Advice On Realistic Character Workflow

Chantel-sky · Jan 2015

Hi guys,

So my goal is to become a 3D character artist in the game industry and I really love the more realistic styled games such as Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect 3, Uncharted 4, Assassins Creed unity etc etc.

So I'd like to focus on learning how to make realistic characters.. But I'm not sure on how to approach this.

I'm comfortable with anatomy, UVing and need to brush up on retopology.
I bought Quixel (which I'd like to learn) and have a trial for Marvelous Designer as I read it's used often.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Edit : I forgot to mention that I'm also comfortable using Zbrush.

SuperFranky · Jan 2015

I suggest spending quality time on creating your own base mesh so you could have something to start your characters from. Create a body in Zbrush out of dynamesh or take a pre-build body mesh that comes with Zbrush, modify it to your liking and retopo it so it can match your needs. Topology needs to be sculptable, it doesn't need to adhere to animation standards of topology, just keep it in quads, if you can.

Other than that, creating a character isn't all that different from creating a complex asset, just a lot more Zbrush involved.

Chantel-sky · Jan 2015

@superFrankly thanks for responding, I should've mentioned I'm intermediate with Zbrush.
I'm just not entirely sure where I go from Zbrush to achieve that realistic style game model. I understand the workflow of what needs to be done, but.

I will make a start on getting basemeshes done and retoping them

Neox · Jan 2015

pick a concept and work on it, do it often, the more you do, the more secure you will get

you are comfortable with all that, so do it, everything else is experience

show your steps, get feedback, apply what you agree on

jfitch · Jan 2015

Pretty much what Neox said. Get good with Zbrush, study a lot of anatomy, apply it in zbrush, pick a concept, model it, repeat. Don't be afraid to jump in and mess up, you can always start over, or keep trying until you get it looking good. Then when you have a nice high res, start retopologizing--the ONLY way to get good at this is to do it a lotttt. Look at other people's models, try to incorporate what you see there, and think about how its going to deform. Then UV that sucker and start texturing. Learn PBR workflows for realistic stuff. Try getting it into a game engine.

The biggest thing is to just keep trying. It's a tough road, characters are difficult and complex, but its not impossible.

As far as the Uncharted character goes, new Drake started as several scans combined into one base mesh, which Frank Tzeng did a lot of nice sculpting on. You can buy head scans from things like Ten24 if you want to get used to that, though I would recommend just doing it yourself from a dynamesh sphere or something.

Then Drake's clothes were made in Marvelous designer, and then sculpted on again. Thats a tough tool to get used to, but its awesome if you can get it down. Still needs to be cleaned up in zbrush most of the time though.

You can check out Frank's tutorials as well on gumroad: https://gumroad.com/frank_tzeng_art
They're worth checking out. I'd also look into Raphael Grasetti's: https://gumroad.com/grassetti

Good luck mate, and the other thing is to post your work on polycount obviously

Then we can all learn from each other.

Ahoburg · Jan 2015

There's no "best" or "optimal" workflow. You have to find out what yours is by practicing. Pick a concept and figure out how to make it from nothing. One thing to keep in the mind is to always start from big to small. Big silhouettes, big forms forst. Details are always last.

Basically, just do it. Human brains are amazing in figuring out patterns and finding out the most effective way to do something. Don't expect to finish fast and expect to spend a lot of time learning as you go, even if you think you know what to do. Don't be afraid to do tests and experiment as much as you can.

Chantel-sky · Jan 2015

Thanks guys.

@Jfitch I've done plenty of anatomy studies and practiced faces so I think I'm all good there..

I have the MD trial, but finding tutorials or sewing patterns seems difficult.. feels like I've looked everywhere on google and found very little results.

I also have Raf Grasettis tutorial, one of the best investments am always referring back to it if I need help.

Ahoburg wrote: »

Basically, just do it. Human brains are amazing in figuring out patterns and finding out the most effective way to do something. Don't expect to finish fast and expect to spend a lot of time learning as you go, even if you think you know what to do. Don't be afraid to do tests and experiment as much as you can.

@Ahoburg Yup, expecting to finish fast is definitely something I need to disregard.

I've picked a concept, nearly finished on creating the base mesh then going to experiment with MD.
Would anyone happen to know a rough estimate of the tri count I should aim for when retoping?

jfitch · Jan 2015

Chantel-sky wrote: »

Thanks guys.
I have the MD trial, but finding tutorials or sewing patterns seems difficult.. feels like I've looked everywhere on google and found very little results.

Yeah, I've had similar issues. Basically you need to look up how to actually sew the real version of the clothing you're looking for...usually there's a few people out there on youtube doing that kind of thing.

As far as tri-count goes I wouldn't worry about it. You can search the wiki here for information, but tri counts for games like uncharted 4 are hitting levels like 50k tris.

I usually don't stress it and it comes out to around 10-20k. If you feel you need to go lower you can always cut back.

Chantel-sky · Jan 2015

@Jfitch I never thought to look at videos of people sewing the real version.

Wow 50k!
I'm assuming that would be just for the main characters though?

BagelHero · Jan 2015

50k? That was high-end last gen, but... look, try to optimise as much as possible of course, don't get carried away with useless polys everywhere just because someone else did it... but there's characters in current gen games averaging 70-140k. 40k seems to be about the lower end of hero characters these days. Also, either the quote for Uncharted 4 was misinformed or a typo, it was Uncharted 3 with 30-50k polycount on drake, they said that for 4 it would just about double.

Again, don't take this as an excuse to go batshit on your polycount, but don't worry too much and start culling useful loops if you go over your self-imposed 20k limit is all.

Just keep practicing. More faces! Finish fullbody character projects all the way through, to low poly/texturing/beauty renders. Look at other people's progress. People can give you tips, but in the end they're only clues to help you cobble together your own personal workflow. Looking foward to seeing more work from you.

Chantel-sky · Jan 2015

@BagelHero I definitely agree! 20k seems reasonable enough

RN · Jan 2015

This is an interesting resource, it's two donationware e-books with information directly from industry professionals:
http://artbypapercut.com/

It uses gumroad as service, so you need a credit card to download them (even if you keep the value at $0).

Markmars · Nov 2017

Hi!

Here are courses on clothes.

https://cgelves.com/courses-workshops/mastering-marvelous-designer/#addtocart

I would recommend the course of Scott Eaton.

http://www.scott-eaton.com/

(first better learn the academic drawing).

Good luck!

Advice On Realistic Character Workflow

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