Worklog 2020

| Worklog 2020 |

The Wilderness

I. New character - Blaze ✔

Model Blaze

Model Blaze as realistic as possible, in ZBrush ✅
Remesh [Z] and unwrap [B] Blaze ✅
Texture Blaze [P] and make skin variations for future use ✅
Make hair for Blaze ✅

+ As I was preparing to texture Blaze's gens, I discovered the micro detail materials in Substance Source and I would like to try them. I decided to re make her textures and see how they look.

+ I realized the microdetails are too big for my UVs and I am forced to repeat them optimizing the UV space as much as possible.

Unwrap Blaze again for better texture optimization [B] ✅
Make new skin in Substance [SP] ✅

Model Medieval Style Clothes

Simple medieval dress - Model, Texture ✅
Cloak - Model, Texture + Leave for later ahead if needed for the story ❌
Long white socks - Model, Texture ✅
Model hair in a bun and texture ✅
Head wrap - Model, Texture ✅
Simple medieval style shoes - Model, Texture ✅
Medieval bag and accessories + Rescue the ones I did for Lonan and adjust to PBR ✅
Locket - Model, Texture ✅
Nightdress + Reuse undergarment from dress ✅

Rig the Clothes

Rig the dress & nightdress ✅
Rig Hanging Cloth ✅
Rig the Locket ✅

Fix or change

Fix Blaze's neck girth ✅
Fix Blaze's forehead and nose. Profile overhaul ✅
Make studio lighting and take renders of the dress and different posses for posting ✅

+ As I was rendering the finished outfit I saw some things I didn't like that need to be fixed

Fix the clothes rig and its geometry to avoid overlapping geometry and posing glitches ✅

Add individual hairs to Blaze's eyebrows ✅
Fix eyelashes ✅
Improve eye color ✅

+ At this point I need some incentive so I've decided to make cinematic renders of a scene of "The Wilderness" before I can move on to the next character

II. Barley Field Scene ✔

Make landscape

Make terrain in World Creator ✅ + This software's quality is terrible!
Shade terrain in SP ✅ + This part was fun. But I'll have to upgrade SP to use the new atlases :(

Make barley cards and arrange to make the field ✅
Make tree line for background + Use cards ✅
Make barley field setting, lights, sky, clouds ✅
Model and shade a dead tree ❌ + I'm considering finding free assets online to save time instead?

+ In the end I won't need a dead tree, the scene doesn't call for it. I've added a royalty free poplar tree model instead

Model scene props

Make rolls of harvested barley ✅
Shade wicker basket I did in 2014 and fill with harvested barley rolls ✅
Model and shade reap hook ✅

First test render

Set Blaze in the field looking sad and longing ✅

+ I'm gonna see if I can do cloth simulations for posing the clothes. Let's hope I can because I'm not happy with how the rigged dress looks when posed.

+ I CAN!

Make render test with final lighting and color edits (nude, for speed) ✅

+ I decided to pose Blaze and take a test render. For speed and also out of curiosity, I shot a render of her in the nude. I like how it turned out!

+ My friend saw the render of Blaze in the barley field and complained about Blaze's weight. She thinks I made her too skinny, and now that she's brought that to my attention I think she's right. Since this is a middle age setting where the working class were quite thin, I will leave Blaze as she is, but mi friend's comments have made me realize that I should model more realistic bodies from now on

+ I decided to use Blaze's first version (the one that I did without substance) and turn it into a new character I call Clementine. She is going to be a fun and cheerful peasant girl, so this is a great excuse to model a beautiful and realistic body type like my friend suggested

III. New character - Clementine ✔

Model Clementine

Make Blaze variation to create a new character named Clementine ✅

+ Clementine has turned out to be more beautiful than I expected so I've decided to add some details in Substance to improve her textures. She is gorgeous, I think I will make a little NSFW side story of she and Darren

