Anatomy/pose help (sculpting/rigging pose)
Hello,
I'm having an issue regarding creating characters for games.
I wanted to create a pipeline whereby I could go from hi-poly sculpt --> lo-poly & rigged for UE4/5.
My plan was to create a basemesh that matches the UE mannequin pose in the hope that it would make rigging/importing my characters into UE easier for me so I could reference the rigging/animations for learning and implementing.
The problem is, i want my characters to follow real-life proportions and anatomy. The UE mannequin has somewhat stylized proportions, not overly, but definitely not real-life.
I referenced real-life proportions, such as head units etc.
My issue is that my base pose looks unappealing/odd? When I tried posing with arms flat/legs together it looks ok to me, but as soon as I pose it to the UE mannequin... it looks odd.
I guess the crux of my problem is, should i be trying to match real-life proportions to the UE mannequin pose, or is it something that just doesn't work?
Any help/advice would be greatly received and appreciated :)
Here's where i'm at:
Here's how is started out my basemesh:
[Edit] Here's some examples of real-life scans I searched, to me the poses do make the models look somewhat goofy....
I can't decide if its just a natural result of the pose, or my anatomy is off, or a combination of both?
Replies
slight proportions changes to arm length, collar, and knee height. It feels a little better, but I'm still hesitant to go into any higher detailing if I'm going about things all wrong.
Ultimately I was hoping if I can get a kind of 'average' physique correctly posed and proportioned, then I would be able to work it to other proportioned characters later.
I realize there's no exact 'standard' to human proportions so I'm relying on what I think are reliable references to guide me.
An example of references I've used to guide proportions is this head unit guide:
You can use standard proportion chart like from Richer for example
If you like to keep exactly place of joints then you dont really have much room to work with , if you want different body type retargeting will give you all the animation back in UE if it works
I would add a few ball as guides where joints are and work the inbetweens in to something more appealing , yuo could add a lot more curvature and rhythm without touching joints
Thanks @carvuliero , always appreciated :)
for example, if i wanted to take the basemesh and make a tall, heavy set character:
The elbow/wrist joints would follow the same vector as they increase/decrease in length, but the rest of the joints would remain aligned on the Z axis keeping the pose regardless of character size.
I really hope none of this sounds silly....but I really want to make a pose template that matches the UE mannequin whereby It could work across all my future character models.
I wanted to create a kind of 'standard' workflow that all follow the exact same pose (UE mannequin pose) for future models so rigging and other things would be easier in future for further characters.
I've been kind modeling pretty much aimlessly up until now, and really wanted to start fresh with a standardized approach to making characters but I'm not sure what is the best practice.
I really want to have the best pose to move forward with and thought the UE mannequin pose would be a good option?
I'm trying to put aside that the base pose may look goofy whilst creating the characters and the idea is that i can make the characters have more 'appealing' poses quick and easily after rigging and look more visually appealing later.
trying to define features/proportions in as low detail as possible, slowly bashing away at it and keep the pose.
so far I've managed to keep the pose the same and my character is starting to look less goofy than before....i think
slowly eeking out what i think is progress...
it's feels like re-learning anatomy all over again totally from scratch now that i'm trying to sculpt to a different pose than what I did in the past...
Today's progress:
looks very defined/toned right now as i'm trying to get everything where it should be...
I plan to 'soften' everything later for my proposed 'standard' basemesh.
If you are going to keep similar proportion to EU mannequin , you could reuse the rig as well so make yours a ball guides base on joint position , joints are usually placed in the middle of a volume they control so that will give you good indication how to arrange your model
Then pick a refs model that you like and sculpt point to point or joint to joint ->neck to waist to hip to knee to ankle , in a sense you are squeezing refs model inside your guides ,which will give you some what realistic model with this specific limitations
Thanks always @carvuliero
That was my thinking about the rig, i was so hung about about matching the UE mannequin because i thought it was like an 'industry standard' and if i wanted to make game characters, that is the way it should be done...
However, I think I finally stumbled on the problem i'm having i think.
basically that, it's harder for me to sculpt to the 'legs apart' pose because I' m not experienced enough with modeling anatomy to sculpt in that pose.
with the legs in a straight position everything feels and looks much better to my eyes and I feel more confident i'm hitting the forms better. Also it feels easier to work out proportions in this pose.
So after mangling my sculpt for way to long trying to figure things out, I guess it's better to not fight against it...?
the upper body I have kept matched to the UE mannequin, just i rotated the legs inwards to my preferred pose.
The reason I got so hung up about this is because I want to start off 'right' for a character pipeline from Zbrush sculpt-->UE game model.
I didn't want to set out making characters only to go back and have to change everything later down the line.
I'm gonna finish up my sculpt from in the 'legs straight' pose from here and hopefully i can post some better updates.
Thanks for taking the time to input on my ramblings @carvuliero :)
Almost there..i think...
I first rotated the UE mannequins legs inwards into my preferred pose, then copied the UE mannequin joints as separate objects to guide, adjusting only height positions of joints to fit my sculpt proportions.
...with hindsight i should have just done this from the start, instead of wasting hours just trying to go by eye.
There is no such thing as industry standard lol everyone is doing what they know or what works but I guess when you know sure Its helpful to use something as a guide so don't sweat it too much
When you designing something and it doesnt work for some reason , go back to silhouette if silhouette is not working no amount of details will fix your model except if you are making transformer : )
There are bunch of small things below meant to improve silhouette