3D Project
Project Post-mortem: Character modelling exercise for ITU 3D Game Art Exam Project.
Modelling and texturing processes in 3ds Max for a character model suitable for animation (posed & rigged).
Using Skull Kid from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as reference material, all modelling and texturing of the character was done from scratch, with no pre-existing bases meshes, or pre-made models.
The exam project includes a Unity Game Engine Windows build, with a 1st person controller to investigate the scene.
Modelling in 3ds Max
Reference image setup
Skull Kid Blueprint
Since this was the first time for me modelling a 3D character, it was very important to work with a proper setup of reference images to make my work easy during modelling, so I ensured that the setup included several reference planes to be able to work from all views.
Taking in consideration that, due to the restrictions of the project, I had to keep the polycount in check, I decided early on to create a stylized and cartoony version of the character. I used this choice as a constant reminder to keep things as simple and functional as possible.
Primitive Shapes & Modifiers
On the first pass I focused on designing the general silhouette using standard primitive shapes (box, cone, cylinder, plane and sphere). With the general form in place, I made a second pass using modifiers, focusing on refining and detailing the shapes, adjusting them to fit the reference image better.
I used most of the modifiers I was familiar with (taper, bend, FFD, surface, etc) and experimented a bit with the symmetry modifier. This was a really good technique to follow that ensured the character was symmetrical, and that I didn’t have to do the same work twice, specially when modelling the hand and the shoe.
Mapping
After applying the unwrap UVW modifier and using the planar map, the UV was not great for texturing. I spent some time fixing things, applying seams and separating elements to what I thought would give me the best results. I tried using Peel Mode, but straightening out the resulting vertices ended up being a long process that yielded subpar results. I ended up mostly using Straighten Selection after peeling the elements, which laid the mesh out nicely and straight whenever it could.
This, I thought, would make my texture painting job in Photoshop much easier. I kept using the checker pattern to make sure that everything was okay, and that I was not getting weird deformations, but I could see that here and there the pattern was a bit odd, probably because of how I’ve aligned things. I organized and bundled elements together that were going to have the same colours, and I gave prominent space to the mask, since this was going to be the centrepiece of the model and where I needed most detail.
Rigging & Skinning
One of the reasons I chose to model Skull Kid is because I figured that having a humanoid character would make rigging for animation easier. At this point I knew that I wanted to use Mixamo to animate the character in Unity, so I created the rig with this in mind, and I didn’t worry about adding animation controls in 3ds Max. I’ve used Mixamo before for previous projects, and it’s fairly straight forward to use and gives excellent results. Mixamo also can do rigging and skinning, but I did this part in 3ds Max. On my first try I added too many bones, and when I started skinning I realized that I was going the wrong way about it. I did some research about what I needed exactly for matching my skeleton system to the humanoid setup system in Unity and I followed their guidelines.
I spent quite some time getting the skinning process right, editing the envelop capsules so that things like the head, the mask, and the hat were all 100% affected by the head bone and by nothing else. I started using the Paint Weight, but ended up mostly using the Weight Table because it gave me better accuracy. It took longer, since I was manually selecting vertices and adjusting the weights accordingly, but it was more reliable.
Final rig
Bone editing tools
Final Thoughts
Choosing a character that was inherently designed to be low-poly was good foresight and it was easy to keep the polycount in check. Additionally I simplified the design by modifying the character with a stylized and cartoony style which gave me even more room to keep things on the low end. Even though the UV unwrapping was a long and meticulous process, it facilitated the texture painting step in Photoshop enormously, and at the end I was happy that I did it that way.
There were several steps in the process that took much longer than anticipated, mostly because I started doing things in a certain way, and halfway through I realized that I should have done it differently. That meant that I had to start over several times. For example, unwrapping the UVs was a very long process, I tried different techniques that I’ve learned from tutorials, but they didn’t look very good to me, so I ended up painstakingly adjusting, straightening and aligning vertices manually, in retrospect I could have used my time better. The rigging process also didn’t work out very well from the start, my initial skeleton had too many bones for the type of character I was modelling, and when it came the time for skinning, I was having a really hard time making sense of the weights. After wasting a lot of time using the Weight Paint tool and adjusting the Envelop capsules, I decided to go back and start from scratch with less bones and to use the Weight Table instead. I think that overall, my biggest mistakes were made when I forgot to keep things simple.
I’ve learned that one of the most important things when modelling is to be really organized and to keep things simple. Also to plan ahead and know what you want to do each step of the way to avoid having to redo work. It is important to start the project with “big strokes” and then from there work on the details. I’ve also learned that I really enjoy the meticulous process of unwrapping and rigging.