Improve textures for Clementine using SP. I want her to be ginger and with lots of freckles ✅
Make new teeth and tongue textures with Substance materials + With a tooth gap, because she must be mischievous and cute ✅

Make new hair style for Clementine with wavy hair textures and orange hair✅

+ I feel that the textures I made by hand are a bit clumsy. Maybe

Repeat hair textures with hair tool's new feature "Texture Bake" ✅

+ I did the new textures, and the new feature is stunning, kudos to bartoszstyperek cause he's a real genius. But I decided to leave the textures as they were, because I spent too much time making them by hand, and repeating them feels stupid considering that Clementine is going to be a background character and the handmade ones look just fine

Model clothes for Clementine using simulations

Skirt model with simulations ✅
Shirt model with simulations ✅
Scarf using simulations ✅
Socks using simulations ✅

+ I think making clothes with simulations may actually be a lot faster than modeling and detailing in Substance/ZBrush. It took a bit of time to set up and remember how to use the plugin, but once I got the hand of it I was producing garments very quickly! The only problem is having to remesh the resulting clothes, but with ZBrush is very fast. I just need to find out if the remeshed models behave well when rigged/posed/simulated

Medieval shoes and UV ✅
Hay hat - Model, UV ✅
Model cloth holding shirt in place ✅
Remesh shirt, UV and Shade [SP] ✅
Remesh skirt, UV and Shade [SP] ✅
Remesh scarf, UV and Shade [SP] ✅
Shade socks ✅
Shade shoes ✅
Hay hat shade ✅

Test render of Clementine - Washing scene

+ Render of Clementine pouring water to wash herself in a dark room with just a wooden stool, a jug, and a water basin, illuminated with a top spotlight effect and a lot of glare. Cloth simulation for better results

Rig Clementine's clothes ✅

Model and shade wooden stool ✅
Model and shade water basin ✅
Model and shade jug ✅
Shade floor and wall for background detail ✅
Add spline IK to the skirt rig ✅

+ I did the Spline IK for the rigging and it was a waste of time. I struggled a LOT to get the result I wanted. After 2 days testing things, I came to the conclusion that the best result happens when I use an armature with a lattice and apply a mesh deform to the actual cloth. Then on top of that mesh deform I apply a cloth simulation to let everything fall into place

Lit the scene ✅
Add floating dust ✅

+ Should the dust be a post process? Or transparent map in the scene?

+ I did post-processing and it looks very good

Make water simulation and see how it looks ✅

+ I've never done liquid simulations and I'm very curious to see if I can, and if so, how easy or hard it can be?

+ Good news! It's very easy and it looks great, but it takes a very long time to compute!

Take render and post process ✅

+ Now back to the Barley Field!

IV. Resume Barley Field Scene ✔

Final touches

Add dirt and sweat material to Blaze ✅
Model a hay fork and shade ✅
Pose Blaze in final position ✅

Take test render with clothes simulation ✅

+ Consider which will look better for Blaze in the final render, fork or hand up covering the sun?

+ In the end she's going to be holding the fork and covering the sun

Adjust Blaze's clothes to Lyhn and slightly change design ✅
Shade Lyhn's new clothes ✅
Make scarf for Lyhn with simulations ✅
Remesh scarf and UV ✅
Shade scarf ✅

Take render of medieval Lyhn for character visualization ✅

Set Lyhn and Clementine in the background gossiping about Blaze ✅
Take closeup render of Lyhn and Clementine gossiping ✅

+ I'm sick I know, but I want to model a cart with big huge watering jugs and put it in the background behind Blaze

ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

Model watering cart, UV, shade ❌
Model giant jugs tied with ropes, UV, shade ❌
Set Watering cart in the scene ❌

+ I'm going to restrain myself and save all this for some other render...

