Character Design Project

   The last month I've been deep in Maya and Zbrush with character crafting. My original inspiration was a character I had drawn up for Dungeons and Dragons with friends, but despite having a rather short life (dying twice in quick succession to a blast of light from a much more powerful magician), he made impression enough that I have fond memories of my experience with him.

   So, with such an impression I drafted him as the first for possibly a whole line of such characters, and a showcase for anyone who might like a similar result.for their own player characters. Posable, usable in animations and quite possibly a source for 3D printing if the setup is right.

   Magic users have had quite a compelling allure to them - masters of mystic arts, scholars and academics who shape reality. This talent, and a lack of armour for their class gives the opportunity to make them one of the more casually-dressed character types in games of D&D. Other classes certainly have a style, but one way I find magic users fun is how they can bring court style and artisan outfitting to an adventure.

   For this particular character, this connection to courts was key to his design as the background for him was of an aristocratic family in decline. This particular member of the ruling classes, who I called Varthen, took to travelling the countryside after becoming an adult. Funding his travels with money made performing tricks which come innately to him at various villages with the occasional performance in a town pub. As well perhaps as other services that come from magical ability coming naturally to him or having a formal education.

   These two factors: A noble background and a life on the road, created a character who was of privileged status but lived with few of the trappings. While I could have taken the angle of just a few trinkets to show his wealth, such as a signet ring or a necklace, I thought he'd go a little more flamboyant. Namely he would still be in touch with the fashions at court, and underneath a (relatively) simple coat would be a silver-threaded blue velvet doublet, linen shirts and silvered leather boots. Underneath a simple overcoat is a man of proud upbringing, who could weave his way through the royal circles if he so wished.

   He's not fully human, more a half-elf. While this does make him rather Eldar-esque, elves in the D&D settings are often far more fairy-like than Lord of the Rings. Half-elves have often been described as a miawy point between human and elven beauty, so a half-human-half-elf is more along the lines of a handsome or beautiful human with somewhat pointy ears. To an elf, they'd look ugly with rather puny ears.

   Most importantly it was really fun to design his outfit, particularly the designs of silver and padding on his luxurious buttoned doublet.

  The other fun thing was learning tricks to rig up large pieces of fabric in the absence of ncloth programs. Varthen has two arrangements to make this work: The lower half of his coat has a grid of controls that link to nine different chains of bones while his half-cape is controlled by a single chain of bones much like a tendril coming from his shoulder.

   There was a lot more work than I initially thought but that is part of the learning process. Some of the most fun things to work on were his hair, eyes (which are rigged with a blendshape to dilate), the pattern on his doublet and getting familiar with the rivet tool. Which I've found can be far more than a way to pin an object to a specific point on a mesh.

   With him done, I've had various ideas on my mind where to go next. Such as offering various components for sale like his coat with attached rig or a blank version of his head. But also considering less human characters like dwarves, tieflings or lizardkin.

Further reading

Artstation entry: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/N5bkON

New Designers: Final Submission

Year 3 Major Project: Four from Mark Stamp on Vimeo.

A bereaved scientist finds love again far from home, but as he comes to connect with this new lease of life the company's plans must force him to let go.

Four: An Adult With Polish

  With progress done om the environment model I went back to the animation sequences. With the time that I have available I feel I can definitely push out some much cleaner and more lifelike animations. Currently building a library along the way. It won't translate easily into the juvenile - who has a very different style of movement - but the groundwork should speed up the pace.

 A rather diligent cutting of the animation down to four minutes has been a struggle, as there is always that question of what to keep and what to remove. But after some thorough examination, and the sacrificing of a few details here and there which in a number of cases could be supplemented by visual information, the video flows a little more succinctly and fits within that alotted time frame.

Four: Office Exploration

  More progress done, this time the sequence where Four explores her owner's office as Amelia expresses doubts continuing a relationship with him. A bit of time was taken to get her rise to the table looking right.

The way she pushes the phone off the table, maybe there is a connotation there given the way she pushes it? She's not entirely sweets and strawberries especially as she gets older and the other scientists and the people upstairs start thinking of David less.

Four: Texture Rework Phase One

  Some time was taken today building texture work for Four as well as creating a displacement map to simulate the texture. The greatest focus today was on her fins which graphically speaking required a complete rework. I based the design on butterfly wings, the intention of numerous patterns on such are to intimidate any larger predators but can also be used to attract a mate.

Her head fins are about done, and lay the foundation for how the tail fins work, the techniques I used ot create the textures on the head fins can easily be used to colour the tail fins.

Some work was also done on Thursday too refine the juvenile's animations to make her jump to the floor and her approach towards the incubator more animated.

Four: Walk Cycle Development

Progress is coming along coding Four's walk cycle. Most of the bugs have been ironed out of a basic cycle that I might see about varying, the main good thing is she's coming to life. Finder details like her facial expressions will be something for later on when the bulk of the animations are down.

Indeed perhaps her tentacles could do with a bit of a bounce to them to make them appear flexible.

Four: Last Few Controls

  So far almost everything has been linked up. The last few elements required are the fins. As I found the IK control system quite handy, I decided that barring other suggestions I use that to make controlling the fins easier, as I had to get rid of a few controls for the old method when rebuilding the neck.

  There was some minor warping when I linked up the blendshapes to the model, but a loophole I found to reduce the severity was to reduce two of the shapes - one for the lips and around the eyes, one for the cheeks, are working at half-strength. While this does mean their controls need to be moved further for a better effect, it seems like a worthwhile compromise. 

