[WIP] World of Warcraft - Ysera Dragon

Beccy_Collins

Hi Polycount!

I'm planning on making a game ready Ysera Dragon from WoW (including Low Poly, Textures, Rigged+Skinned and maybe an Animation).
I am starting with the high poly in Zbrush, and am currently focusing on the head/neck so I can nail the style before doing her whole body. I will post my progress here

Feedback is always welcome!

Here's a WIP of her so far.

Main Reference - https://www.wowhead.com/npc=27789/ysera#modelviewer:10+0

Beccy_Collins

As this is going to be a project part of a University assignment, ill have to wait until term starts to go full in.

But I haaaave made a few changes to it to give the face a stronger look. (Made the cheek bones and eye brows more prominent).



Looking forward to getting stuck into this soon

Beccy_Collins

Able to start and make progress on this now  

Made her crown with some booleans


Then I made a blockout of her body



and I have started to get more scales in. I began by using a scales brush but found just placing them gave me much nicer result.

WIP

Crazy_pixel

I like your progress,the head looks really nice. 
Keep it up!

Beccy_Collins

Thanks!

Slow updates as I am working on a few things at the moment :P 

but here's an Update WIP!

Beccy_Collins

Added detail to the fin underneath

 

Beccy_Collins

A little update
WIP 

Glynnybob

That looks really good the only critique I have is the scales on the face, while the reference you have is a low res texture you can see the little bits of flow with the scales as well as the uniform sizes that isn't as strong with your sculpt. Overall though it's some great work.

Beccy_Collins

Thanks for that feedback Glynnybob If I get some time when the sculpt is pretty much done I might try playing around with the face scales a bit more.

Finally another update :P (Been working on some other stuff)

Here's how she looks now. (WIP)



 All I have left now really is the wooden vines around her legs. I did a video of me making the ones around her tail just to show my process

SeekeroflLight

This is looking great! I'm going to follow this to see the low-poly and textured version of this.  I wish I could give you some decent feedback other than it looks good, but I'm such a noob when it comes to Zbrush.

Beccy_Collins

Thankyou! 
I think I'm done with the sculpting now, here are some final render tests! (for the face I made a few change but they're pretty subtle)







Moving onto retop soon!

sorrowspt

This is really amazing... You never updated for a few time, I though we lost you... but here you are... Loved the video of the vines, if you could share more time-lapses it would be awesome, love to see how it is done and the work involved

Beccy_Collins

sorrowspt said:

This is really amazing... You never updated for a few time, I though we lost you... but here you are... Loved the video of the vines, if you could share more time-lapses it would be awesome, love to see how it is done and the work involved

Thanks so much! Haha yeah I put this project to the side for a while but back at it now!
Glad you liked the video, just thought it would be fun to show a bit of process with it. I just bought a video capturing/editing software recently so I'm sure ill make some more so I can mess about with it  

I have started the Retop now. It looks a bit terrifying right now lol but here's a WIP.




Ysera's model in game is around 4.3k tris however I'm going for a more " revamped/updated " version so aiming for about 15k tris overall.

Beccy_Collins

A little update with another video, this time to show some of my Retopping process Here I am making the wing arms, back legs and some armour! Might make a few more videos to show the rest when I get round it it. 



Here's a shot of the progress on the back leg and armour piece.

Ashervisalis

Neat!

Beccy_Collins

Thanks!

Here's the second half of me retopping some parts. (I appreciate its probably boring to watch but just wanted to show my progress and how I did it  



Retop compete  



Next was to Unwrap. Currently going for a single 2k texture but might downres to 1k



First test Bake came out OK! a few bits clipping on the feet but not much to fix. (Threw the normal map on to show)

I used Substance Designer to bake and the maps I did were : Normal, Curvature, AO, Bent Normals and Opacity


Started texturing her in Photoshop (with help from my bakes) then took it into 3D coat. (first texture WIP)



Didn't like her eye details so changed it to match her original as it looks better + pushed vaules (WIP2)

Textured wireframe render

Heres how the Diffuse looks so far

Now have her in UE4, made the wing translucent and her eye and front armour pieces are emissive.

I think the wood vines and the tail armour could be a touch lighter.

Next I added some glowy effects!

Here's how I made the material for it. ( I made the textures that pan in Photoshop quickly by painting with a few different types of brushes).

Stuck planes out of the armour and eyes and applied that material to them. 

Will be rigging her soon!

SeekeroflLight

This is coming out really awesome! I agree with lighten up the armor on the tail, it does seem to be darker than what is on the legs. I don't think the vines need to be lightened but some dull highlights to have some tonal shifts would look nice.

Beccy_Collins

Thankyou   Yeah I gave that a go on the vines, its subtle but a bit nicer now I think!

I have now made a rig and skinned her


I made small ground for her to stand on and made a first test pose

UE4 screenshot

Ashervisalis

Killing it!

Beccy_Collins

 

There's a few more bits I want to do/improve but I'm calling it done for now until after my deadlines at Uni to carry on.

Some final renders for now!











Here's lil showcase vid too with a basic idle animation i made :P

HarlequinWerewolf

Hadn't checked in on this thread in a while but this is looking sick! I'm hoping to try out handpainting for my next project and seeing this is super inspiring! (Any tips are much appreciated) 

sorrowspt

It turned out amazing... can't wait for more development news

Beccy_Collins

 

I've been having some fun making a breathe fire animation which I will be adding VFX to! here's the first pass of it.

Got some Feedback so made some improvements including:

Deeper/longer breath in with more exaggeration,

Faster movement into the fire breathing/roar,

Head is closer to the ground during roar with hips higher up,

Tail swings up more on roar,

a few more minor adjustments

Ashervisalis

Some simple firefly particle effects in the environment would help sell the magic of the video a lot! Love the animation, looks wild

Beccy_Collins

Got some Fire now! ( and updated the animation a bit)

I used Niagara to make the fire effect and added it into the animation with a notify



Added some fireflies  

Improved the timing on the fire a bit and now its Greeeeeeen!

Beccy_Collins

Ysera is now on Artstation! - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/OyLvnw