[WIP] Cyberpunk princess Mononoke
polycounter lvl 4
Hey y'all, starting a new project and going back to my roots in games on making a 3D character for Unreal Engine. This project is meant to use for my portfolio piece and also practice and learn new skills along the way.
The goal of this project is to learn and adapt to the new Unreal Engine 5, practice my MD/CLO skills, improving my modeling/sculpting and improving my texturing. I also added a bonus accomplishment for myself in learning to make hair for games, but as I just learned Xgen I wanted to use that instead, so in that regard I'm still open for options.
Concept art provided by Jude Smith based on Princess Mononoke mixed in with cyberpunk and Apex legend.
Referenche for now
Replies
Progress thus far using the Metahuman from Unreal as basemesh to further build the concept.
The concept art is very cool and quite complex. It will be interesting to watch your progress. Good luck!
I was just looking around for a realistic/pbr style render of Princess Mononoke the other day, surprisingly not very many people have done it. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress! 😃 I'd also love to see some details on how you approach the hair and fur, and the panels on her outer coat, whenever you get to that point.
Thx I will do my best and see how this journey will end! 😁
Update on the project. Had a slow start but manage to squish in some work on the project. Made the jacket of the character and put the cloth in zbrush. Starting on the pants now, and later I will play around with the proportions once the big pieces are in.
So time for an update of the project. So I tried to use the Clo simulation mesh of the body armor and the pants and use them as a base for my character but after many trials I found out because of the complexity of the mesh it does not work, and I have little to no control over it. So instead I remade it and use the Clo version as a mockup for as portportion placeholders of the mesh.
Followed up I also made some props of the character also for proportion purposes
As of the straps of the bag I still have some difficulty coming up with a solution atm I'm trying to figure out the design aspect of the bag as that is quite unclear of how it work on this character so if you guys got any input or reference I would gladly take that.
Update on the project focused on the pants and made the short of the character.
Piece by piece it's comming along another update this time on the straps
Hello Sora123, really liking the breakdown on the process and learning a lot from it, the references from horizon are a smart choice for the style, and the overall quality it's pretty good, i really like the accesories on the best. looking forward to see more of it.
This is looking awesome so far. Keep up the great work. I would love to see a bit more about how you did the chest piece.
Thanks for the comment, will keep up to date for the post.
Regarding the Chest piece, I first of made it to clo mirror it and further push the model into the shape of the silouhet, but after playing around with it, I decided that it's not going to work. So instead I used that clo piece as a reference and redo the whole model. Most of them are basic shapes overlay on top of each other like you see in this picture here. They are all separate pieces that are layered on top of each other. Later on I will make a low and bake those high into the low for the texture phase.
Tools I used on this stage were mostly used in this order slice curve to cut the piece I need, Remesh to make it low and workable from here on I can move it around, so it fit the piece like the move tool, Qmesh to make the extraction, small details and the bevels, Dynamic subdive to see how it looks in higher res. Once I'm happy with the low ress then I begin the detailing on the subdive using your typical zbrush tool like the folds on the cloth or the patch details
Some pieces like the hard surface stuff is made in Maya and pieces like the tubes are made in using the curve function tool and a curve tube mesh brush.
Thanks so much for the response! Looking forward to seeing more as you work on it.
Update on the project, Made the mask for the character.
Started out by making the big shapes and overall silouhet of the mask.
Followed, I brought the big shape into maya so I can hand reto it for better control over the form on where the curve might be
result looking like this in zbrush using the subidv feature
Before boolean and hardsurface detail I made sure the overall pieces are complete and matches in this case 90% of concept. I dident 100% match the concept as the mask would otherwise not fit on the face so got to keep that in mind to breakup what is natural over what is based on the concept.
Followed up I made the hardurface detailing. Som e hardsuface detail I left it out as it would be easier to make it in substance than on the mesh It'self.
Helmet is looking great. Do you think you'll have to retopologize the helmet again or do you think you'll have to further optimize for a low poly mesh? I'm trying to learn the finer points of making a game ready character.
Yes the case with the helmet I do have to retopologize again for the bake and final low. As of for now I want to make all the components for the character then play around with the silhouette then i will further sculp more details into the mesh
Update on the project was bussy with life and the head was a challenge to make for this character as prop but here it is!
Thats a ton of work for a little prop, but its looking great.
Update on the process. After some month of break from this process, I came back to do some work at it again. This week update is going to be the Weapon and the cable of the character. Decided after some re-inspection to redo some models to better optimize it for high production work, so keep it posted.
Hey guys I have been working on this character for a while now and learned allot during this process. Now the end is near and the highpolly is nearly completed. I was wondering if there is any feedback to push this character any further before I lock it in place for the low polly modeling? Hair and fur atm for this character is an indicator for the hair cards.
Update after many weeks, finally finished the low topology, UV and bake of my character. Finally, I can start on the texturing of this piece.
Time for another update. During the baking process, I found that there were some elements missing in the 3D high. I couldn't find what it was, but I saw from observation that my high model was not in par with other great work that I set myself to as standard. For that I sought out professional help for feedback and eventually came out to Dell Walker from Exp point mentorship. He gave me loads of pointers regarding my project, but in general it came down to improving my mindset in regarding 3D modelling in general, which I immediately applied.
So here for an example:
Iteration was my base, He gave me tips and example of work where my model was missing secondary and tertiary details and because of that it was hard to read which is plastic/rubber and which is fabric.
Later on he gave me another good point to add story telling into my sculpt. Looking at the concept art, we contracted that the armour she wore was worn down and should reflect that into my design as well. So parts that have been used allot should for example has drag or gravity into the sculpt.
With this new mindset, I applied it across the whole high of my 3D model
Resulting in a new bake.
Time for another update. Did the texture of the clothing and her assets in general. I also redid her pouch assets as I feel the quality of that assets is lower compared to the other assets.
I'm now testing her out in Unreal to see how she holds and so far I'm pleased with the result. Still based from the concept art, I will work on her colour a bid more to match the concept. My mayor next step will be making her hair and fur on her clothing using hair-cards. For this I will probably be using fibershop and GS CurveTools.
Thanks for sharing the iterations after you received that last round of feedback. Nice illustration of how that last 10% can really push something to a higher level. Looking forward to seeing more!
thx man appreciate it!
Rad!
Appreciate all the bts and progress shots
Thx Pxgeek!
Update on the project, decided to work more on her face and added high freq sculpting so I can use that for the bake and i'm also trying to get her hair blockout right for her haircards in the future.