Creatures & Anatomy Collection

This project was completed during my final year at the University of Worcester, I extend my gratitude toward the lecturers and tech team for their continued support and guidance throughout my university development.

Inspiration and References

This project drew inspiration from the Monster Hunter series along with animals found in our oceans. By utilizing real world reference and 3D models from Monster Hunter: World I have ensured my design is authentic, representing my vision while setting a high standard for the project.

The Wyvern Project is a showcase of how far I can develop my skills in a short period of time. Developing my skills in creature design, sculpting, retopology, texturing and touching upon rigging for AAA game development. 

Rendered within Marmoset demonstrating this project hopefully demonstrates my ability to create a fully realized 3D game-ready asset.

ZBrush

As my first real delve into the world of ZBrush I found myself spending a lot of time here attempting to capture primary forms. Utilizing Z-Spheres to create a base taking the opportunity to iterate and explore in the 3D space. Moving onto secondary forms capturing muscle definition and scale placement.

Following a Dynamesh workflow during the early stages allowed me to make constant changes and harsh deformations without needing to worry about topology and stretching. Once my forms were locked in I swapped to using subdivisions, layers and projections to develop the sculpt. The final sculpt was made up of roughly 15 million faces for the high poly.

Brushes

To help me achieve the effects I wanted I have utilized a variety of brushes from  the FlippedNormals Skin Kit, including skin and texture effects such as "Heavy Skin" alongside several scale brushes by Marcus Whinney to aid with blocking out before manual refinement.

Retopology

To retopologize my sculpt I decimated all sub-tools of the mesh to an amount that Maya could reasonable support, I then created a low-poly using Quad Draw in Maya. This method ensures I can create and control the flow and banding of my topology while allocating more topology to areas of deformation, thinking ahead to potential rigging and animation. This workflow allows me to achieve the desired results faster whilst building my understanding of topology through constant application.

The effort put into this process translated into a much easier time when UV cutting but also allowed me to reach a  much lower overall Tri-Count important for reaching my goal of a AAA game ready character.

Technical Budget:
97,099 - Tri's
5 x 4k Texture map.

Texturing

I textured the creature in Substance Painter using various methods, primarily hand painted using brush techniques learnt over the duration of my university course. Utilizing my knowledge and skills in layering to build up my textures resulted in what I feel is a better outcome instead of relying on smart materials and pre-sets.

Rigging

Upon completion of my textures, I began creating a simple rig to allow me to pose and present my creature in a more dynamic way. After looking into several software and plugins used I settled on Maya utilizing joint chains to create my rig.

Following this I attempted weight painting, a process that caused...well lots of issues. Taking up much longer than I had anticipated resulting in some planned features to be cut. Making use of a keyframe animation improved my efficiency in testing my weight painting. 

Lighting

To present my work I exported my posed creature from Maya into Marmoset for rendering. Using a series of lights with differing intensities, colour and temperature to create focal points within my renders. 

To better present this work I utilized 3D scans  found on Sketchfab to create a quick and effective base which I believe previews elements of story and location.

This Chocobo Fan art was my first post university project, focused on recreating a beloved character from my childhood. Demonstrating the same skills as previous projects with a new focus on showcasing my ability to implement hair cards into my work.

Reference

Taking reference from several generations of Final Fantasy along with other artists work on ArtStation to create a moodboard with PureRef.

ZBrush

Using ZBrush I sculpted the base for my chocobo, drawing reference from the existing 3D models used in Final Fantasy games along with real world reference of guineafowl and first hand reference from aviation centres such as the Swan Sanctuary

Focusing on the legs and head as these are the only parts of the mesh that will be visible once feathers are placed.

Retopology

Due to time constraints I was unable to retopologize the mesh to what I believe would be game ready, instead choosing to focus on creating hair cards and exploring new techniques. With a few extra hours I believe I could easily reduce this mesh down to >5000 Tri-count.

Texturing

Approaching the texturing of the body I knew I only needed to focus on the beak and legs, thanks to the feathers obscuring most of the mesh a simple underpaint would suffice.

Making use of multiple layers, groups and anchor points I was able to create a texture I feel accurately represents what is seen within Final Fantasy VII - Rebirth.

Feathers

To create my feathers I utilized two techniques with varying degrees of success. My primary method within ZBrush was to create a simple shaft mesh before extruding barbs and hair using Fibermesh. Exporting these to Maya ready to be baked to a plane via Marmoset.

My secondary workflow was to create simple hair strip alphas within photoshop this method did result in having to manually paint an AO map however created a clean and polished result.

                                       Alpha - Height - AO (Albedo generated within Marmoset).

By having duplicates of each feather I am able to better divide my feathers into groups allowing for easier editing in the future, This method utilizes the most space within the UV 0-1 reducing wasted texture space while providing size variation that suits smaller hair cards.

Anatomy

Limiting my studies to a single body part allowed for rapid improvement, granting me a greater understanding of the muscles that comprise our arm and how they react to deformation through studies of pronation, supination and extension. 

Rendered using KeyShot as I felt this was a good opportunity to explore new software and workflows with the aim of preparing myself for work life beyond university.

Likeness

Sculpting a bust that achieved the likeness of Henry Carden, A surgeon from the Worcester Infirmary during the 1800's. I had many difficulties with this task in part due to available reference being faded and not overly reliable.

This lead me to use my existing knowledge along with reference to similar figures to fill in the gaps.

Thank you to all who reached this point and good luck to every participate of the competition!