3d art

Character
Preparing for UV mapping
Mesh subdivision and UV layout
15 Break down the details
Edges are bevelled on the cuff and belt. An extra row is added to the spike and claw tips to
keep them sharp, as well as the various costume details. After defining the edges, each part
is subdivided. The subdivision method Smooth with default settings is used on the body to
keep the muscle planes relatively defined. For the other parts, SDS Subdivide is used o.
p
o
Frazetta finish
17 Use UV Unwrap
To get clean UVs, any existing UV map textures are deleted.
The body geometry is then broken up into separate sections
for unwrapping at the joins of different materials or sections,
such as the cuff and loincloth leg seam. The edge for UV
borders is placed in the least visible area (usually at the back
or other hidden spots). Since the feathers are all instances,
only the main source feather needs to be unwrapped q.
To create a Frazetta-style
warrior, there needs to be
an exaggeration in the
muscles that includes
large shoulders, hands and
feet. Additionally a
costume should have
several layers of detail,
such as weapons, a
fearsome mask, belts,
trophies and, finally, some
equipment pouches.
During the process to
create this warrior, it was
important to make sure
the early stages of the
model were well
constructed and clean
since all the other steps
are built upon them. Good
polygon placement and
edge loops help when
adding finer details,
sculpting and posing and
will speed up the process.
r
16 Sculpting and
clean-up
Using modo’s mesh
sculpting tools, I add muscle
and detail definition, as well
as wrinkles and folds on the
loincloth, leather belts and
boots. The purpose of the
pass is to sharpen detail as
well as cleaning up the edge
geometry that might have
clashing polygons or weird
polygonal shapes. All the
metal items such as
weapons and buckles are
left smooth p.
o The body geometry under
the belts, cuffs and boots is
removed and the open
edges merged
p After using the Inflate tool, I
use the Tangent Pinch tool
to define the muscle
q I use the Unwrap tool mostly
set to Group Normal,
followed by the UV Relax
tool set to Adaptive
r Scale the UVs evenly with
the Action Center set to
Local, Axis Auto
s The focal areas of the head
and hand UV shells are
scaled up slightly to give
them a better pixel ratio
q
18 UV Peeler
For long, tube-like objects I
prefer to use the UV Peeler.
The arm cuffs, belts and
ropes are all ‘peeled’ and
then their UVs made flat
along the U and/or V axis.
The UVs are then re-packed
onto a map to use the pixel
space more efficiently r.
s
19 Pack the UVs
After all the UVs are unwrapped, objects that reuse the
same UV space are hidden. Next, a simple chequer texture
is applied and I run Pack UVs. UVs are placed from largest
to smallest and evenly flat UVs are placed next to each
other. I keep some space between each shell to account for
any pixel bleed s.
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