[WIP] Mars Attacks! Martian- 3D Character Project
polycounter lvl 4
Hello Polycount,
For the last few weeks, I have been working on a project with the goal being to recreate one of the Martians from Mars Attacks! in an Overwatch influenced art style. The final product will be a game-ready character model that has been textured, rigged and posed. Currently, I have been working on the high poly base (sculpted in ZBrush), with the main focus of achieving the art style within the head and collar.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
I will continue to upload updates on the character model as I progress with the project!
Replies
Since last week, I’ve been mostly working on blocking out the body and testing out 3D Modelling techniques in ZBrush to achieve the rings around the arms and legs. Currently, I’m trying to make the proportions of the sculpt more accurate to the Martian characters, and over the next week I will be refining the spacesuit.
After last week’s post, my focus has almost exclusively been on the head sculpt of the Martian. pixelpatron’s comment brought up an interesting point, so I have gone back and compared the sculpt to more reference images depicting various iterations of the Martians. Over the last week, I have been altering the shapes and forms of the head to ensure that the necessary details have been added and that the proportions are correct. Some small tweaks have also been made to the proportions of the spacesuit, although there are still areas for improvement!
Thank you everyone for the amazing comments and pixelpatron for your feedback!
To make sure that the character’s proportions are correct, the focus this week has been on resculpting the torso and refining the head. The eyes have been painted to help gauge the proportions of the head and the changes to the head sculpt have mostly included fixing the brow, sockets and general width of the head.
The arms and legs are currently being remade, so they aren’t present within the renders currently. That being said, they should hopefully be completed by next week! A painted version of the current sculpt has also been completed to help get a better idea of how the character may turn out!
Having spent a lot of time refining the body and head previously, I have been sculpting out the arms and legs of the Martian this week! They have been primarily completed using the Zmodeler and CurveStrapSnap brushes and the only thing left to do now is to sculpt out the hands before moving onto some general refinements across the collar.
Along with the arms and legs this week, the head has had some minor adjustments made to the eyes, chin and forehead, along with some proportional changes to the torso to make it bulkier.
The sculpt is coming together! This week I have sculpted out the hands and added them to the character! Some adjustments to the collar have been made, and the dome has been placed into the scene. Some adjustments to the pose have been made to help with the low poly model later on down the line, with the arms being raised and the hands being pointed outwards slightly.
As well as this the Ray Gun has begun being sculpted! Right now, a base for the accessory has been created. Some of the shapes are currently looking rough, but they will be refined.
It’s been a while! I’ve been quite busy recently, so I haven’t been able to upload any posts. However, a lot of progress has been made with the sculpt. Since the last post, changes have been made to the proportions, colour scheme, Collar and Backpack most prominently, with the rest of the Ray Gun being sculpted out. I will probably be starting the Low Poly Model in the next week, but if there is anything that could be improved, feedback is always welcome!
Over the last week, I have been exporting the sculpts out to 3DCoat for retopology. A start has been made on the Legs, Torso and Collar, but it should be noted that the current Low Poly Models will continue to be refined, as the flow of the edge loops currently leaves a lot to be desired. Most notably, the deformation loops around the knee will be moved into better positions so that the knee will deform properly when it is rigged.
As this project progresses, the different parts of the Low Poly Model will be constructed and combined together until the whole character has been made! I’m working on it this way due to the need to stop unnecessary distortion around the model during the rigging process. Since the Arms and Legs shouldn’t affect the Suit and Collar when the character is posed, this should make it easier to rig, meaning more time can be spent on the Texturing Process.
Continuing with the Low Poly Model for the Martian, steady progress has been made with the various Low Poly Elements that will make up the character. Since last week the Collar Details, Pipes, Backpack and Dome Low Poly Models have been blocked out. Along with the new Low Poly Models, the Leg Topology has been refined and the Torso has had some additional Topology added towards the Collar. Once every piece of the Low Poly Model has been blocked out, all of the pieces will be refined with additional topology to ensure that the final Tri Count is controlled and doesn’t become excessive.
Thank You James for your feedback! I’ve gone back and increased the number of polygons in the Dome, so the shape shouldn’t be too blocky anymore!
Along with the changes to the Dome, I’ve adjusted the topology on the Collar, so there aren’t as many polygons that connect to the Arm Ports. I’ve also retopologized the Head, Eyes and Arms, so all of the High Poly Elements for the Martian now have corresponding Low Poly Models! The next port of call will be to retopologize the Ray Gun, but if there are any adjustments that can be made to refine the Low Poly, they will be made. The Tri Count limit for the Character is 30,000 Tris, so there is still some space for refinements to the topology if needed, as the current tri count sits at 20,846 Tris. I’m also still working on the BackPack and trying to find the best way to incorporate the details into the Low Poly Model, as the previous topology was creating lighting issues.
