Hercules The Legendary Journey
polycounter lvl 9
Hi everyone, for around a year i’ve been working on this character and it’s getting close to being finished so i will be posting it here.
Growing up one of my favorite TV shows was Hercules The Legendary Journey, i used to watch that show religiously so i decided to recreated the main protagonist Hercules played by Kevin Sorbo. For this project just like other personal projects i always try to improve my workflow and to test new techniques so for this one i decided to try out UDIMS, to get better at Xgen, to try out the Wrap program and some other stuff. I also wanted to make everything from scratch, that means no basemeshes( i made a basemesh a long time ago so i wanted to start from scratch and update it), no scans and no solvers. This really forced me to create the primary forms, secondary forms, tertiary and small details since the actual character was created from spheres. With my previous Vigo character i wanted to do haircards and render the final videogame version in Marmoset, this time i decided to use Xgen for full on hairs and to bring that and render the final version in Unreal Engine.
I also recorded the entire process which i hope to transform into a full tutorial, more on that soon after i do a lot of editing.
I will prepare the rest of the images and post them here soon.
Growing up one of my favorite TV shows was Hercules The Legendary Journey, i used to watch that show religiously so i decided to recreated the main protagonist Hercules played by Kevin Sorbo. For this project just like other personal projects i always try to improve my workflow and to test new techniques so for this one i decided to try out UDIMS, to get better at Xgen, to try out the Wrap program and some other stuff. I also wanted to make everything from scratch, that means no basemeshes( i made a basemesh a long time ago so i wanted to start from scratch and update it), no scans and no solvers. This really forced me to create the primary forms, secondary forms, tertiary and small details since the actual character was created from spheres. With my previous Vigo character i wanted to do haircards and render the final videogame version in Marmoset, this time i decided to use Xgen for full on hairs and to bring that and render the final version in Unreal Engine.
I also recorded the entire process which i hope to transform into a full tutorial, more on that soon after i do a lot of editing.
I will prepare the rest of the images and post them here soon.
Replies
Lowpoly with AO and Normal bakes.
The final renders will be done in Unreal Engine 5, the Marmoset version doesn't support UDIM's so i had to apply a new material for each UDIM for the body, it also doesn't support Xgen Alembic Hair and im using temporary eyes.
Another issue with Marmoset is that because the body was set up using UDIM's, even though i applied a new material for each UDIM, when i turn raytracing on i get darker seam lines.
A note using Xgen Alembic hair in Unreal Engine, most of the process was research and troubleshooting problems and after a week of fixing issues there were 2 i couldn't fix due to lack of documentation, the normals on short hairs were hard and the tangents were broken( tried everything i could think of and nothing fixed the issue) and the last issue was getting the V value for the hair length direction in order to add a tube effect on the instance hairs. I hope the workflow will be improved and those issues will be addressed, it is cool to have a high resolution character with full UDIM support, complex skin materials & custom materials and fully dynamic hair that can be simulated completely running in realtime although on my pc it runs kind slowly but for renders it's great. I could of optimized the model( now it's more a game cinematic character than a videogame character) and i could of reduced the haircount and added LOD's but for my needs this is enough.
Next step will be to rig & skin this guy, create the base and finally pose and simulate the hair with a wind blowing the hair.
Maya viewport 2.0 render.
The silhouette
Do you want to push the presentation into collectible direction or should it be more realistic like snapshot from a game/the series?
Right now the presentation looks stiff to me. It reminds me of an collectible with the stand and the writing, but at the same time the characters pose and composition is not so dynamic.
If collectible style is intended, I think more expressive/dynamic pose would be nice (rise one arm with the hydras head, look angry, flex sword arm?). For a realistic presentation, I would avoid or tone down elements which take attention from the main character or break immersion, especially the text. As pose, you could reference a pose from the series?
Also, I think the textures are a bit flat/uniform, especially the west. It makes me unsure what material I am looking at. The skin could look more weathered, like he is outside most of the time. I think it's important to not make the actor, but Hercules who happens looks like the actor - so you can push it further than the actor and makeup/props department were able to go.
Much success with the project
There are no specific or iconic poses in the show and since i will be 3d printed also it is limiting to what pose i can create.
For the textures i used UE5 for Realtime rendering and i used the best skin material available for it, the same material used for Meet Mike( digital human scene), Siren, Andy Serkis and others. For this material being made for a realistic character the textures need to be flat and at a specific value for some of the textures.