Warhammer Squig 'speed asset'(3-day challenge)

musashidan

This was a project I did last weekend.

EDIT - Sketchfabs added below

The goal: create an animated character from scratch, from a single concept image to in-game(UE4), in 3 days.

Day 1 - sculpting in Zbrush(high-poly creation)

Day 2 - retopo/UVs/map baking/texturing

Day 3 - rigging(CatRig)/skinning/animation/in-game

Some breakdowns to follow.....

musashidan

Day 1 - Sculpting in Zbrush.

Everything starts in ZB...........usually from a trusty sphere.



'snakehooking' the forms is always the first port of call. Clay Buildup and Dam Standard are then the 90% brushes. Zspheres, custom insert brushes, and dynameshing to augment the sculpt.

musashidan

A few pleasant hours of sculpting later. Often-times Bob Dylan accompanies the proceedings.....



The aim here is speed to quality ratio. A trade-off between time spent(avoiding OCD noodling), and passable quality for the final in-game asset.

Eric Chadwick

This is great. I would love to see some more details about what you learned in doing this process, pitfalls you avoided, that kind of thing. He turned out great! Is there some animation to show?

musashidan

Cheers Eric, appreciate the comment. Yes, I have some more breakdown examples to show. I also, have the Sketchfab model/animation cycles to post, and some UE4 screenshots. I also intend to do a short 'making of/workflow overview' video that I'll post.

To be honest the whole project went really smoothly without any headaches. Each stage was completed in a respective day. There was, of course, plenty of back and forth, but I had Zbrush/Max/S Painter and UE4 open at all times and just jumped in and out of each depending on what I was doing/testing.

musashidan

Day 2 - Retopo/UVs/Baking/Texturing

With the sculpting complete(this is still non-destructive and can be worked on all the way through the pipeline with only the need to re-bake the normal map is necessary) it's on to the next stage: retopology.

In keeping with the search for speed in the pipeline I decided to see how far I could push auto-topology for an organised [animatable/deforming]mesh.
Staying in Zbrush I used Zremesher in conjunction with its localised retopology feature using the topology brush.

Although the result isn't ideal - high vert count and spiral loops - I could make it work and know that it wouldn't be hard to rebuild and optimise if I chose to in future projects. Plus, as character tri/vert counts are constantly on the rise in modern engines this isn't nearly as much of a problem as it used to be.





Here's a video I made recently demonstrating the technique:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGYB9h9QhA8

Justo

@Musashidan I just saw the video. As cool as the technique is, I don't see what their benefits are for saving time. If you're going to Zremesh, why not take some time to draw Zremesh lines for the eyes before remeshing? If the problem is that Zbrush doesn't give perfect topo (spiral loops), or a client suddenly asks to change something because it'll be animated, wouldn't it be faster to export the obj to a 3d app, or even TG2?

Anyway, thanks for posting this, looking forward to Day 3! 

Nerono

Isn't your low poly too dense? 

musashidan

Justo said:

@Musashidan I just saw the video. As cool as the technique is, I don't see what their benefits are for saving time. If you're going to Zremesh, why not take some time to draw Zremesh lines for the eyes before remeshing? If the problem is that Zbrush doesn't give perfect topo (spiral loops), or a client suddenly asks to change something because it'll be animated, wouldn't it be faster to export the obj to a 3d app, or even TG2?

Anyway, thanks for posting this, looking forward to Day 3! 

Appreciate the comment, mate. Yes, you're absolutely right. As I mentioned above the topo isn't ideal at all but one of the purposes of the excercise was to see if I could get a fully rigged/animated character in-engine as soon as possible. I could have used 3dsMax to retop but for this project I wanted to test ZRM on a deforming mesh(I'll post the sketchfab anims)
Often times, no matter what settings you dial into ZRM or what guide curves you lay down you just can not get concentric spans, which is where this technique comes in. I'll post up the retop breakdowns/thought process.

musashidan

Nerono said:

Isn't your low poly too dense? 