Take final render ✅

V. Prepare "The Wilderness" ✔

+ Before I continue, there are many things that need to be decided and outlined

Organize all the info and lore I have so far ✅

Figure out time, place, etc... ✅
Outline character's past before traveling to The Colonies ✅

Make map of Cpside during SERENITY, including The Colonies ✅
Decide fashion and architectural styles based on the time periods and locations ✅
Decide physical characteristics of the people of Cpside depending on location ✅

+ In The Colonies there are many islands, each belonging to either The Guard, The Empyrean or Whaler's Helm. Darren travels from Greko's Bait to the island of Retreat for a future story

Write synopsis of "The Wilderness" ✅
Decide each main character's astral sign and birthday (just the month is enough) ✅
Make detailed map of the island of Greko's Bait (Greko's Bait is closest to the main land) following synopsis requirements ✅

Make style sheets

+ Make styles sheet for clothing, color themes, racial traits, etc... That way I can write the story basing it in the illustrations and I don't need to model all that in advance

Physique, clothing colors, clothing choices, racial traits ✅

VI. New character - Hawthorn Gray ✔

+ Excited to go back to modeling in ZBrush, it's been ages!

Model Gray

Make new eyes with substance material for Gray ✅
Adjust Skeleton to male proportions ✅
Make male human ecorche to re-learn the muscles shapes and names, because I have already forgotten it all ✅

+ I'm not going to model the actual muscles, just draw them with the clay, trying to remember their names and other info.

Model Gray with D already on (thinner than Lonan's) ✅
Remesh and unwrap ✅

+ I saw that the new ZBrush version allows to sculpt in the UV, so I must install it to be able to paint or project easier details into the map. Also, I'm trying to have the head and body in the same texture, and I'm not sure if 8k will be enough to hold these details. I must try.

Install new ZBrush ✅
Detail face with photo references ✅
Texture in Substance Painter ✅
Detail D ✅

Gray's Details

Model Gray's hair & texture ✅

Buy grease pencil tutorial and watch ❌+ No need haha! I figured out how to do it!

Make eyelashes and eyebrows with Hair Tool ✅
Add stubble with hair particles ❌+ Better not, it will increase render time and I don't think its necessary
Add crazy hairs with hair particles ❌+ No need. His hair is plenty crazy as it is

VII. New character - Laramie Savas ✘

Savas Character

Model Savas [Z] - Short fat D. Muscular and tall, not so hairy ✅
Remesh and unwrap if needed, or use previous model, UV's as base ✅
Texture in Substance Painter, or reuse previous skin and modify ✅

Make eyelashes and eyebrows with grease pencil ✅

+ I took a few renders and I'm sorry but Savas looks ridiculous. He's terrible. I'm quite disappointed with myself, I don't think I want to continue this character any more.

❌❌❌❌❌

VIII. New method characters ✔

Secondary Characters

Base Mesh

Make genderless base model ✅
Study remeshing options and techniques and design mesh loops for perfect anatomical posing and animation ✅
Make optimized UVs for base mesh ✅

Add scan data and prepare base characters ✅
New base character - Code Name Arthur ✅
New base character - Code Name Agatha ✅
New base character - Code Name Beatrix ✅

Malenha

Make Malenha body and face ✅

Watch the Blender rigging tutorials ✅

+ Watching the videos I realized I probably need to use the lowest resolution mesh for setting up the initial weighs (I wasn't, ups) so I'm going to have to make modifications to the mesh, add the mouth with the palate, and texture those too, and combine them all together. Then I can rig Malenha, and hopefully I can reuse her for all the other characters

Add low-res Malenha and model mouth/teeth ✅
UV Teeth ✅
Texture teeth ✅

Rig low-res Malenha ✅
Apply subdivision level and add shape key and apply to look like the level 2 sculpt. Hopefully it will retain the weighs ❌ + No need, it looks better at level 1 with displacement
Make every texture multichannel ✅
Prepare whole body texture ✅
Export substance painter skin and blend seams and correct other mistakes ✅

