Introduction
This week, I first repainted my character, then learned substance painter and painted textures for my character, and finally I helped Zhu adjust the game animation of his project.
Character design
I said before that although I studied how to assign colors to the characters, I was not satisfied with the final effect, so I had to repaint. In fact, I didn’t have more time to think about what I should do, so I thought of Orisa, a robot modified by Efi, whose color should give me inspiration.
I also searched for more pictures of cheetahs. I believe Maha’s main color is yellow, but because she is South African, the ratio of black is not less, probably 5:5 with yellow. At the same time, I must ensure that there is a bright color, which can refer to Orisa, it has a bright green, I think I can also add this color. In addition, I also added orange, which is similar to yellow, so that Maha maintains the overall tone. So the final picture looks like this:
Rigging
Because Yann can’t help me rig my model, I can only ask my friend to do me a favor. I sent him my request, which reminds me that I once asked others to help rig, but at that time I just started to learn 3D animation, I didn’t even know the controllers of ik and fk! Now I can put forward my own rigging suggestions!
These are my requirements:
1. The hair has a separate control ring and there is also a general control ring to control the movement of all hair (like a tail)
2. The earrings have a separate controller to control the movement
3. The patch sets on the breastplate and the feet hope that a controller can control their movement, and can follow the body to make a floating effect.
4. Try not to deform the breastplate too much, because this is a slightly soft surface.
5. Shoulder, wrist, back spray device, knees, ankles, shoes themselves should not be deformed with exercise as much as possible.
6. Is it possible to add a controller that will deform the character as a whole? (Make exaggerated bouncing)
7. Is it possible to add a controller that controls the character’s breathing (the chest slightly expands)?
8. The source file has assigned the name of each component, please try not to change the name.
My friend quickly gave me the model with rig! I tried it and it worked very well!
Texturing
After designing the character, I am about to learn a powerful new software. In fact, I have already learned some substance painter in the last collaborative project, but unfortunately, due to the limitations of the project, I could not continue to learn it. This time I have a chance to master it thoroughly.
I chose CGBOOST. The instructional video of substance painter they made is really great! ! ! This video not only has theoretical knowledge, but also practice, which can help me understand this software better! ! ! While studying, I took notes (mainly recording hotkeys), and practiced with the teacher. This video is not very short, but I am very happy to learn it.
After learning substance painter, I officially started drawing textures. It is not a big problem to create the project and check the model, especially the model I have adjusted once when unfolding UV. To be honest, the first time I saw my model running in Substance Painter, I was still very excited.
After determining the model, I directly start bake mapping (I switch off the id map). This step is to let the substance painter know how my model is. If I use smart materials and smart masks, I can quickly bake it. The model is recognized. Or if I have a high poly mesh, I can also import it here to bake normal map.
Because I have already learned, drawing textures is not a difficult task, but there is one thing I have to mention-I have some problems with my UV, no matter how I draw, the edges of the brush stoke are very blurry. After consulting the information, I found out that there is a problem with the size of my model’s distribution map, they are too small! The solution is to change the resolution, so I upgraded from 1080 to 2k, which is clearer now.
Another thing worth mentioning is that substance painter and photoshop are very similar. They both rely on the hierarchical relationship to draw, so I must keep a clear mind to distinguish what each layer controls, and one layer The map can only be adjusted once. So I made a mistake. As shown in the picture, the pattern on the breastplate does not have a height map, because I painted it directly with the base color of the breastplate. Base color only has color map. But the pattern of the small object below obviously has a height, because I separate it from the base color. It has a color map and a height map, but the base color only has a color map. As long as I understand this, I can draw different materials clearly.
In terms of material, I did not use the default material, but according to Orisa showed in the game, I created a material without metallic, only roughness. This material does not reflect too much light and gives a slightly rough texture. a feeling of.
As long as I drew the head, I was more than half successful, because I can keep copying the material used in the head to other parts, but this operation is too cumbersome, I have to switch the texture set constantly. After all, drawing textures is a tedious job.
I spend almost all my time drawing it myself. Maha has a lot of patterns on his body. They can’t be solved by importing texture. I can only draw a little bit. God, this is really a work that requires patience. On my side Listening to the music, I finished drawing all the textures.
Now my model has become so cool!
I asked Yann how to export textures, and he patiently told me which options should be switched on and off. And also told me that if I did not draw a certain map in substance painter, even if it is exported, there is nothing.
We return to Maya and start assigning textures to my model with rig. Yann will also help me this time because I don’t know Arnold very well.
Next are the steps I want to do:
1. Select the model and create standsurface.
2. Import the color map (diffuse map) in Color and select sRGB.
3. Import the rough map in roughness, select Raw, and switch on alpha is luminance.
4. Import the emission map in Emission color, select Raw, and remember to see if the weight is adjusted higher.
5. Import the normal map in bump mapping, select Raw, use as tangent space normal, and switch off flip R &G channel in Arnold. (This is more complicated, you must remember)
6. Import opacity map in opacity and select Raw.
The effect rendered by Arnold is like this, which is really great! ! !
I want to mention one more thing. Originally, I wanted to add hair, but this required me to return to the substance painter to switch another shader and add an opacity map, but because my UV unfold was too bad, there was a bug, so I had to I gave up, I hope I won’t encounter such a problem next time. Yann also helped me adjust it with TeamViewer, but it didn’t work.
Another problem is that the roughness of my skin highlight is different from the roughness of the base skin, which is not obvious in the substance painter. However, the image rendered by Arnold is very obvious. I had to redraw and export the texture. I don’t know why, it may be a different renderer.
Anyway, my texturing is complete! ! ! Congratulations! ! !
Game Animation
Zhu showed me how he used blend shape to integrate animation into Unreal Engine 4. Unfortunately, I found that I couldn’t directly adjust it in Maya, because it would destroy the original animation rhythm. I think that since the asset provides the four basic animations, it should be hoped that the player will adjust in the game instead of re-creating the animation.
Of course, I can’t give up easily. I also went to see how to use anim layer, discussed my ideas with Zhu again, and sent documents several times, but Zhu thought it was not enough. So in the end I gave up. I hope I have the opportunity to learn loop animation (which is why my FMP chose this) and UE4.
Conclusion
In this week, although I gave up adjusting Zhu’s game animation, I tried at least many times (at least a dozen times, using many methods), and I did not give up easily. Working with Zhu made me very happy. I also learned some new methods for making game animations. Using basic walking animations, different animations can be combined in UE4.
Returning to my collaborative project, I think if you don’t have a clue about character design, you have to look at different references. Sometimes they can give you some great inspirations. And you must pay attention to the time. I spend too much time in character design. This is not right. In the limited time, I can’t expect myself and the team members to make the best work.
Of course, being able to learn and use the new software—substance painter—is my biggest gain this week. I didn’t expect that the effect of my own drawing would be so good, my team members are very satisfied! Now I can also draw textures by myself! Experience the PBR process!