Milestone 04 Check In: Texturing & Rendering
References
Key Art: Illustration by Hegval on Reddit,
permission to create her was obtained before the project began :)
Schedule
[05/19] BLOCKOUT [✔] -- Overall blockout complete; some secondary forms emerge, but the overall flow of the piece is present. Polypaint used to differentiate material types
[05/26] SCULPTING [✔] -- Detail sculpting completed. All objects have secondary and tertiary details present.
[06/02] RETOPO & UVS [✔] -- Retopologizing the model down to a goal of 30k tris, following reference from Overwatch 1's character models (Source).
[06/09] TEXTURING & RENDERING [✔] -- Use generator and mask-based texturing workflows rather than hand painting due to time constraints. Render in Marmoset Toolbag.
Shortfalls
Oh boy, due to a tremendous amount of life issues, this project did not go well. I genuinely believe that my absolute love of the character and consistent Dungeons and Dragons nights—where we actually play with this character—are the only reason I pushed through and finished her.
That being said, there are many, many, many things I already plan on going back to fix and tweak, one of the biggest being the faceting of the basic mesh. It's especially noticeable in the lit versions of the renders, but some areas of the hair and sleeves have significant faceting due to hardened edges.
Another fix to make is in regard to the gauntlets, they're just... bad. overall. I ran out of time making the gorget so the gauntlets never really made it out of the blockout stage. even in the final version, they kind of just have some gold thrown on there to make them seem like they belong.
A little bit silly of a fix that was intended for optimization was the hair tubes being uncapped at the end and entirely open. This was the first time I took a sculpt like this through my process, so to avoid hurting myself with around 30 pointed hair tubes, I ended up clipping the end off. The intention was to go back later and merge the verts together so the UVs would pinch closed.
If I were to get a grade for this project, Id honestly expect something like a low 80. Although it is done, it did not meet all of the requirements that I started with, including polycount or even the original texturing method. There were too many corners cut to justify a higher grade; however, I know I am an extremely harsh critic of my own abilities.
Extra Renders
And adapting a Regradable VFX for a sunspot to create an evil darklord power for Ireena to wield. for some reason.
Very basic rig for posing
Process Shots:
Comparing the different stages of texturing, I'm someone of a snob when it comes to hand-painting software, and I really don't like any of them, so I used a combination of Substance Painter, Clip Studio Paint, and 3DCoat to achieve the final product.
(1) Substance Painter was used to lay down the initial flats, using a smart material called Simple Diffuse to streamline some of the tedious processes of laying down flats, such as setting up a light and applying ambient occlusion & curvature.
(2) Then I transitioned to Clip Studio Paint, using their rather unknown and old software, Clip Studio Modeler, to outline Ireena's face and apply gradient maps. Substance Painter and 3D Coat both have their own quirks that make it difficult to become comfortable in for me, so I used CSP to align levels and 'start fresh' when blending modes were behaving oddly or I needed to focus on small render areas.
(3) Majority of the painting was done in 3DCoat since it was a program I wanted to learn and eventually became comfortable to work in. As soon as I realized I could lock meshes and the rough way the hierarchy worked, it became a lot easier.
(2) Then I transitioned to Clip Studio Paint, using their rather unknown and old software, Clip Studio Modeler, to outline Ireena's face and apply gradient maps. Substance Painter and 3D Coat both have their own quirks that make it difficult to become comfortable in for me, so I used CSP to align levels and 'start fresh' when blending modes were behaving oddly or I needed to focus on small render areas.
(3) Majority of the painting was done in 3DCoat since it was a program I wanted to learn and eventually became comfortable to work in. As soon as I realized I could lock meshes and the rough way the hierarchy worked, it became a lot easier.
I transitioned away from the Overwatch style of rendering in favor of my own personal style, mixed with a cheeky bit of Arcane, due to my friend group having a big focus on 2D art recently. Two of my friends are Concept Artists who have been working through commissions, as such leading to many discussions on art practices, one of them being a notion that 3D artists don't use gradient maps. As an example,
For the shirt and the gold I used a combination of two different maps, one affecting the shadows and one affecting the highlights; that way the colours could be unique between them,
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