Make a new Malenha blend ✅
Add new displacements ✅

Fix Beatrix anatomy ✅
Make new Malenha body ✅

Detail teeth in ZBrush ✅

Make all maps and export ✅

Re-adjust Substance skin and add scar ✅
Paint new teeth and mouth textures ✅

Add eyebrows and eyelashes ✅

Set up in Blender ✅

Giles

New base character - Code Name Ben ✅
New base character - Code Name Edgar ✅
Make Giles body and face ✅
Add extra details ✅
Export maps and mesh ✅

Set up in .blend file ✅

Adjust skin in SP ✅

Add eyebrows and eyelashes ✅

Aspen

New base character - Code Name Ford ✅
New base character - Code Name Gavin ✅
Make Aspen body and face ✅
Add details ✅
Export everything ✅
Set up in .blend file ✅

Adjust skin in SP ✅

Add eyebrows and eyelashes ✅

Alder

New base character - Code Name Hal ✅
Make Alder body and face ✅
Add details ✅
Export everything ✅
Set up in .blend file ✅

Adjust skin in SP ✅

Add eyebrows and eyelashes ✅

+ I've decided to stop these and make servants and other background characters from here on, because I can see a lot of improvement from character to character, to the point that Malenha looks a lot worse than Alder and so on... Being very generous of the amount of characters, I now have a list of 30 characters, including the main characters. I should be able to sell the background characters before even starting the story, and some tertiary character once the story is published, at least this way I work a lot but I get profit too.

+ I had an initial idea of modeling all the characters and once they were completed make all the hairs and clothes, but by doing that I cannot start selling them, and posting them bald in SM looks a bit dumb. I should at least make their hair from now on and start selling them.

+ I'm going to start a new work-log section for the background characters that may appear only once or twice, and then I will re-make the tertiary characters I have done so far to be more advanced and better.

Secondary & Background Characters

Erie ✔

Make Erie

New Base character - Code Name Charlotte ✅
Design Erie body and face ✅

+ I changed the geometry of the base mesh and all the work I did for the rig cannot be used anymore. I have to rig the new base mesh from scratch

Weight whole body test with automatic weighs ✅
Compare which is better - weighted body or mesh deform? Select the appropriate method ✅ + Mesh deform is better
Adjust rig and weight face and hands again ✅

Watch blender tutorial "Vincent timelapse 1 and 2" ❌ + Not yet. I'll maybe watch this for the main characters, so I can add muscles and such...
Watch blender tutorial "posing vincent" ❌

Watch hair tutorial ✅
Make hair for Erie ✅

Make tear line ✅
Re-import mesh in SP and re-do textures ✅
Soften displacement legs and wrists ✅
Add pubic hair ✅
Rescue gens from Blaze and adapt to new base character

Model underwear ✅
Shade underwear ✅

+ I don't feel like doing this just so I can post SFW stuff. Censoring with black squares is faster. In Sketchfab I can add black square geometry too, so it will be public

+ In the end I did it...

Make walking cycle ❌
Make face animation ❌

+ I'm mad at Sketchfab for deleting my Lyhn model, so I don't feel like selling my characters there any more...

Sell hair in Sketchfab ❌
Add censoring blocks ❌
Sell Erie in Sketchfab, with animations (apparently models sell better if they are animated?) ❌

Analise ✔

Make Analise

New base character - Code Name Daphne ✅

Make Analise body and face ✅
Set in Blender file ✅
Export and texture skin in SP ✅
Fix displacement texture neck part (more or less) ✅

+I took a test render of the skin and so far she's looking terrible. But they always do before I add the eyelashes and eyebrows... Hope that's the case

Make eyebrows and eyelashes ✅
Make hair ✅

+ Thank goodness, with eyelashes and eyebrows she looks much better. She also looks very lovely now that she has hair. I did the lashes and eyebrows in hair particles this time, and it seems easier to reuse and to animate (will have to test this theory but it seems that way...) so will be modeling them like this from now on

+ I'm thinking that if making background characters gets too boring, I should do a test drive and make a NSFW story of Erie and Analise

