Done - UE4 - Medieval older wealthy lady

Nuclear Angel

Latest: 




So it have been a while since I posted anything. I have been spending some time freelancing but mostly I have been away from my computer. Renovating my apartment and other real life stuff. The time has thus now come to get back on the grind. 

Since two days ago I started a new Project. 

The goals are as follows:
To design my own character from scratch
Make a realistic character that could fit in a AAA title like the Witcher 3
Get better at Marvelous Designer
Learn Blender, so I am not allowed to use Maya for anything.
And by the end of it have a new portfolio piece. 

I am aiming for PBR around 100K triangles but that is far off from now. 

I would love feedback on pretty much anything. I am not 100% certain of the direction I want to take the project in, so this will probably be some trial and error involved. 

So here comes the first mockup of the character in 3D. I started with a dynamesh sculpt of the face which I then Zwrapped my Basemesh too. I then spent some time in Marvelous designer polishing it up. 





The Marvelous Pattern so far


I am planning on next to do a paintover and concept up a more thorough direction. Thanks for reading. 

Nuclear Angel

So I am back on this finally again. 

It have been a long time since I touched her, but now after the new year started I started to sketch out some designs and started thinking about her direction, as I got some great initial feedback just on the basic design. 

From this I did some more sketching and I ended up with this initial design:


I liked the direction I had even though the sketch is rough. But I took her in to marvelous and went to work .



From here I took it in to Zbrush and I started blocking out some of the elements checking how the design felt. Overall I am quite pleased and I have started to polish up the face. 

The plan now is to do a pass on her jewelry on the hat as well as finishing the hat. This is to benchmark the final level of detail for the character. 



Next update coming soon, I promise this to myself! 

Alex_J

cool project.

probably too late, but i feel her posture and general shape doesn't scream "old lady" to me. Kind of like how in the elder scrolls game all the characters share the same rig, this body seems like it could fit onto a younger women too.

Not saying its bad at all, just that for all the attention to detail shown so far, I kind of expected like a short, crooked, hunchbacked old crone.

Nuclear Angel

@Alex Javor  Thanks for pointing this out, and you are right I have gone a bit to far to add that kind of posture as there are a lot of pieces by now. But also I think the title of the post was a bit misleading with the title of Old Lady, so i updated it with something that might give of what I want to do better. I am thinking an old aristocrat which will feel prideful and almost arrogant. I might give her a bit more volume though under the arms and such to give her more age. Overall thanks for pointing it out, and I will see if I can add age to the body in some good ways while till keeping the posture as I want her to be the kind of character that cares about her own posture. 

So Todays update, 

I have made the head  pieces for now, I am not 100% sure on all the details such as the trims and some of the folds. But I can always go back to them later. I am also fairly pleased with where I am at in terms of detail level on the face with the primary and secondary shapes. I might go over them one more time but I am ready to start doing the tertiary details. 



Head piece and Jewelry


Jewelry

Nuclear Angel

So I had my sister over from out of town for some days as well as I have been sick for almost an entire week. l did find some time though here and there for a little bit of work on the face, what i got left is a bit of detailing to do as well as a little bit of cleanup. The hair got a small update so I have a better idea for the final direction, but it will in the end be done by haircards. .

So this is where she is at now: 


From here I will finally get to jump on the dress. I will probably go back to the face for a final revision after the first pass on the cloth is done. 

Tits

such lovely work on that face!
Looking forward to see more progress, Sorry to hear about the sickness, hope you feel better!

Nuclear Angel

@Tits Wow thank you for the lovely comment! To hear that from you means a ton. 
I am getting better by the day, next week will be great if all goes as of now ^^ 

Nuclear Angel

So the last week have been all about working on the dress. I have got the secondary details in, I am just unsure on the details I want to ad to the dress front. I am not certain whether I want an embroided pattern, or something more attached to the fabric. If I want buttons for the front and that kind of detail. 



