Merman

The artwork presented in this Rookies entry was created as part of my GAM208 Portfolio Development project. I completed this module during the second year of my BA (Hons) Game Art course at Falmouth University.

For this project I made a model of Merman from 'He-man and the Masters of the Universe', and as a stretch goal for the module, I also made the scene of Snake Mountain for Merman to be situated in.

If you are interested in seeing additional information about the types of workflow I used as I made my 5 month journey through the GAM208 Portfolio Development project, I kept a blog where I described my progress and development....

https://motumerman.wordpress.com/

To introduce this Rookies entry I'll be posting a short cinematic of the completed scene. I made this cinematic using Unreal Engine 5, and it was a lot of fun becoming more familiar with using the sequencer in Unreal 5. Whilst creating the cinematic using the Unreal sequencer, I enjoyed finding out further knowledge on the types of cameras and lenses which are available in Unreal Engine.

I'm keen to begin this Rookies entry with the type of reference materials I was using to develop the ZBrush sculpt of Merman for the project. Given that the original He-Man cartoon was made in 1983, since then there have been a variety of different design iterations of the character. I was influenced by a wide range of looks for the character of Merman. In the end I combined various versions of Merman into the final design which I created for this module. The primary references I used for the Merman 3D asset include real world 3D action figures, and the 2018 animated series called 'Masters of the Universe: Revelation'.

Underneath you can see five main references I used to create my 3D asset of the Aquatic Eternian Warlord known as Merman.

Next in this Rookies entry I'll be showcasing the final high poly ZBrush sculpt which I made of Merman. With the GAM208 Portfolio Development project, students were given the freedom to set our own brief, with the guidance of the course Tutors to help. We were asked to weight the grading for the module ourselves, and with the brief I set for my project, I decided to weight the ZBrush sculpting aspect at 50% of the final mark. Due to this consideration, I focused a lot on trying to get the anatomy for the Merman ZBrush sculpt as accurate as possible. I used a lot of aids to help me sculpt in ZBrush, such as the useful book called 'Anatomy For Sculptors'. The original He-Man toys are renowned for being bulky, and although I wanted to keep this type of look with my own sculpt, I also wanted to make the anatomy appear more natural. Hopefully I found the middle ground between the two.

A new technique I used when presenting my ZBrush sculpt of Merman was to take the renders I made with ZBrush into Photoshop. I find the rendering options in ZBrush to be quite limited, but through using Photoshop, I was able to combine a number of renders from ZBrush together. I did this by applying blend modes in Photoshop, and the resulting effect was, the final renders from Photoshop of Merman have 3 point lighting. I also adjusted the levels and contrast of the final renders in Photoshop to gain the desired, dramatic appearance I was going for with the presentation.

With this Rookies entry, I plan to take the viewer step by step through the full character art pipeline I applied when making the 3D asset of Merman, right the way from the start in ZBrush, through to completion in Unreal Engine 5. Below I'll be posting the retopology I developed, along with the UVs layouts, and the normal bake.

To speak candidly, I always seem to struggle with doing the retopology on a model to create a low poly mesh. I found the character of Merman particularly difficult because there are around 20 different assets which needed to be retopologised for Merman, such as his armour and jewelry. I set aside two weeks to develop the low poly mesh for Merman, and I've learnt that the more time I can give to the retopology, the better the final outcome will be with the finished 3D asset. Next I'll be posting the UV layouts for the Merman character, and in the end I managed to limit the UV sheets to three, and this was done based on advice from my Tutors.

With the UVs, one sheet was for the skin of Merman, one was kept for the armour and jewelry, and one was used for the sword. Ultimately I was pleasantly surprised with how I went about creating the UVs, and I spent a lot of time trying to make the UVs as efficient as possible. After producing reasonable topology and UVs, it made the baking process easier. I still had a few issues with the baking, but this is usually the case with whatever I try to bake, whether it be a character or an environment asset. Underneath can be seen the normal bake I achieved for Merman, and I am happy with how it turned out.

Once the normal bake was completed, I added textures to Merman using Substance Painter. I was keen to texture Merman as well as I possibly could, and I asked my Tutors to review the textures I had created to hear their feedback.

