CateArcher

Note: Focus on Silhouette!

  • Your character should be identifiable from its silhouette

Creating Character Models for 3D Games

  • You need high resolution sculpts
  • You also need low res in game characters

What to look for in a high res sculpt

  • How well did you interpret the original concept, or how well did you improve it
  • How clean are your surfaces
  • Did you follow basic design principles
  • How good is your color theory

Thing to look for in a low res game character

  • How clean is the edge flow
  • How evenly spaced the topology is
  • Can you create edge flow for deformation
  • How well did you use UV space
  • How nice are the texture maps
  • How They used map resolution to their advantage
  • Are the materials setup properly

What to put on one’s portfolio

  • Include 2 or 3 really great characters
  • Quality is king
  • It’s better to have 1 or two great characters than a lot of mediocre ones

Using the Cate course to build one’s portfolio

Baby Steps

  • Block out a head
  • Then a hand
  • Block out a cartoon character
  • When you’re comfortable enough, block out a human character
  • block out until you’re comfortable with the tools and process

Building and Sculpting

  • Build clothing and accessories, sculpt in surface detail like facial features

Game Character Creation Phase

  • Create new low res topology
  • Create UVs
  • Bake texture maps
  • Suggest - make a bust only and take it all the way to the end
  • There is a male bust mini-course

Character Design

Character Realism Spectrum

  • Near the uncanny valley
    • Uncharted
    • Red Dead Redemption
  • More Pixar Like
    • Overwatch
    • Smoother, bolder and simpler color pallets
  • Disney Infinity
    • Even simpler
    • Larger more exaggerated shapes, simpler colors
      • Hard flowing edges that guide one’s eye
  • Ratchet and Clank
    • Even simpler and more exaggerated than Disney Infinity
    • Textures are more detailed

Especially in Film, Stylized Character but Realistic Textures

  • Gru from Despicable Me
    • Very stylized character
    • Very detailed clothing textures

Mario

  • Bold shapes
  • Non realistic proportions
  • Very few colors covering whole of an object - i.e. red for the shirt
  • Mario’s silhouette is identifiable in nearly any pose

Even Simpler

  • Monument Valley
    • Character is made up of a few primitive shapes

Shape Language

  • Find the simplest, boldest, least-complex shapes possible first
  • Don’t subdivide too early

Primitive Shapes

  • Some characters personalities can be described through simple shapes
    • A character from blocks may be strong and stubborn
    • Sharp angles and spikes might be devious
    • Notice the repeating shapes and represent them in your designs

Round characters innocence, kindness, or cute

  • Feminine, but not necessarily female

Square Characters

  • Boring
  • Stubborn
  • Anger
  • Stability, heroism, leadership

Triangular Characters

  • Deviousness
  • Cunning
  • Evil
    • Triangle pointing up might be a bottom heavy/fat character
    • Triangle pointing down might represent a muscular or top heavy character

Mix and Match

  • You may mix circles, and squares, and triangles to create your character

Have large shapes, medium shapes, and small shapes

  • Diversity in design is important, and breaks up an area of low or high detail

Rhythm and Flow

  • What are Rhythm and Flow
    • How your eye flows around and through the character
    • Also found on the interior of characters
      • Anatomy for Sculptors book
      • Look at the major ovals for muscles, and the flow they create
    • Look at how hair flows with motion from characters
    • Or watch good cape flow
    • Often a posed character gives good flow where a turnaround character is rather flat
  • In animation the flow is often called the Line of Action or LOA
  • Good Resource: Griz and Norm’s 100 Tuesday Tips
  • Preston Blair Animation by Preston Blair

Silhouette

  • Try to make a character that is identifiable from several angles
  • You should be able to tell if your character is male, female, thick, solid, etc. just from silhouette
  • Maybe even young/old, or fully identify the character just from silhouette
  • Team Fortress silhouette’s are excellent
  • Coraline - Great silhouettes AND shape language

Straights Against Curves

  • The top of the thigh - curved in front, straight in back
  • The calf, curved in back, straight in front
  • You add interest by using opposing shapes
  • Glen Keane’s Notes on Tangled
    • Looking at a woman’s profile when she’s stretching backwards
      • The stomache is curved, the lines of the breast are straight
      • The line of the head and neck are straight
      • Knees and shins are straight, flowing into the curve of the feet

Variety and Interest

  • There needs to be a good balance between unity and variety
  • Elements need to be enough alike so we perceive them as belonging to the same object
  • They need to be different enough to be interesting
  • It’s a fine balance
  • Try to find extra ways to add chaos, while avoiding repetitive patterns
  • Do This Not That Examples
    • Change size and color
    • S curves instead of parallel lines
    • Vary curves and direction
    • Change a surface’s thickness
    • Stroke variety
    • Areas of Detail and Rest
  • Asymmetry is more interesting than symmetry

Simplification and Exaggeration

Simplification

  • Taking something complex and making less of it
    • Alice’s dress in wonderland
      • It would normally have lots of buttons down the front
      • In a cartoon there are fewer, larger buttons
      • Neck ruffles and other busy details are simplified as well
  • It is easier to simplify a realistic character than an already cartoony character
    • There is already a lot of detail in a realistic character

Exaggeration

  • Mostly found in caricature
  • Take large things and make them larger, and make small things smaller
  • Don’t be afraid to push things
    • You can always go back if it’s not working

Proportions

  • Proportion is the relative size of parts of a whole
  • Characters are usually measured in heads
  • Leonardo’s Notes on ** Vitruvian Man**
    • An ideal figure is 8 heads high
    • An average person is 7.5 heads tall
    • Heroic proportions are closer to 8.5 heads tall
  • Find a good proportion chart for characters of all ages
    • Proportions change based on age
  • Anime proportions are even more exaggerated
    • A tall female may be 9 heads tall
    • Chibis have a huge head and very small torso
  • Griss and Norm have a fantastic proportion chart
  • The takeaway is to know what proportions are and how to use them for the look you’re going for
  • Andrew Loomis - Has a great proportion chart
  • How to Draw the Marvel Way
    • Covers superhero proportions
  • Disney Princesses are usually 5 heads tall
  • Disney Infinity
    • Two to Four heads range
  • If girls are five heads tall, guys will usually be 6 heads

Blockout

Goals

  • Proportion. This is the number one rule to focus on
    • Measure using heads
    • Sculpt what you see, not what you know
  • Shapes
    • Look inside the character
    • Look for small, medium, and large shapes
    • The goal is to define the volumes and surface structures, not to detail
  • It’s a good idea to block out a nude human at some point
    • Humans are the most difficult to get right
  • Hair and clothing
    • Block out the larger shapes first
    • Especially true if the clothing has a lot more volume than the character
    • Thin clothing like capes can wait until later, unless you want to study the silhouette with a cape
  • Joint transitions
    • Do not make the joints look like sausages
    • Make the transitions smooth
    • Overlap, a lot