The Main Character - Sculpting and Texturing the Accessories

My next step for the character is to sculpt and texture the accessories and remaining parts of the character's outfit:

I also went ahead and modeled some additional parts to the character's outfit:

I wanted to add some additional details to the character's back, as this would be where the camera would mostly be focused.

I added belt pouches, bottles and a map, as I thought they would be a fitting addition to a character who is often travelling and adventuring.

Additionally I modeled a shoulder pad and a cloth wrap for his waist.

I sculpted the waist cloth first:

I sculpted the cloth in the same manner as I did the cloth on the main outfit, mainly through the use of the cloth brushes and alphas.

I also lowered the subdivision levels and sent it back to 3ds max as a slightly more detailed mesh.

For the shoulder I didn't do too much:

I used a curve insert mesh brush to do the detail on the should pad. This was a really nice brush to use to insert some ornate details to the shoulder pad. Only downside is it creates alot of extra geometry which can create lag in a heavy scene.

For the belt pouches I just concentrated on smaller details:

I used alphas to create the stitching on the pouches, I didn't want to go overboard with details as much of it would come from the material creations in the Quixel suite and dDo.

It was the same case with the map:

For the leather part of the glove's bracelet, I made sure to copy the style of the glove:

I used the same brushes to create the metal bolts in the leather's material.

For the carapace brace, I did the same thing with the metal bolt brush:

In hindsight I probably could of used a curve brush to add more ornate designs to the bracers. But I was still in a stage of learning.

For the belts, again, I kept it simple:

Just added a few details for the normal map, and some surface noise to give them some texture.

Finally I exported my normal maps, AO maps etc from xNormal by baking the high poly to low poly models. Then I created my colour map and linked everything up in dDo.

Once I assigned my materials and tweaked them, I exported out all the maps and applied them to my model.

I'm very happy with how the shoulder came out, the use of the curve brush worked really when it was being baked down into the various maps.

I might alter the color scheme a bit, namely on the waist cloth as its a bit too similarly to Assassin's creed, with all the leather.

I think I could consider adding more embroiderment to the belts, just to add more detail overall.

The Wurm - Modelling/Sculpting the Wurm

I decided to model the worm in zBrush as opposed to modelling it first in 3dsmax. I decided to do it this way as I wanted some additional practice when it game to creating things in zbrush.

I began by creating an armature but using the zsphere tools. This acts as a skeleton for the mesh, for when I convert it into polygons.

When I was happy with the armature's shape I turned the zspheres into an actual mesh.

I made a few tweaks to the mesh, pulling out the two jaws and stretching the form.

I then began to split the mesh into different polygroups, so that I could isolate and control different parts of the mesh.

I subdivded the mesh to have polygons to work, then I can began to start sculpting out the surface of the wurm's shell.

However I was beginning to find doing it by hand using the standard brushes was too tedious. So I ended up using Alpha's on my brushes to pull out forms on the shell.

In this case I used the scale alphas that game with zbrush, at a high intensity.

I used the same method on the top of the wurm's head.

Once again on the bottom jaw.

I also went into the model and used the move tool, to pull out some of more spikey surfaces.

I went into the shell with a hard build up brush, and combined it with the trim and polish brushes to give it a harder and flatter surface.

I also used the damstandard brush to separate and add some more definition to the seams/breaks in the shell.

I then appended a cube primitive to the model, then sculpted it to resemble the Wurm's cheek. I retopologised it then began sculpting more detail on it.

I mirrored the cheek, so that they both met and formed a mouth shape.

I added another primitive in the shape of a tooth, and moved and duplicated a variety of them to fit around the mouth.

Finally I added a rocky/eroded surface noise to the worm's shell, to creature the appearance/texture of a rocky surface.

Overall I felt modelling the Wurm this way was a good learning experience with zbrush. My next stage will be to create the low poly version of the mesh. 

I think I should of created the shells in pieces first however, so that they could shift and move over the top of each other when it came to animating. I will try to remedy this in the low poly model.

The Main Character - Texturing the Head and Hair

I decided to approach the hair again. This time around I wanted to use planes to build up the hair. I began with using a sphere and shaping pieces of it around the head.

Once I had the bigger 'pieces' of the hair put in place, I made smaller planes and built up the hair further.

I made sure each copied piece was uv unwrapped so that they can share textures. 

I created the ponytail out of a cluster of smaller planes:

I carried on adding smaller pieces, this time shaping them like strands. I also modelled the braid and hair bands out of simple primitives.

Once I was happy with the hair strands, I went ahead and began texturing them. I decided to texture this by hand, as approaching hair from a PBR perspective was confusing and wasn't much information available.

I used this base texture as a guide to creating the alpha for the character's hair:

Before texturing the head and rest of the hair, I went made some adjustments and added further detail to the main character's head sculpt:

I also textured the braid and bands on the character's hair:

I focused on adding smaller details to the bands.

Once I had exported the maps from the high poly sculpts. I set up my maps for dDO to get ready for textures.

I then followed the usual method of applying materials to my different colour ids.

Once done, I exported the maps and applied them to my model.

I'm somewhat happy with the results of this.

I feel like the hair could use more work on their opacity map of the alpha though, which will be the next thing I focus on. I wish there was more information on creating hair for PBR textures out there at the time of making this, as it is somewhat unclear on how to get a decent result.

I'm also not completely happy with the face, and I'll probably re approach it for another sculpt.