I'll post up the retop(day 2 ) breakdowns. Yes, as I mentioned above. This isn't a huge problem as it can be optimised easily in places like the feet/legs/tail/face, or ZRM'd to a lower res. Part of the challenge for me was skinning a more dense mesh. As in-game meshes become more and more high-res, it's good to get out of your comfort zone and take on the more difficult tasks.

musashidan

Day 2 - Retopo/UVs/Baking/Texturing

For UVs I always use a combination of 3dsMax/Headus/Zbrush. Depending on the project I'll use one or the other or all 3. With the Styx plugin jumping back and forth is so painless that it's like having all the tools in a single application.

musashidan

Day 2 - Retopo/UVs/Baking/Texturing

Baking maps in Substance Painter is about as simple and straightforward as it gets. and because it's synced(MikkT) to UE4(my destination engine) I don't even have to spend time testing it out, I already know it will work.

Plus, for me, working in this way(WYSIWYG) in real-time, in the viewport, saves so much time by not jumping back and forth/importing/exporting. It's the only way to work.

Sunray

Dude this looks sick realy good for such a short amount of time.

musashidan

Sunray said:

Dude this looks sick realy good for such a short amount of time.

@sunray cheers mate. Appreciate the comment.

Texturing was a very fast and simple process in Substance Painter: just painting several skin value variation layers and masking between them whilst building up the tones gradually. the same as what I'd usually do painting skin in ZB......but with layers and masks.

And that was day 2.

Day 3 - Rigging(CATRig/Skinning/Animation/In-Engine(UE4)

musashidan

Day 3 - Animation

As I only had a few hours to complete the animation it is far from polished. Animation usually takes the most time in the pipeline, but I got results that I considered acceptable in the time I had available, as I wanted to stick to my self-imposed deadline.

The cycles I created are: Idle1/Idle2/Walk/Jump/Attack/Taunt/Death

musashidan

model

ANIMATIONS

model

Drav

really nice man, thanks for taking the time to post the breakdowns!

fuzzzzzz

very nice breakdown Musashidan
thx for sharing your workflow

musashidan

@Drav cheers mate, you're welcome.

@fuzzzzzz no problem mate.

Day 3 - In-Engine(UE4)

With everything finally finished it's time to bring the assets into UE4, a very smooth process in comparison to years past. It's just a matter of exporting the mesh and bone hierarchy(no controllers/helpers/constraints/etc), with animation unchecked, for the skeletal mesh. And the bone hierarchy alone with animation checked for the anim cycles.
It's important that the rig doesn't contain multiple hierarchies(root nodes) as UE4 is looking for a single root. I like to export each cycle to its own .fbx file and test them out in Persona using a BlendSpace 1D to check the blending.



Then I import the texture maps and apply them to a new material. It's important to uncheck sRGB in all linear maps(rough, metal, normal) and set roughness to linear colour. UE automatically detects the NM and sets up the gamma/compression on import. Then just plug them in using the packed channels from Painter. (channels can be viewed in UE4 or edited in PS if required)



And the lads 'acting the bollcks' in-engine.......




Hope this breakdown was helpful to beginners, lurkers,  or the casual curious on-looker. It bloody better be because it took me longer to do this than the f@@king asset!!

 

stefan_armand

Very nice work! Thank you for the detailed explanations.

Lando_Mange

Great thread man, extremely appreciated that you're taking the time to write a detailed pipe like this! As you said, probably took more time than the asset! But such a nice thing to do! hopefully I'll get around to doing something similar one day

musashidan

@stefan_armand cheers mate, glad you liked the breakdown.

@Lando_Mange thanks man, it's a pleasure. best of luck with your own breakdown. I always save WIPS of my projects like this for myself and in case I do end up doing a breakdown. It's become a habit.

Fireseed

Awesome thread! Love the break downs too! Have been using ZB for years and I never even knew that localized retopology existed. 

amirabd2130

interesting character

musashidan

@Fireseed thanks man. Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, I only discovered local-retop myself about 2 months ago.

@amirabd2130 cheers mate, it is based on a Warhammer concept.