Here is a closeup of the neck area. 



So what comes next is to figure out the details I want on the front of the dress. Then I got the bottom part of the dress, hands, belt and cape left to do. As well as one more polish pass on the dress upper part to finish it of once I am happy with the design. 

DavidCruz

Looks great, nothing to say from me other than i am glad you touched up the upper half with wrinkle work it was looking really weird without if for me.

idk your time frames but look into nutrition I've done this recently and learned a lot, everything having to do with the body stems from eating, whether people want to believe that or not is another issue, what else do you put INTO your body? what you put in you get out.  Hope it helps, p.s. its not veganism.

With that said looking forward to more.

Nuclear Angel

@DavidCruz Thanks for the kind words, but I dont understand the part about nutrition xD Are you referring to the character? I am confused. 

Anywhom it have been way to long since my last update. So I have been shipping away steadily a little bit each day. But my biggest stumbling blocks have been designing all the embroidery and deciding what will happen in those areas. Making jewelry and such is a tough one, it is fun but not my forte. 


Closeup


So what I got left to do now is to do the sleeves and the embroidery there. The rope on the back make it nicer than is now. A necklace that is pretty. And then hands and the Cape. Once that is done the highpoly is properly wrapped up. So not much left to do. 

But I will be gone from my computer next week for an entirety of 7 Days, so I am expecting to be done by the 20th of March with the highpoly sadly. 

Piffles

The clothing detail on this is incredible! I'm so inspired by it. I definitely think you're doing a great job of capturing the style of medieval clothing. 

Ashervisalis

Looking great!

DavidCruz

Nuclear Angel said:

@DavidCruz Thanks for the kind words, but I dont understand the part about nutrition xD Are you referring to the character? I am confused.

Nuclear Angel said:

I have been sick for almost an entire week.

^There for the nutritional bit i mentioned.

idk anytime someone mentions being sick is usually from a bad habit somewhere in the diet, apart from actual issues - during development (i.e. very personal things nobody really shares.)

I ventured down the gem path once to learn and for fun and oh boy it can get really tough and technical.  (found someone who did it right a long time ago bout 5-6 years ago so once i saw that i was like well they were able to do it 1st still don't know how to use same processes they did.)

Models coming along very well, i like all the added wrinkle wear.

Enjoy the time off from the PC.

carvuliero

I am not sure if you willing to do such big changes at this point but anyway below are few thing that I think will make your model better

I am not sure which period you mean by medieval but maybe consider that shes wearing corset under her cloths which will make her waist smaller

she kind of look like a tube person right now with no interest in the torso also she has swimmer's shoulders reducing shoulders width and straightening the top curve could fix that .Pose of the arm looks unnatural

In  the victorian era they use to use small pillow under the dress to make they butt or hip wider which make dress flair more you could try that depends on that silhouette you want

Nuclear Angel

@Piffles Thanks man I appreciate that you like it. A lot of time have been spent trying to design the dress. 

@Ashervisalis Thank you, it means a lot! 

@DavidCruz Hey I see, thank you for the concern and the tips! I think it was the flu as a lot of my friends and people in Stockholm have been sick this last month and I had not been properly sick for years. But all good now, but I will still check up more dietary options, it is something I think would be really beneficial so thank you man! But I am leaving the first thing in the morning now so I will be back from the 16th to my PC, man I am gonna miss this machine. Thanks for enjoying the project so far. 