Over the last week, the Low Poly Model of the Ray Gun has been the main focus. With the many complex areas of detail around the design, it has proven to be one of the tougher challenges faced during this project. While a good base for the Low Poly has been made, I still feel like it needs refining in order to produce the best possible end result.
Before moving onto the UV Unwraps, I’ve been spending some additional time refining the Low Poly Mesh for the Martian. These changes were made to help with rigging the character later on, as well as to incorporate some more of the details that were excluded from the low poly model previously. Alongside these benefits, the new topology has helped to improve the way that the low poly model interacts with lighting, as there were some areas on the character where odd shadows were appearing.
Crazy_pixel, GarethStandfield and GOODGRIEF, thank you for the amazing comments you have left over the last few weeks, they are really appreciated! I am really glad to see that others are enjoying seeing the project develop!
There’s still a bit further to go until the Martian is fully completed, with some final adjustments needing to be made to the Ray Gun Low Poly Model before the UV Unwraps and Baking process can properly begin, but I am greatly enjoying this project!
After making some improvements to the topology around the face, the Ray Gun and a few other areas around the Low Poly Model, a start has been made on the UV Unwraps. Right now, it’s at a stage where the low poly elements are all being kept separated (and there is still a lot of work that needs to be completed in regards to the UV Islands), and I hope to gradually unwrap the rest of the pieces and combine them into the final UV Map for the Character. It is worth noting that I intend to keep the Eyes separated from the rest of the elements on their own individual UV Map, but while I continue to refine the UV Maps, they will be kept together with the UV Maps for the Tongue and Earpieces.
With a large majority of the Low Poly Models having some basic unwraps applied to them, the remaining Low Poly Models would all be unwrapped. These elements would be the Head, Dome, Ray Gun, Muzzle and Scope. The Arms would also be refined in an attempt to find a better way to unwrap the Hands, with the sides being stitched together to create a single UV Island.
However, this week the main focus would be upon the unwrap for the Martian’s Ray Gun. The main base for the Low Poly Model would be refined to incorporate more geometry in order to create a better overall silhouette, as well as to help set up better unwraps for the UV Maps. Once this was completed, the three low poly models that make up the Ray Gun would be combined together into a single UV Map. Currently, there are some gaps around the UV Map, but I will be going back over and rearranging the UV Islands to fill out some of the empty space so that the final bakes pick up the details that need to be included. With the combining of the unwraps for the Ray Gun, Muzzle and Scope, I am hoping to start merging the other unwraps for the rest of the Martian during the next week.
Fantastic work!
Over the last week, I’ve been going back over the unwraps for the Martian’s Low Poly Models and refining any UV Islands which would benefit from straighter UV Unwraps. As there are lots of Hard Surface Elements across the Martian’s Design, the straighter UV Unwraps should help produce clearer bakes during the Baking Process. It’s been decided to make the Martian’s final Texture Map Resolution 1024x2048. Since the UV Islands have been laid out to be as square as possible, the extra height within the UV Map should greatly benefit the Textures, allowing for everything to be arranged on a single UV Map, without problems being caused by a lack of space. While a majority of the areas have been laid out without mirrored UV Islands, the Arms, Legs, Pipes and BackPack have all had half of their 3D Models deleted, along with a Symmetry Modifier applied to them to create perfectly mirrored UVs. These overlapping UV Islands, however, have been offset by 1 to place them on the adjacent UV Square so that there are no problems created during the Baking Process. The same has been applied to the Eyes as well, but those Low Poly Models have been applied to a separate UV Map with a Texture Resolution of 256x256. The next step will be to try baking the Sculpt’s High Poly information to the Low Poly Model, and adjusting any areas that will benefit from refined UV Unwraps.
To ensure that the Sculpt’s Details would bake properly onto the low poly model, some additional refinements have been made to the UV Unwraps of the Martian and the Ray Gun. These include straightening out the UV Islands for the bottom of the Boots and rearranging the UV Layout for the Ray Gun. Ideally, I want the details to bake out so that everything is clearly visible within the textures, so in order to see if any extra refinements need to be made, some test bakes have been conducted. While the Ray Gun has baked down quite well, the Martian’s UV Maps will need to be adjusted. Elements with larger UV Islands (such as the Head) have baked down clearly, but areas such as the Hands have baked with the details being blurry. The segmented pattern of the suit has also baked down pixelated due to the way that the UV Islands for the Arms and Legs have been unwrapped. In the future, I will be going back and straightening out these UV Islands as this should hopefully mean that the bakes can appear less pixelated. However, the other main problem that I am currently facing is getting the Low Poly Models’ Textures to bake with a document resolution of 1024x2048, as in order to get the bakes to work, the Unwraps have to be reduced in size and stretched out to fit the UV Tile they’re on. I’m currently looking into a way to achieve the desired bakes, but for the time being, I will refine the UV Maps before moving on with the Texturing Process.