The counter-roll for the spine's IK also works effectively. However since copying the rotation for the core joint overshoots the counter-rotation it might have to be controlled on a by-eye basis.

Four: Presenting Play and A New Adult

Written into the script, one idea was for Four to knock over the phone as Amelia is talking. This scene should be more interesting than Four simply wandering into David's office and giving the camera puppy-eyes.

Anyone with a pet cat knows they love playing with inanimate objects by giving them pokes, jabs and pushes to see what they do or how they fall over. As a creature of predatory heritage, Four might have similar instincts so this might be entirely in-character for her.

Preparing for the third act I went back to the adult model. While installing the spine to simplify control over Four, a slight problem came out in that when installing a curve to a spine, the joints will contract to fit the CV curve, which would make reattaching the blendshapes problematic. The solution so far (which has given freedom in correcting the skeleton) has been to essentially fix the skeleton then rebind the skin and paint the weights back on. 

As I had done this before a couple of times now I might be able to re-paint the skin weights fairly promptly. That is the plan, as the deadline of mid-May is coming and I have to reserve a week or two for export to a render farm and post-processing.

Four: A Return to Work and Development

Returning from a hiatus refreshed and ready to continue, I'm moving along with the essentials of the project. UV maps have been cleaned up and most importantly for the model, the walls and floor have been separated from each other.

  Together they felt too much like one combined structure, separating it out made it easier to define where they met. After a discussion that it might be inappropriate for Four to be raised in the same room as plants were studied, I set up a system that would effectively 'switch' between a plant lab and an animal biolab. To control the switch, a control was added over the room, in later stages this might be used to switch between the stages of progression. Multiple states would exist on one spot that can be set using this control.

  Separating out the walls, ceiling and floor also allowed me to develop cleaner geometries for these large surfaces. Much of the more dense geometry was due to the edges used to hold the geometry around windows and doorways in place. With these more separate, the layouts for the floors and ceilings could breathe more.

With the rooms set up and the distinctions made, I also set about reworking the camera to make better use of the new layout and serve as a foundation for what objects to place and where, and where in the lab might be seen. At present, only David's first recording and Amelia's first message have been matched to a camera but I'm sure more will quickly come over the coming week or so.

Four: Finer connections.

With some planning, Four has a slightly nicer eye, something that is a little less human

  I may go a little larger with the iris but at present the iris' coverage is quite solid, leaving only a small amount of white. The eye could be signed off.

  Four's boy also needed some simplification. Going over I removed controls that could be covered by a spline IK, which bend the joints along a curve tied to control joints.

  The eyes are rigged and controls are set, the eyelids are connected and the membranes are set as well. So the priority for the weekend is to link up the last nodes, the digits on the and and feet and the fins, tying the controls for the tendrils on the head, then limiting everything so the pose corrections don't break.

In hindsight, this was a more important model, as it will be present for much of the second half of the animation.

Four: Skinning and MILA Shaders

I can sign off on the shader for the skin, save for the texture map which needs a bit of variance to it.  Working properly, the shader gives a lovely translucency to her fins and the webbing between her hands and feet. From the success I had, I moved on to  trying the mila shader on other textures, There is some on the claws, teeth and on the eyeball, which appears to have removed the rather distracting shadow that kept haunting my previous renders. 

TO get a more solid shine on the eye, I swapped the blinn for an anistropic shader, which while not as glossy as the blinn, giving only a spot so far, does give a cleaner life-giving glint. More could be done, as this is a start for now.

As can be seen by this render, The next task I performed was weighting her model to her skeleton. Starting with blocking out the weights, a second pass will smooth out the differences, then pose space corrections will correct the deformation that can't be as easily managed with weights.

Four: Skin Improvements

With some discussion from Alan, work progressed today on making Four's skin look more skin-like.

I went back to using a MILA shader to make use of the subsurface mechanics, suggested that for best results in terms of light scattering, i needed to mock the consistency of wax.

With that done, highlights were needed. Using the specular map I had designed for previous shadings, I installed gloss and specular layers to the model. The gloss provided a highlight while the specular provided a tinge.

  With the subsurface working properly, she is looking considerably more lifelike than before. Her skin looks more like it has texture and consistency while the subsurface gives a satisfying tinge to more transparent parts of the body.

The next phase will be to add some difference to the colour of her skin, to give blemishes and areas where her skin might be thinner than normal such as on the cheeks, where blood is more visible. This will give hopefulyl a rosiness that gives her a sense of life that boosts the subsurface scattering going on.

Four: Lighting the Biolab

  As well as completing the incubation chamber today, I thought I might play around with lighting.

  The biology branch of the lab will have several incubators. In the middle will be tables for scientific apparatus, clutter and research notes.

  I find that using a spotlight (below) provides a more dramatic light than using an area light (above) as the light created is much more confined. The spots on the roof see ma little off.

  What the spotlight appears to produce well however is a light from the isolation unit. Creating a stark shadow of the unit's doors. The light inside is confined by being made unable to pass through the glass, the light created from the door is being produced by a more specifically-aimed spotlight to preserve the strength of the light. I may need a third light however to illuminate the rest of the room. This trick can be used in other areas where the light may be different ,such as the adjacent office or the corridor - two shafts of light projecting themselves on the wall opposite the windows looking out into the darker corridor.

The new arrangement of the lab is going to mean some changes to the movement of the camera as it navigates the room. With proper lights in the room I can experiment with how to portray the glass.

  Some time in the past few days was also taken to sketching some posing research, how Four might move as she walks, runs, and a few minute movements that would sell the character..