@carvuliero Man I feel blessed to have gotten your feedback, always bringing the good stuff on this forum!
I will see if I can repeat the square pattern nicely at the suggested places, I really dig those ideas. When it comes to the corset and the puff on the back I associate that more with renaissance dresses, and I have done the base of the dress based from sewing patterns from 12th Century Swedish dresses which I got some books for. I really love what taking the shoulders in does, and I do agree they are quite broad like a swimmers. So I will check the waist and see if I am happy with it still after tweaking the shoulders. But a lot of the composition will change once I get the cape in, so it will be some back and forth there. Thanks man for all of the good food for thought, some solid advice here! 

carvuliero

LoL that's something new ,appreciate your appreciation

Looks like you can draw quite well why dont you use that in your advantage ,quick paint over or some liquefy tool could save you days or weeks of work or just to check ideas on the fly .Most often than not  if it works in 2d it will also work in 3d

I saw you have done some paint overs but just once I suggest to do it everyday till you are in design phase or when you introduce new element to the design fresh ideas and variations never hurt to have

Aydhe

This looks great so far, keep up good work.

ArcaneOwl

Great progress.. the crown is killer!
Can't wait to see some colors splashed on to her 

Nuclear Angel

@ArcaneOwl Thanks man, yea I am looking forward to that too xD 
@Aydhe I appreciate i! 

So I have not had a dedicated time to work on this more than evenings since March, and I also have been stuck in design hell where I am trying to figure things out, going back and forth between elements. But this project have been more chill and I am trying to just take it on my own pace. But I feel as I am finally done with the Highpoly, might add some tiny detail like a tiny medallion or something, maybe I will remove the embroidered sewn on pieces on the front of the dress.. 

So what have happened since last, I addressed the shape a bit as per feedback from Carvuliero, I made the hands, I made some rings, I fixed up and detailed her cape. And tiny details all over the place and minor tweaks which are to many to keep a track of since March. 

Nuclear Angel

So I have retopoed the head parts and test baked them and got them in to Unreal. I also made a basic skin shader, got her eye in and a preliminary hair. So all my pipeline work is more or less done now. 

What is next is to retopo the rest of the body and clothes, Unwrap and bake it, create a proper cloth shader, and then go over all the textures, and refine her hair. 

JohannesAg

looking cool, tho i feel like it might be worth it to exaggerate some of the wrinkles in the sculpt since a lot of it disappears in the ss shader. In particular the ones around the eyes and forehead

Nuclear Angel

@JohannesAg Thanks, and you are completely correct in that. I have lost a lot of the secondary details in engine. I might also add some more wrinkles to the forehead now when I see her textured. But all that will happen after I have retopoed the body which is up next! 

stevston89

You can also use your cavity map to lessen the SSS effect in your SSS texture. I am working on a older character now and it helps a lot to preserve the pore and wrinkle details. 

birb

Random data that may help you in trying things with her skin:

Light can basically do three things when hitting a surface: Get reflected, absorbed or scattered.

Aging makes skin thinner. It also produces less oil and loses water content and melanin.
The loss of melanin will make the skin tone generally less saturated and will also reduce the absorption, and so will the thinning. The lower water content and the dryness reduces the reflectance.

The end result is a rougher and generally less saturated skin tone with proportionally higher SSS—because fewer light rays are getting reflected and absorbed—but you need to take the skin structure and the underlying structure into account. You have to compensate for how thin a region is, how close to the bone or how much fat / loose skin there's in that place, the size of pores and wrinkles. Cavity will help with the finer skin structures, but you might have to further tweak the SSS for the other factors. The devil is in the details, this variance can really bump the realism.

Here's an interesting paper on the age effects on skin.

Oh, and there's additional factor which will alter the skin properties: Makeup. It invariably makes skin more opaque, reducing SSS. It won't be applied evenly to a face, usually being thicker around the eyes.

Nuclear Angel

@stevston89 I will try that out and see how well it works out with the skin shader in UE4. Thanks for the tip! 

@birb Thank you so much, These are some really solid points that I will work on when I do the second pass on her skin textures. Lots of considerations I had not really thought about, especially the one on skin thickness in considering the underlying bone structure. 

I have baked all the maps now for my lowpoly and Retopoed everything. 
I am already noticing that I need to read up a bit more on the lighting in UE4, as I have a light that affects the cape in the front even though it should be in shade. 


