Week Twenty Eight

First week back after the Easter holidays! And what's this? Caliban's model is done! I had a pretty busy Easter so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked to, but I'm still on track nevertheless. So let's see what I've been up to recently...

So here it is - weighing in 50 million polys (yes, 50 million), this zBrush sculpt was made using both front/side reference planes which I put together a few weeks ago, the only problem being that I had cut off his arms for the side view, meaning not only did I have to improvise how they appeared from the side, but once I HAD modelled them, I couldn't see behind them to sculpt the back and buttocks! Not a game-breaking disturbance, but a hindrance that I probably should have thought through a little better. Now, allow me to address poly count; I tried to cut down on the resolution of the model multiple times during the process, but I was losing far too much detail on the facial area - even when using polypaint and zRemesher guides! Although the poly count of this specific model wouldn't really matter as it wouldn't be going in-game (that's the low-poly version's job) it was still making things difficult as it was causing a significant slowdown. Eventually I had to suck it up and work with a slow computer until I'd baked the normals from it down to the low-poly model (a feat that took a full hour due to the resolution of the mesh!) Fortunately it worked fine despite the time it took, and the normal map was crisply baked into the unwrap I had done this week.

Here you are looking at a completely different (yet seemingly identical) model - this is the low poly version, which is only 19,000 triangles! I'd say the sacrifices I made for a decent normal map bake payed off, wouldn't you? I've placed him in the same "testing room" I used to try out the lighting on my dichotomous character, which you can see to his left. The next step will be to texture him with a diffuse, roughness, and metallic map so that he can finally make his journey to our Off The Map level!