Personal Project Presentation
After this presentation, I very quickly realized that I had massively overstepped my abilities when describing the original task I had wanted to achieve. This was very helpful as the question part of the presentation made it obvious that the original idea I had in mind was simply not possible in the timeframe we had, whilst also accounting for the other projects we have to complete. To this effect, I heavily reigned in my objectives for the personal project. Keeping to the theme of H.R. GIger, I wanted to create a striking 3D recreation of one of his artworks, particularly one’s involving the ‘Xenomorph’ concept.
As a long-time and avid fan of the Alien franchise (1979-2017), this was something that would maintain my interest throughout it’s course, and for personal development would help me develop further skills in 3D modeling, digital sculpting, lighting, and other elements of 3D creation.
References
Theme & Progress
I gathered several references to develop the concept for our personal project. I settled on the final piece above to be recreated in 3D, whilst omitting certain areas such as the “stamped” text. I began to sculpt a Xenomorph style 3D model to be composited in front of some industrial paneling. For this model I used several references.
As an artistic decision, I wanted to refrain from representing Giger’s hypersexualized style in this project. My reasoning being that once finalized, I did not necessarily want there to be any possible comedic aspect to the design. Whilst Giger’s sexualized themes are apparent in the majority of his artwork, these themes are not ones I wanted to portray when concepting this 3D sculpt.
Sculpting Hi-Poly Mesh
Just for the sake of doing so, I created the text ‘Giger’s Alien’ in Zbrush’s 3D Text plugin, and used live-boolean to imprint the text into the wall. However, this will not feature in the final piece.
To keep the reference image and model at the exact perspective I needed, I utilized ZBrush’s reference image toolkit and saved a camera to the image which aligned to the model, which I could return to at any time to check form and structure.
At this point, I decided due to time constraints to end the sculpting phase with my current level of detail, and begin retopology and baking tests for texturing.
Once I had completed the sculpt, I moved to re-topologize the model for texturing. I was also learning to use the toolkit in 3DCoat, as I find it to have the most robust retopo capabilities. I made multiple efforts to manually topologize the model correctly, but could not quite achieve the result I was looking for, so I resorted to using 3DCoats auto-retopology toolkit. The strength’s of this software truly show in it’s AUTOPO ability, and the manual toolkit is far beyond what Maya’s is capable of.
I tested retopo using ZRemesher with several different settings and meshes and never got close to the results I was getting with AUTOPO. In certain areas adjustments had to be made, and the teeth were unsurprisingly unusable, but for a reasonably accurate and much quicker result, this was by far the best way. I was already planning to use some of the original topology created in ZBrush such as the teeth, as these were already fairly optimized for renders, and only required a quick run with the UVMaster plugin with polygroups enabled to apply textures. I also assigned the UV’s in 3DCoat, and edited the layout in Maya.
The torso area of the sculpt was quite difficult to obtain a decent bake with, and I attempted several times with different topology to get a good result without any artifacts. After finally getting a successful texture bake, I moved on to texturing. Since I had created the helmet texture using a number of smart masks, I created a smart material which I then applied to the torso, and by using a Paint filter with a Multiply blend, I erased areas of the smart mask that I did not want affected. I left the murky green material applied as I felt it added a nice contrast to the highlights. By using this Smart Material, I could maintain the colours and roughness of the materials through all the different parts.
I then created a scene in Maya, with 3-point area lighting in an attempt to match the lighting of my reference, with an added rim light for edge lighting. I also changed the camera attributes to match the aspect ratio and dimensions of the image, and changed the focal length to appear orthographic. This is the template created to display my final piece.
Here is where I added an emission map to the tubular vents. I used an orange base colour and overlayed a green emissive light on top to attempt to create an interesting blend.
At this stage, I’m reconsidering bringing the Xenomorphs pharyngeal jaw into the scene, as I honestly think the model looks a little bit better without it. Although the mesh has decent topology and UV maps, I’m willing to make sacrifices when it comes to the overall look of the final project. I will keep experimenting with it, and decide whether it should feature in the final piece, but at this moment I am leaning towards without.
The reason for creating this 3D text was to catch the light as it moves in the scene. I’m still unsure whether to keep this or use an overlayed text, but this way seems more interesting. This was created using a downloaded font which matched the Alien films, and made into a 3D mesh using ZBrush’s 3D Text plugin.
The techniques I had learned in Substance Painter became very applicable in this project. Using smart masks, anchor points, baking high poly geometry, and generally how to layer stack correctly were all key in helping me to get a good result. There are some areas which could be looked at when it comes to the high poly mesh, mostly for aesthetic purposes, however from a technical perspective I was happy how things turned out.
As I wanted the model to have a slight degree of movement, I created a basic rig to move the arm. I also keyed the head to rotate on a gentle curve.
I rendered out a full test sequence to see the animation and lighting in motion. After this initial test, I wanted to fill out some more details in the textures, such as the ridged arm parts and the ridges on the Head Tube. Also, I noticed the light was hitting areas which I did not want shown, so I created two Arnold Light Blocker filters to obscure these areas. There was also some strange warping on the arm joint when extended, so I went back in and adjusted the weights.
I attempted to create a basic rig which moves the jaw, but due to the topology being set up for texturing purposes, getting a good enough rig was a difficult challenge. Since rigging and weight painting are not specialisms which I’m particularly good at, the focus of this project was not necessarily to include any animation more than what was simple to achieve. Suffice to say, I did not want to ruin the project with poor weight painting results and bad animation.
For this animated sequence, I wanted to convey the feeling of an image ‘come to life’. I also wanted to have the sequence loop correctly.
Although I was fairly content with the current stage of the project, I still felt inclined to attempt recreating the industrial paneling that was in the reference image. I decided to use a low poly base wall, with a high-poly bake. To create these details, I utilized a sci-fi industrial decal pack I had purchased on ArtStation some time ago, and used Zbrushes ‘Make 3D’ plugin to recreate these alphas into 3D geometry, and arranged these pieces along the wall. To create the cables, I tiled a 3D mesh several times, dynameshed, and ZRemeshed the geometry. The curves were adjusted using the Gizmo’s curve function.
Keeping in mind how I wanted the textures to be applied, I assigned a vertex colour fill to each object I wanted to texture separately, whilst using the same material. I then baked these maps onto the low poly base mesh. This is all in an effort to reduce render time, test more skills in texturing, and perhaps to improve the overall look of the project.
At this stage, I decided not to proceed with the panel. This is because I was already happy with the result I had obtained from the render, and balancing the wall against the character would be very time consuming, alongside the other work I had to complete. So rather than begin a new section of the project I knew I could not bring to a good level of quality, I instead refrained from making large changes to the look.