Add gens and adjust color to match texture

Adjust rig ✅
Take test renders ✅

Make Analise tears ✅
Add peach fuzz ✅
Fix Analise Rig ✅

+ I suddenly thought Analise looks ultra stupid, so I've gone back to Erie

Erie Overhaul ✔

+ I took some renders of Erie with facial expressions and poses and I liked a lot how it was looking. But I could still see it was a bit cartoony, and after seeing a tutorial on how to make skin look more real, I decided to overhaul Erie and see if I can do better

Height Map 16K ✅
Add Face color zones ✅
Shade and height gens ✅
Fix lip inside ✅
Darken blackheads ✅

Make wrinkle map ✅ + I want to make it more realistic, and I studied how to make wrinkles with tension maps, and it's very easy, so I'm going to try that

Make Mesh deform ❌ I didn't like how it looked. Not worth it. In the end I'm using the weighed mesh
Fix hands nails and mouth ✅
Add anus displ ✅
Add scapulae bones ✅
Take new comparison render ✅
Remake Tears ✅
Fix eyelashes ✅
Take new face render smile comparison ✅

+ I did the comparison renders and... I hate how she looks. Even after all the extra textures I did. I've decided to dump her, and Analise, and start working harder in the models that are actually important. I'm moving on to Giles.

Giles ✔

Giles Overhaul

Make racial traits consistent ✅

Import Giles and add new UVs ✅
Add displacement following tutorial ✅
Make Face 07 displacement ✅
Apply face displacement ✅
Add details and wrinkles ✅

Make Substance extra details + skin and add in ZBrush ✅
Export ZBrush maps ✅
Import in Blender ✅

Extract from Substance all skin tiles needed ✅

Follow TexturingXYZ Victor tutorial to set materials and lights ✅

Compare with previous displ method ✅ + It looks so much better
Make test of texture in flat surface to reuse for every character ❌ + I'm not sure this will work and the flat texture looks good anyway

Decide model resolution ✅

Make D ✅
Make Hair ✅
Add rig ✅
Fix Teeth and mouth ✅

Add underwear ✅
Make collision mesh ✅
Add dynamics to cloth and hair ✅

Render 4 poses ✅

+ I'm very happy with how Giles looks. I'm considering the idea of making a virtual model agency LOL. I'm also tempted of going back to Erie and Analise and making them as good as Giles, but I'm a bit tired of them still, and I'm really looking forward to see Aspen, Alder and Malenha... And to move on even further and finally do Savas, Gray and Darren! Also, Gonch has convinced me to leave Erie and Analise for later and go back in loops until all the characters look the same level

+ After finishing Aspen, I have noticed that Giles hair looks a bit funny on the top part, because it´s missing a root line

Add hair root line ✅

Aspen ✔

Import Aspen in Blender and add new UVs ✅
Export back to Zbrush and detail slightly ✅
Fix mouth and teeth in Zbrush ✅
Clean up Topology to match shape ✅
Make Zbrush disp maps ✅
Add anus and D displ ✅

Import HD Aspen in Blender ✅
Add eyes and teeth ✅
Add D ✅
Make D material ✅
Add material and export to SP ✅

Make SP skin and export back to Blender ✅

Fix base height seams from Zbrush ✅

+ Damn, it took forever. The UVs were wrong and there is no way of transferring UVs from one mesh to another without breaking them in Blender 2.90. Mi plugin doesn't work for some reason !

+ Now I have to export the SP maps again!