When texturing the character of Merman, I broke away from the reference material I was using at this point, because I wanted to have the texturing be established on nature and actual sea life. For the armour, I felt that it should look like coral, and for the skin and eyes I based the texturing on marine life which I felt looked fascinating. To provide a more unique take on the sword, I decided to go with a texture resembling a crab shell. Below are some screenshots of the PureRef boards I made to gather as much reference material as I could find, and at the same time I didn't overload the PureRef boards because I was concerned it would end up as information overwhelm. PureRef is a fantastic tool to use when carrying out a project.

I have posted these screenshots so you can see how the reference material I collected directly influenced the way that I textured Merman, and this can be seen particularly with the eyes and the sword. There were more PureRef boards I created to help me with the texturing process, but I feel I've posted the most relevant PureRef boards I made for the texturing.

I applied a warm and cold colour palette to the texturing of Merman to make it appear more dynamic and engaging.  I reckon that what worked well specifically was using reference material when developing the textures for the eyes, armour, and jewels.

The following renders shown are the finalised textures for the character of Merman, and I will also post the presentation sheet I made of the textured Merman, which is also the thumbnail I'm using to this Rookies entry. I'll also be posting the base colour, ambient occlusion, and the roughness textures for the skin of Merman.

For this GAM208 brief I set for myself, I wanted to take the Merman character right the way through the full character pipeline, and in this Rookies entry I'll be showing the viewer the complete workflow which I used to get to the finished article.

I rigged and posed the 3D asset of Merman in Maya. My Tutors said that the posing didn't need to be anything too dramatic, and they suggested a variety of methods I could potentially use to pose the Merman figure, from Mixamo, to ZBrush, to Unreal Engine 5. What I am saying here is similar to what I said in my Cave Troll entry, which I have also submitted into the 2024 Rookies competition.

This was my second time at working through an entire character art pipeline, and I feel I was slightly more efficient and effective this time around with posing the character using Maya. I find Maya to be a great tool for posing a character, and because it's the 3D software I'm most familiar with, I decided to go with using Maya when posing Merman.

The following series of screenshots show how I posed Merman, and my goal was to make Merman look alien, otherworldly, unsteady, and uncanny, as he emerges through the entrance cave of Snake Mountain. The screenshots also show Merman with the colour IDs I used to apply the textures correctly to the 3D low poly mesh.

With Merman fully posed and textured, I planned on placing the posed character into a scene. In the project brief I was considering sculpting Castle Grayskull in ZBrush, but seeing as Merman is a villain and Castle Grayskull is where the heroes reside, I decided to go with a sculpt of Snake Mountain instead. Below is the PureRef board I made to gather reference material on Snake Mountain. I used a variety of references to develop the sculpt of Snake Mountain, including the Snake Mountain from the original 1983 toyline, to the more updated Snake Mountain from the Super 7 toyline.

Next I'll be posting the final high poly ZBrush sculpt I created of Snake Mountain, and the fully textured version of Snake Mountain. I developed the textures and renders for Snake Mountain using Substance Painter.

I wanted to mention again that the Snake Mountain scene was a stretch goal as part of my project, but I was determined to get Snake Mountain created because I think it makes for some cool renders of the overall scene. I ended up getting a first mark for this GAM208 project in my second year of study at Falmouth University, and I imagine that completing the stretch goal helped me in achieving this.

Something which I feel was successful with this GAM208 Portfolio Development project is the texturing on Snake Mountain, and I was also pleased when the lead Character Art Tutor Michael Boylan said that he liked the ZBrush sculpt I had made of Snake Mountain.

As a big fan of 'He-man and the Masters of the Universe' for many years now, working on this project was a real joy, and I think this enthusiasm is what helped me to maintain a high level of motivation throughout the entire module.

The final renders I made were of Merman placed posed and textured into the scene, and I used Unreal Engine 5 to realise this. These renders can be seen below, and I really concentrated on lighting the scene, as well as the type of colour palette I was using. Hopefully the final renders convey a sense of the original 80s He-man style.