Dark Elf

Project

In this article, I would like to share the creation process for my recent personal work.

I would like to start off by saying huge thanks to GamesArtist for giving me this opportunity to share my experience and workflow.

Goals

With this project I wanted to emphasize the following aspects:

• Improving my anatomy knowledge and sculpting skills
• Creating a real-time hair asset
• Refining my rendering and shader knowledge

Software

• ZBRUSH (sculpting)
• Topogun (Retopology)
• Substance Painter (Texturing)
• Marmoset Toolbag (Rendering, baking)
• Rizom UV (UV mapping)
• Xnormal (Hair textures)
• Blender (Sub D Modelling)

References & Initial ideas

The main inspiration for this project came from some of my favourite games like God of War franchise and Baldur’s Gate.

Through which I wanted to portray a strong female elf knight which embodied strong traits like fearsome nature, loyalty to her duty, attractive in looks and a bit battle-scarred through her life.

I picked out materials, features and different objects which matched the concept and a lot of other things that could add more variety to the project.

Face

The head was sculpted in zbrush from a sphere, as i wanted to explore and strengthen
my facial anatomy, a basemesh sometimes limits it for me.

And it’s more fun that way too, after reaching a good point of overall volumes of head I retopologised the head and kept sculpting to achieve the final look.

For skin details I used a 3D scan store female head to transfer the pore information to my head sculpt using the layer system in ZBrush, and then adding a few custom details like lip creases, necklines and under-eyelid creases.

Using layers is very beneficial as it allows me to make a lot of iterations when checking my forms in final render engine and not destroying any details.

Modelling Outfit & Accessories

Workflow for all armour and accessories followed this workflow:

• Using Dynamesh to sculpt the initial shape of the object.
• Masking the area I want and using ZRemesher to get a one-sided mesh with good topology.
• Then using dynamic subdiv with thickness.
• Finally adding all materialistic details like patterns, folds, damage on metals, weathering and embroidery while utilizing layers to control the intensity of the details.

Modelling Sword

To portray the wrapped leather grip on the handle I used the curve strap snap brush to get wrapped geometry of straps and then using Move and Move Topological to adjust it as per my vision and then adding effects like rips, cracks and some tension folds for final finish.

Scabbard Pattern

The Nordic pattern on the scabbard was achieved with the following technique:

• Duplicate and export the low poly mesh from ZBrush and make UVs, unwrap it and export the UV layout.
• Use Photoshop to overlay the pattern over the UVs.
• Import the texture map in ZBrush and use Polypaint from texture to acquire the pattern on the mesh and finally use Mask by Polypaint to extrude the pattern.

Highpoly

Before jumping into texturing or retopology I assigned different Polypaint to similar materials and stitches which helped during texturing.

Hair

Hair was another important aspect I wanted to tackle. I chose to go with a messy half-up half-down hairstyle with a back braid since that suited the character the most during blockout.

The hair strands were generated using Maya XGen, then manipulated in ZBrush to get desired depth and overall control over strands.

Instead of using singular cards I used chunks of 3 cards from high to low density to achieve more volumetric feel; final placement was done in ZBrush using Bend Curve under Gizmo tool.

Lowpoly & Unwrapping

Retopology was done using Topogun and I unwrapped my final mesh in Rizom UV after doing a lot of baking tests inside Marmoset.

As this was a portfolio piece I focused more on achieving a clean silhouette without any faceting and a healthy polycount.

Texturing

During texturing I focused on creating materials which represented the following aspects.

• Used/worn look: Having a feeling of well-worn armour and assets to reflect on past battles and everyday usage.
• Colour and contrast: Making sure to maintain a good colour balance between different parts to avoid any monotonous results; a split complementary colour scheme was used to increase the visual interest.
• Patterns & ornaments: A variety of patterns and ornamental details to enhance the visual storytelling.

Texturing the face was one of the most fun for me as I wanted to build everything from ground up which started with my subdermal layers, a skin pigmentation layer over that and continuing to add different elements to further enhance the believability of the skin.

Lighting & Rendering

Final rendering of this project was done in Marmoset Toolbag 5.

Throughout the whole process I constantly kept switching between Marmoset and Substance to do constant assessment of my textures and how they react with lights.

One thing a lot of beginners tend to do is illuminating every corner of the character, which can make the renders look flat and artificial.

Below are some of the parameters and features I used for the final scene composition.

I started with a key light from above to illuminate the overall character and give some dynamic shadows and reflections.

Then, I used a fill light from the left of the subject to ensure there weren’t any areas with complete darkness.

To create further interest I used a few rim lights from different angles to highlight silhouette and separate the character from the background.

Conclusion

Completing this project took about 2.5 months and involved a lot of challenges and enjoyable phases.

While achieving such outcome, iteration and feedback played a huge role to keep developing all aspects of the piece to a higher quality.

Learning and implementing new things throughout this project took a lot of time and effort, but I’m proud of the final work and hope other fellow artists find it helpful in their own work.