Export SP maps again ✅
Increase base height strength ✅
Fix lips color corner ✅

Make eyelashes and eyebrows ✅ + I'm not happy with how the eyelashes from last time look in the new method
Make new eyelashes ✅
Make Hair ✅
Add a bit of body hair in belly, arms and legs ✅

+ I'm not happy with how the hair looks

Improve hair and do some render tests ✅
Fix body-hair to look more realistic ✅
Fix UVs of toe nails and general nail geometry ✅
Fix hair again adding middle line ✅
Fix body-hair a bit more ✅
Fix Wrinkle Map D area ✅

Model, export, detail and shade hair band ✅

Take T-Pose renders in Color ✅ and B/W ✅ to see the skin and sculpt, and post

Add rig ✅
Research how to attach hair band to ponytail ✅

+ It seems that the Force Fields works well in combination with a collision mesh, but it's a bit slow and it makes the computer freeze often. I'm going to try and test converting the hair to a mesh and use a softbody with mesh deform, see what happens.

+ Making the converted hair mesh look like the hair particles is nearly impossible, and it also renders slower...

+ Hair Dynamics for some reason is not working for this hair... If not, I think Hair Dynamics with collision could be the best way!

+ I can't find any way to animate the hair other than the Force Fields. If I make a collision for Aspen and another for the hairband it works more or less fine. I think I will have to wait until they develop a mesh deformer for hair particles, because otherwise it seems impossible.

+ I researched and I found a way of rigging hair in Blender using lattices and bones that should work great.

Rig hair ✅

Fix Teeth and mouth if needed ✅

Add underwear ✅
Make collision mesh ✅

Practice/Render 4 poses ✅

Render some poses with Giles ✅

Alder ✔

Export Alder from Zbrush ✅
Make Zbrush disp and normal maps ✅
Import Alder in Blender ✅
Add eyes and teeth ✅
Add D ✅
Add material and export to SP ✅

Make SP skin and export back to Blender ✅

Make eyelashes and eyebrows ✅
Make Hair ✅

Add rig ✅

Fix Teeth and mouth if needed ✅

Add underwear ❌
Make collision mesh ✅

Render some poses ✅

Render group with Giles and Aspen ❌

Malenha ✔

Make Zbrush disp and normal maps ✅
Import Malenha in Blender ✅
Add eyes and teeth ✅
Add GENS ❌ + No need, she's never going to appear naked
Add material and export to SP ✅

Make SP skin and export back to Blender ✅

Make eyelashes and eyebrows ✅
Make Hair ✅

Add rig ✅

Fix Teeth and mouth if needed ✅

Add night dress ❌
Make collision mesh ✅

Render a few poses ✅

IX. Secondary Characters

Background Characters

+ After giving it a lot of thought, I'd like to try to make an animated series, or a graphic novel if animation doesn't work out. For this purpose I made a list of all the characters that I'm going to need, starting with the ones that appear in the first episode, in order of appearance (more or less)

Shaw Redbay ✅

+ I didn't feel like rigging Shaw. As I was researching options for animating, I came across a blog post that talked about Rokoko (motion capture suit and software) and Mixamo (Free rigging and motion capture). I tried it with Shaw, making him do a samba dance, and it was freakish, and so funny, and so real! I decided to get the Rokoko set for motion capture, but before committing, I did some tests with Malenha and the free stuff. I like it so much, I'm going to get it. I think I have a good chance at making cool animations with it.

Add Malenha's face blend shapes to Shaw ✅
Make medieval underwear for male
Add some mocap to Shaw and render a few poses ✅
Make Shaw older ✅

Auberon Tupelo - Nobleman - SYLVAN ✅
Gwenn Menhaden - Noblewoman - TAR ✅
Meryel Shark - Noblewoman - TAR ✅
Harmony Fraser - Noblewoman - SYLVAN ✅
Elayne Fir - Noblewoman - SYLVAN ✅
Slade Sauger - Nobleman - TAR ✅
Wyatt Roach - Nobleman - TAR ✅

+ I'm a bit tired of making characters... I would like to take a break and do some other things

✅ is completed. ❌ is discarded.

"Normal text without icon" is for pending. "+ Italics" is for comments.

[Z] - ZBrush | [B] - Blender | [P] - Photoshop | [SP] - Substance Painter | [SD] - Substance Designer