What is left to do: 

Texture all the parts and set up a proper Gem shader, Cloth shader and pearl shader. 
Do a secondary pass on the hair, and then also a secondary pass on the face textures. 
Pose her, 
Render
And then call it donesies. 

Nuclear Angel

So I have made some good progress and all the Shaders are finally at a stage where I can now focus on Texturing. 

All the textures so far are on their first pass, so I need to take another stab at them. 







So what is left to do: 

• A secondary pass on all the textures
• Bake and texture her Rings
• Secondary pass on the Hair
• Pose
• And wrap it up

I would also love some feedback on the colors, here I have a different variant, but I am not certain if it is a bit to much gold. 



Thanks for taking a look. 

stevston89

I think the shoulder area is looking way to rounded. I would the shoulders to be flater and more of an angular transition. The cape looks too thin should have more tension and silhouette breakup. I do think the gold everywhere is too much maybe have some trim gold some silver. Looking good overall! Here is a paintover:

Nuclear Angel

@stevston89  That is a great point and I will definitely flatten out the shoulder a bit for the silhouette. I will see about adding the folds, if I can get it to look good. Thanks for the gif! 

stevston89

@Nuclear Angel  The shoulder adjustment should get you most of the way there. The folds would just give the silhouette some more interesting breakup and be more natural to the tension points. Personally I think if you can do it it's worth the time to push it to as good as you can make it, but I understand being overwhelmed and wanting to finish. Keep it up it's going to be a good piece! 

CaesarAlbertus

Great work @Nuclear Angel, this is looking pretty good
For the memory folds on the high poly of the dress you use a texture in the surface noise? been trying to research how you can achieve that look quicker

Nuclear Angel

@stevston89 The gif was wonderful and I used this weekend to fix it up, so the setback was damn worth it! Thank you for the suggestion, truly appreciated. 
@CaesarAlbertus Hmm I would recommend that you check out the Horizon Zero Dawn character art presentation at the ZBrush summit. I am using a mixture of his cloth techniques. But super quick TLDR, sculpt a base up to a point where you are happy with you'r secondary shapes. Then add surface noise with alphas on a layer, tone that down a lot, and then handsculpt on top of it, no magic, just time.  

So I updated the cape this weekend with the time I found, it was a great idea. 

CaesarAlbertus

Nuclear Angel Thank you for that info!!!!! definitely going to check that video

Nuclear Angel

More than a year since I started, and I am finally calling her done.





After a year of tinkering and editing and changing things left and right. The work have not always been productive, but it surely have been iterative. I wanted this piece at first to be something I could use to learn and practice more modern and advanced creation techniques. But I got stuck in my own head and in design paralysis which made the process gruelling tough and slow. On top of that this year have been eventful in numerous ways, I have done some varied freelance work and now started a full time education to learn C++ Coding. So all in all with the limited time I  have had with this piece I am happy with where it ended up.

I have grown so much as an artist and Learned a ton about design and workflow with this and the work I have done professionally during the year. But I really want to thank everyone here on this forum who have helped me out and given me pointers and feedback. Your help have been the best I have found on the web. 

If you want to see more images, they can be found here on my artstation.

Ashervisalis

Hey dude, this is really dope. Good job!

Todd Dinosaur

Very nice! You did a great job!

Nuclear Angel

Ashervisalis and Todd Dinosaur, Thank you very, I really appreciate it !

carvuliero

Your version look a bit plasticky and cold to me so I gave it different spin , if you are interested I can send you the psd

Nuclear Angel

@carvuliero Yea I would like that, I now see the changes the warmer light makes, I wanted the cold light to be a nice contrast to her warm colors, but I drowned them out a bit harshly. Thank you

Nuclear Angel

So I implemented and updated my project with the amazing feedback from Carvuliero, thanks once again!

Camille_Meehan

This looks great.

Jacob Lubinski

Impressive!