Modeling & Texturing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Lune

Introduction

My name is Maniacarta, a CG Artist and Creator, and I have my studio, Sandstorm, based in Tokyo, Japan. I'm passionate about bringing characters and worlds to life through creativity, storytelling, and design. My journey into 3D art started with curiosity. I was fascinated by how games and films could create such immersive experiences. I began experimenting with modeling and animation software, teaching myself through tutorials, online courses, YouTube, and a lot of trial and error.

Over time, I developed my skills in character design, animation, and environment creation, combining both artistic vision and technical precision using Blender. I've contributed to several projects involving character production and animation, such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Valkyrie Elysium (and other projects that I can not talk much about since they are under NDA), where I focused on blending realism with stylized aesthetics. Each project taught me something new about storytelling through movement and design, which keeps pushing me to grow and experiment with new techniques.

Lune is a character from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The first time I played the game, I was completely drawn in by its haunting music and painterly, dreamlike world. It left a mark on me. I eventually paused the game and decided to recreate Lune in Unreal Engine, reimagining her in a realistic, lifelike style that felt present, almost alive beside me.

This project became more than just a recreation. It's an exploration of how far realism and emotion can blend using Blender and Unreal Engine. I'm currently developing more characters to inhabit fully realized fantasy environments, expanding this world piece by piece. Everything is crafted in Blender and brought into Unreal Engine for real-time rendering, where the characters and their world truly come to life.

Workflow

My main tools for the Lune Project were Blender for sculpting and Photoshop for cleanup and UV layout, with Unreal Engine used for real-time character production. The workflow began with MetaHuman as a base, but its limitations in visual fidelity and design flexibility led me to explore more advanced techniques in Unreal Engine 5.6. This allowed me to refine the head, hair, and outfit with greater control, achieving a more realistic and detailed look.

Since Blender was lacking in terms of production and speed, especially character production with MetaHuman, everything was stuck until I found an amazing addon by Polyhammer. Once I saw the result it achieved, I definitely purchased it to use it for my project, and that was one of the key elements for speed.

For the hair, since I was aiming for realism, I developed it using the grooming geometry system and then deployed it to Unreal Engine. As for the clothing, I didn't focus too much on that aspect. I could make it a marvelous designer if I want, and then retopology, but I want to learn how to develop realism with something that can breathe from the screen, my main attention was on the character’s facial features.

However, I did take a base outfit model, cleaned up the polygons, and enhanced it to maintain high visual quality while keeping production efficient inside the engine. So the credit for that goes mainly to the Sandfall team.

I also developed a simple shader system, both for the skin and clothes, that allows me to adjust the entire setup on the fly using material functions and material instances. The foundation of my setup starts with a base PBR shader node, where each component is linked to flat black virtual textures for Diffuse, Specular, Roughness, Metallic, Scatter, Normal, and Micro-Normal Maps. Using material instances, I can easily plug in all my PBR textures into their respective slots and control them through variables and switches.

Additionally, I integrated layered materials for dirt and blood effects across the face, body, and other textures. These haven't been showcased yet, but they might appear in future character iterations. Unreal Engine's shader system is incredibly powerful. If you understand Blender's procedural shaders, the logic is quite similar, only the names and nodes differ.

Interestingly, my approach was more intuitive than technical at first. I was listening to the music of Clair Obscur and imagining Lune in real life. I didn't rely heavily on references, I let my imagination guide the design, which is often how I approach character creation. For the model itself, I started with a simple face base and sculpted in Blender, occasionally referencing images of Lune from the game and adjusting views as needed, and to not make her as she does in the game, I focused on my imagination to make something asiatique likeness.

For topology and unwrapping, I used Blender's built-in tools, optimizing the mesh for clean UVs and efficient texturing, while still allowing the character's personality and style to shine through. Then I exported the model to Unreal Engine and used MetaHuman identity solver to get the face conform to MetaHuman, with its new feature I used the conform mesh for my sculpt to sculpted MetaHuman model and then add all textures and materials to her and if I want to tweak it or change shape I go back to Polyhammer tool to fix the blendshape and imported back to get the likeness I want for Lune since it give me more freedom to control the model.

I was surprised to read some comments saying that Lune looks like Emiru and Pom Klementieff. Honestly, I didn't know who they were at first. It was the first time I'd heard of them. But when I looked up their profiles, I was genuinely shocked to see how much they resembled the version of Lune I created.

That's what I love about art: you pour your imagination into something, and then the community surprises you with connections and interpretations you never expected.

Texturing

For texturing, I initially considered using Substance 3D Painter for layering the skin and clothing textures, but I ultimately decided to do everything in Blender. I found a very useful add-on called Ucupaint that made it much easier to control and layer elements like tattoos, skin, and pores, the same as using a Substance 3D Painter, but inside Blender. The tattoos were carefully layered as stencil alpha texture and adjusted to match the character's design while keeping the texture natural and detailed.

