Recreating Mai Shiranui from Fatal Fury: King of Fighters in 3D

Introduction 

Hello everyone, I'm Liu Yusheng. Currently, I'm a 3D artist in the gaming industry from China. I used to work for NetEase and now I work for Tencent.

I have been fond of anime and games since I was a child. When I was at school and came into contact with ZBrush for the first time, I was deeply attracted to it. Therefore, I practiced using it to create the characters I liked. This enthusiasm eventually led me to the 3D art industry.

Mai Shiranui

I have played "The King of Fighters" since I was a child. Of course, I also like the character of Mai Iwata very much. One day, I saw an original painting by Van Dyke. At that time, I decided to make it because compared with most of Mai Iwata's designs, it seemed very different!

The first step is to think clearly about the purpose of doing an exercise. It could be due to a deficiency in a certain ability of yours, or simply because you like the character, or just to try a new technique. This is the driving force that enables you to persist in completing your work!

For this role, I mainly practice the human body and dynamics, and it's a design I like. This is the motivation that enables me to persist in completing it

When you have the motivation, you need a workflow that suits you, which is also the key point I want to share. This is different from our daily work. You can try to avoid various normative issues in your work as much as possible, focus most of your energy on creation, simplify all complex things, reduce the number of software programs, and concentrate on making all your work serve your picture.

The second step is to look for references, which will be a long process, but this step is important, you need to look for human body photos of similar movements from multiple angles, prop references, costume references, makeup references, expression references and hairstyle references.

It is worth noting that it is difficult to find a reference for the human body that is exactly the same as the design. However, photos or scanned models of other movements can be found. Even if only one arm or one hand in this movement can provide assistance at a certain angle, these are all useful references

The third step is the modeling stage. Here, I simply summarize it into the following categories.

Body

Next comes the establishment of the high model in the human body. Since the main purpose of my practice this time is the human body and dynamics, I will start to build the human body to determine dynamics in the form of volumes.

Face

I plan to modify and use the head model of MataHuman. In this way, I can reuse the UV of MataHuman at the same time and map the pore height map I processed before onto the new face. This operation greatly saves time for making pores. This step will be demonstrated later.

The difficulty of a face lies in its expression. How to transform a normal face into a reasonable and natural expression is a challenge, and for this, a lot of references need to be sought.

For the creation of expressions, I recommend a book called "Anatomy of Facial Expressions". You can clearly see the exact position changes of each point on your face when doing this action, which will be very helpful for your expression creation.

Pores are very simple and efficient to reuse. First, I extracted the height map of the pores on a realistic female face that I made before, then pasted it on the target face, and selected an appropriate height to squeeze out. That's it. Since the UV on the two faces is exactly the same, I can do it this way. This is also the reason why I use the MataHuman header. It has perfect UV and wiring, which is a method I often use in my work, and also a way to improve efficiency.

As for the method of making pore source files, I used a set of scanning and repair processes. Here is the official detailed instruction, which I also recommend to everyone. When you have a set of male skin and a set of female skin, you can reuse them infinitely. At the same time, XYZ is also a good material, and you can use it according to your own needs. This is not a very important step, so I will just briefly touch upon it.

Hair

I made my hair in the form of volumes. This is a set of materials I prepared. Basically, all hairstyles can be built with this set of materials. Here, I'll briefly demonstrate the making process. Of course, I also made the rope on the back in this way.

Equipment

All my equipment was completed in ZBrush. Here, I used ZModeler, which is very efficient. 

It is worth noting that when engraving wrinkles, dynamic subdivision can be used, so that you can still perform operations such as extrusion and edge wrapping on the surface of the model. Including the fan, it is accomplished using the ArrayMesh function in ZBrush, which is very convenient.

At this stage, the high-fidelity model has been completed. Now, you can use ZBrush and KeyShot for rendering, which can quickly create a decent high-fidelity model effect.

Since it's not a work project, I hardly did any processing at this stage. Basically, I exported the first- or second-level subdivision as a low-mold for baking, and quickly moved on to the texture mapping stage.

It can be seen that all the models were completed in ZBrush. Minimizing the tools I use is also a good way to improve efficiency. Because what I want to express is a picture, I won't pursue too many details. This is also the original intention of my creation.

The fourth step begins with texturing and rendering. For this step, I used Substance 3D Painter and Unreal Engine 5.

Materials

In my opinion, the most important aspect of skin is color. Since the work is somewhat stylized, I will refer to the colors of some painted toys or oil paintings on the basis of realism as references. Of course, due to the setting, some battle marks, scars, bloodstains, or dirty skin can be appropriately added to the character's skin.

I create the stickers for the equipment part in multiple layers. Take a hand guard as an example.

Firstly, it can be divided into the color layer, color change layer, texture layer, texture change layer, roughness layer, roughness change layer, dirty skin, occlusion, wear, scratches, etc.

This is a simple formula. The most important thing is to observe carefully. The details can be increased infinitely.

Rendering

For the eyes, I directly use the MataHuman eye model from UE5, match it to the created character, and then use the MataHuman eye material. It works very well and has a very rich set of numerical adjustments.

The skin is also made of the official MataHuman material. The most important thing is to adjust the parameters to achieve a suitable effect.

This is a simple equipment material node I edited myself. After that, this material ball can be used for any item. You just need to replace the corresponding texture.

Conclusion

The entire work took about two months. Since I also had to work on a regular basis, the actual time spent was less. I tried my best to optimize my workflow, simplify some complex techniques again and again, and devote more of my time to creation itself. I also clarified the purpose of my production practice, because this would give you the motivation to complete. This is also what I most want to share with everyone.

Liu Yusheng, Character Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine