Its been a while since we posted anything on the blog, so Jon asked me to give you a quick overview of our modeling workflow, and kindly let me show you some of the stuff I’ve been working on.
Below is the first iteration of the bandit character (an enemy Sintel will have to face during the game).
Because the bandit was the first character I had made for the game I was not totally certain about the style I’d try to create him in. As a result he has been subject to quite a lot of change during his creation. Even as I write this, I have only just finished re-modeling his head (below is a time-lapse of the process).
Below is just a quick mash up of the new head on the bandits body. Its only temporary but I wanted to check how well it fits. Seeing it altogether often gives a better read of the character; I’ve already seen a few things id like to go back and tweak .. But that’s a post for another day me thinks.
Heads in Sintel the game have some unique properties: some main characters like Geoffrey have their own unique mesh; however, many of the NPCs have interchangeable heads. We hope this system of “switching” heads and other accessories will enable us to fill the game with a variety of different looking characters whilst keeping unique asset creation to a minimum. To make head creation easier and to allow our system better flexibility, all NPC heads are created from these two base meshes, modeled by Noah.
The work flow used to create the in game characters varies from model to model and often includes a bit of back-and-forth between myself and Noah. Generally however I will start a character in blender by creating some very simple box meshes. From there I’ll either use the sculpting tools in Blender or export out to ZBrush. I use the sculpting tools to rough in the character and try to get a feel for the type of person/animal/monster its going to be. I often work with a variety of different reference images, from which I attempt to take the best bits.
The fact that I often don’t have a clear idea for the finished character is one reason why I like working with simple geometry. The lack of solid/defining topology allow lots of different ideas to be tested quickly and easily. Once I feel I’ve got the overall shape down pat ill move on to defining muscles and other secondary details. At this point I have to make a decision whether to continue working with the simple geometry, or to create some new geometry which better defines the form. Again the decision made here varies a lot, but as a rule of thumb I usually create new geometry if the object has clothes or a lot of separate accessories, and stick with the basic geometry if the character is relatively simple.
If I do create new geometry, I always try to keep individual parts as separate objects (the bandit for instance is split into 11 objects). This can be advantageous for a variety of modeling tasks as well as normal map creation.
Once I’ve finished creating the character and the rest of the team have had a chance to look it over and give their comments and critiques, I send it over to Noah. This is the point where the in-game character is born. Noah builds geometry over my sculpt maintaining as much of the form as possible whilst keeping the poly count low. Once this re-topology step is complete we have both a high and low poly version of the asset. From this point, all that’s left to do is bake down all the tasty high res detail into the lowpoly mesh.
And, voilà, we have a completed in game character. Well, minus texturing, rigging, weight painting, animation, game logic….