For final cleanup, I used Photoshop to refine details and ensure everything was seamless. Blender proved to be very powerful for texturing, it allowed me to clean seams, adjust PBR Maps, and export textures ready for Unreal Engine, fully optimized for the MetaHuman phase of the project, and everything can be updated by reimporting things that are updated inside the engine.

Unreal Engine is an incredibly powerful tool. You can use the Skeleton Editor to create a skeleton from scratch, and also perform weight painting directly inside the engine. By adding your main body's skeletal mesh, you can transfer weights from the body mesh to the clothing, allowing the garments to conform perfectly to the character's movements.

You can also achieve this using Chaos Cloth, which provides a realistic cloth simulation. For dynamics, I used the Cloth Painting function in Unreal to define the areas I wanted to simulate. I tested both methods for Lune, and while they delivered similar results, for future characters, I plan to rely entirely on Chaos Cloth. It's very robust, though still somewhat under-documented, so there's a bit of exploration involved in figuring things out.

For lighting, I initially worked in Blender, primarily using Eevee. Although it was time-consuming, it gave me a solid understanding of how light interacts with characters. Over time, I shifted my workflow to Unreal Engine for faster, more dynamic, and realistic results.

When working with MetaHumans, they can often feel a bit artificial, so my approach with Lune was to sculpt her from imagination, intentionally breaking symmetry and adding subtle imperfections to make her feel more human and believable. I rarely rely strictly on facial references, allowing creativity and realism to guide the design.

Unreal Engine also provides tools for skeleton creation, rigging, and skinning directly inside the engine. Using cloth painting and Chaos simulation, I was able to bring Lune's armband and coat to life with realistic movement. The hair was the biggest challenge, as I wanted it to react dynamically to wind in real time. To achieve this, I used the Niagara simulation system, which helped me reach the level of realism I was aiming for.

In Unreal Engine, I created all the lighting directly inside the engine. I learned valuable techniques from two artists Karim Abou Shousha a talented artist at Ubisoft and Josh Toonen VFX Artist, Director worked in Star Wars and many movies after studying their techniques which helped me understand how to approach lighting properly starting with the ambient light to establish the scene's mood, then layering directional and accent lights depending on the setting, whether it's a night scene, studio setup, or other environment. This workflow allowed me to illuminate both the character and environment effectively and cohesively.

I've also been developing several Unreal Engine environments inspired by Clair Obscur, featuring floating elements and fantastical designs using different atmosphere scenarios, fogs created using Blender geometry nodes, and various techniques within Unreal Engine. These projects are still in development and I am still asking my self why did I choose to make Lune but maybe due to the impact I felt when I listen to the score music and especially the paintress lying down sad with all those object floating around her that's what motivate me to create this whole universe and learn all the techniques and secrets in unreal, but I'm excited to share them soon so stay tuned!

Conclusion

Challenges are part of the journey, and I believe you need to enjoy the process if it becomes boring, it's hard to grow. For me, the biggest challenge was improving speed, especially in character production and visual development. My goal was to streamline my workflow, creating in Blender and quickly deploying to Unreal Engine for look development and final visuals.

Unreal Engine is incredibly powerful. I had used it before but hadn't explored it in depth. Once I dug in, I realized just how vast its capabilities are. It's like entering a deep rabbit hole with endless possibilities. For me, it's not just about making characters, but about exploring all the creative potential Unreal offers, and I'm excited to share more projects soon.

For beginners, my advice is this: if you are passionate about what you're creating and have a goal you want to achieve, go for it, but it's not that simple. Behind every success lies hard work, commitment, and the challenges of the path you choose. You must be willing to fail and rise stronger. That's the message behind Lune's words: "When one falls, we continue".

One more thing to everyone who is giving AI a bad image, AI and technology are tools, not replacements. You can surpass AI by mastering your craft and balancing it with creativity. Use AI to expand your imagination, not limit it. Stay passionate, keep learning, and never give up. Our world is full of talent and creativity. When you connect with it, you can bring something truly extraordinary to life.

And thats how clair obscur achieve it success, Guillaume Broche is very genius artist he collected talented artists and passion from different places around the world but also talented animator artists group from Korea and other places, the music has also played a very key element in the game approach, that's the way to craft master piece of art, our world is full of hidden talents when you find them you craft mastery and clair obscur for me is not just a game, its a Master piece of Art.

I'd like to thank 80 Level for the opportunity to share my experience. To anyone looking to grow and develop their passion: always learn from others. Observe the work of talented people, understand their thought process, and use that insight to inspire your own creations. But don't copy, build your own path, create your own "maze", and bring something entirely new to the world.

Maniacarta, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Emma Collins