp in the concept. The nose dropped straight and then popped out, I didn't see it in the first place so something was missing. It's really not how anatomy works but since it’s common in cartoons especially in a profile view, it actually looks appealing in the end.

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One of the complex parts was the fur as the render target wasn’t as noisy as my first sketch. I cleaned it up and gave it strong direction and smooth curves before cutting them apart and polishing them. That way it became closer to the render target and was easier to bake and make a lowpoly out of it.

I paid special attention to the folds all over the concept. They had to be precise and smooth, with direction. It was important to keep a cloth feeling.

I basically used a few brushes for the whole process, classic ClayBuildup, DamStandard with different Z intensities, Move and Move topological with the “AccuCurve” on when I needed pointy things. I also occasionally used the Inflate, Pinch, and sPolish during the process. I can also use Mask By Polygroups when stuff is in the same subtool or element, it's really helpful when you have to work on a group alone.

The blockin had to be fast, so I used the extract tool in ZBrush on the anatomy. Some cubes for the bags, cylinder behind her back. And a rough sculpt for the fur with the dynamesh. After that, I sculpted the folds and the fur trying to get the same shape language. Also, I started the box modeling of the props. I usually rest my eyes from sculpting by doing the box modeling.

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Some of the character’s parts are symmetrical, it frees space on the UV map, lessens the retopology and sculpting time. I decimated every part in ZBrush, to finally export it in 3ds Max. Only then I could start doing the low poly version of the character. 

To do so, I went to Freeform > Draw on: Surface and mostly used the Step build and Extend tools. Finally, I polished the areas that needed it by using the Relax/Soften tools, maintaining ALT in the process to keep the volume.

Regarding the unwrapping part, I try to make most of the islands have straight borders to save space. Some of the specific islands, like the hands and the head, will need a bit more work. They have to be unwrapped in a certain way to work properly.

Texturing

I used Substance Painter for the whole character. The concept was pretty unsaturated, and I had to make sure it looked alive and stylized without making it flashy. To check the quality of my texturing, I don't like to refer to Substance viewport or its rendering engine Iray. I prefer to regularly export everything and look directly in my render software, in this case, Marmoset Toolbag.

I took the color paint from ZBrush as a base diffuse. The skin takes a few basic steps, a dark layer with a generator light pointing up, a red-colored AO, and a pink curvature. Also, I used the world space normal as a mask to tint and make gradients. Then some blush on the cheeks and light color between the eyes.

The whole outfit followed the rules of no flat color. I tried to put subtle gradient and volume information or dirt into the albedo. A light curvature does a great job to pop up chamfers, I reworked it with sharper border. Overwatch only had sharp dirty shapes so I tried to put the same work into the curvature and the dirt area. I also added dark blue/violet value below all volumes, it adds some vibrance.

I added some weathering in the roughness map. That adds some volume by matching it with the dirt and subtle details when the light shows on the surface. The metalness only comes in to get some soft HDRI reflection. For this kind of stylized material, I never put the value to 1; this way the metal becomes shiny but not fully realistic.

I actually got into a lot of trouble with the color palette by making it too saturated. After some rest and precious feedback, I tried to get one that is closer to my render target, and not necessarily the same exact color as in the concept art.

Posing and Animation

First of all, I’m not a rigger/animator so I only rig and animate to make the character look alive.

I set up the idle animations with a basic rig, knee, eyes, hand IK FK, etc. I wanted the strands to get some wind animation, so I put 6 unlinked to create 6 controllers independent from one another.

When the rig was good, I moved on to the pose. I wanted to get the vibes of the 2D version as if she was waiting.

When the pose was done, I could start working on the idle breathing animation. For that, I made a classic loop with the same duration. I made it loop with the tools in the graph editor, then added the delays between controllers. Now we can repeat it for the whole character.

Ok, she’s breathing. At this point, it’s ok but the second animation gave some intention and personality. As the eyes move faster than the head, I made the movement with fewer frames, and the head rotation longer. I also put eye positions first and made the head follow the movement. And that's how it’s translated in the graph editor.

Presentation

I’m still new to all the engine settings, so my camera parameter isn't really sophisticated. I liked to choose a focal between 50-90. Plus some depth of field and the vignette that will recenter our attention.

The soft light and the sky helped show all the parts of the mesh. The key light gave the general tons, the fill dropped some blue light like sort of a sky, and the rim light detached the character from the background.

The post-process had only some contrast and a LUT. 

Afterword

If I had to set some “rules” to follow when creating a stylized character, I'd say: always keep an eye on the silhouette, pay attention to the shape language and concept art intention. The main challenge during this project was to get the same volume as in the design and that sassy idle. I guess a short animation makes a character stand out, gives it some life. It gives us more information about the personality of the character.

Julian Hoarau, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Arti Sergeev

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Comments 2

  • Anonymous user

    great job,it is very much detail i can.see you show a lot of hard work.on it.

    we are China sculpture factory.let you know

    1

    Anonymous user

    ·3 years ago·
  • Maury-Martineau Max

    Good job Julian !

    1

    Maury-Martineau Max

    ·3 years ago·

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