Sphynx Cat Generator (Character Art + VR + Tech Art and Coding)
polycounter lvl 7
Hello everyone!
This is a topic dedicated to my most ambitious project - a Sphynx Cat Generator.
This will include game-ready character modeling, rigging, posing, creating a system in UE4 to randomly generate cats with different materials, colors, morph targets (for facial and body variation), and even different personalities. As if all that wasn't enough, I will demo it in VR (on the HTC Vive)!
The first step is to create a convincing sphynx cat model. I am still in the high-poly phase in Zbrush, and I would love to receive critiques before I move on to the next step (detailing).
Thank you, and I look forward to taking you on this journey with me!
This is a topic dedicated to my most ambitious project - a Sphynx Cat Generator.
This will include game-ready character modeling, rigging, posing, creating a system in UE4 to randomly generate cats with different materials, colors, morph targets (for facial and body variation), and even different personalities. As if all that wasn't enough, I will demo it in VR (on the HTC Vive)!
The first step is to create a convincing sphynx cat model. I am still in the high-poly phase in Zbrush, and I would love to receive critiques before I move on to the next step (detailing).
Thank you, and I look forward to taking you on this journey with me!
Replies
Topology in Maya:
Basic Texture variations:
A start for Breed variations:
I have also started on the simple rig I will use to create a few suuuuper quick idle animations.
In Unreal, I still have to create the blueprint that would allow the user to customize the cats, and a "randomize" button. I have no plans for how the UI will look or operate
More updates to come soon!
Thank you
I created really quick and ugly placeholder maps and morphs to test this system. Now that it is up and running, I will start to put in the time to actually make this more realistic and aesthetic!
I also made some quick progress on the cat's weight variants (just a simple chonky, slender and average)
All the texture maps I'm currently using are placeholders, and when I am done with all the functionality of this project I plan on overhauling them, starting by those cursed seams, haha. I baked the original maps in Marmoset (and they looked great), but when I imported them to UE4 they had seams. I need to figure out what I did wrong :P
I haven't had the opportunity to touch this project in a while, but here is an update to show how the dynamic texture alphas work for the skin patterns.
I have two layers of alphas - Overall/body alphas (shown as light grey) and Head alphas (shown in dark grey and occasionally brown). The idea is to layer both to create even more variety in the cats.
I'll show the logic for this in a future update
The next steps for this project would be:
1) Fix the ugly seams
2) Make the head morphs more "modular" (right now I just have breeds, but I want to separate out aspects of different breeds so they can be recombined in more interesting ways)
3) Create a UI (I hate UMGs lol)
Eventually, I'll get this thing rigged and animated with a simple idle animation, so we don't have to keep staring at dead-eyed, open-mouthed cats hahahah
See you!
I was finally able to spend 2 hours on this project yesterday. I took care of some pesky issues such as:
- Got rid of the ugly normal map seams
- Created a better visualization environment and lighting
- Added SSS
- Made it so dark colors couldn't be applied to primary color areas (before, cats could be black or dark with light markings, which looked super unnatural)
The environment and lighting scheme is extremely simple, but I find that this change made the whole project look more professional and more like a character generator.
The goal is to wrap up this project and call it "done" by the 15th of January.
I took some of Friday night to quickly rig and pose the cat, and to start on the much-dreaded UI! I also changed up the lighting a little more.
Today I plan on improving the pose, getting rid of some of the ugly placeholder textures and making the feature morphs more easily customizable!
I got a really funny bug and couldn't stop myself from sharing
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@Alex Javor thanks!
Almost done! Now I just need to do final refinements to the UI and to some of the variations!