Production Blog

 Cyber armor (CyberPunk: EdgeRunners) 

 Reference Gathering 

 

For this model there was only one reference source which was the original anime adaptation. As part of my reference gathering I compiled every scene that the armour was used in in order to get as close to a full understanding of the design as possible. The main issue with was that due to how anime is produced, the proportions and depictions slightly vary between each animator or studio. Thus gathering as much reference material was needed. Through gathering this material I gained an understanding of the general proportions by comparing different scenes and how various parts of the armour looked when compared with one another. However the reference images were still not ideal as there were barely any shots or frames where the armour was shown in detail. Thus I had to simplify the model to only the main pieces of the armour. 

• Modelling 

 

The way I decided to making this model was by first creating each major part and later scaling them to the appropriate dimensions as well as creating connecting pieces such as shock absorbers, joints and other details which would be easier to make. The modelling process was quite exhaustive and gave me a lot of trouble when it came to hard-surface modelling. As I was fairly new to the concept I kept running into issues with N-gons and overlayed vertices. I went through a lot of design variations for each part as most of the time it was just simpler to start fresh and use the old models as reference for topology and how to build up the model for each piece.  

By far the hardest piece for me to do was also the one I started with which was the shoulder. The piece had a lot of unassuming shapes which were very difficult to model for a first timer. I mainly found issues with recreating the cylindrical shape at the top as well as the extruding wings coming out of the side. In addition to that the crevice where the shoulder connects to the arm and torso of the armor ended up being quite difficult to recreate based on the reference images as there were no shots of that area.  

 

The next area I decided to tackle was the forearm of the armor. This turned out to be a lot less difficult than the shoulder however there was still a lot of draft pieces created during the process. Making this piece was quite useful overall as the rest of the pieces in the arm either directly copy the piece of alter it in small ways. I then moved on to the torso of the model as I wanted to start getting a general idea of proportions in the model. While there some shots of the spine area the inside of the armor is blocked out of view in every shot of the show as the protagonist pilots it. Thus the area where the pilot sits doesn’t include any detail with most of the detail in this piece was shown to be on the spine and back. Once the torso was completed I moved on to making the thigh piece, this was quite a simple piece to make compared to the others as the shape didn’t include any complex geometry. 

 

The last pieces of the main geometry were the shin and foot. As they were 2 movable components as seen in the anime I had to figure out how to model them. At first I tried to make them as one part but I then realized that I was creating a lot of unnecessary work. I ended up making them as separate pieces. After those were done I moved on to making the detail pieces like the flaps on the back of the shoulder, as well as the shock absorbers that connect the torso to the shoulder pieces.  

 

• Texturing 

 

As the armor was brand new in the show and didn’t really seem to take damage, I decided that having rust and wear wouldn’t really be applicable. I edited a metallic material to look as close to the jet black colour shown in the anime. I also added just a slight bit of wear and tear to sell the look of the metal better. In addition to that I made alpha masks for the glowing areas on the shoulders, hands and spine as well as making a glowing cyan texture for the jet areas in the shoulders. I used a rubber material to accent some of the areas of the model, especially some of the joint structures. 

  

Yamato (One Piece) 

 

Reference Gathering 

• The process for gathering reference images for this model was different compared to the previous one as there was more material that I could use since this particular character appears drawn (One Piece, manga), animated (One Piece, anime) as well as 3D interpretations in both digital (fan-made) and physical (officially licensed figures) forms. I decided to incorporate all of these as reference images besides the fan made digital models as they weren’t guaranteed to be true to the source material.
  While researching the images I tried to find ones that would show the character from different perspectives and in varied poses that might highlight certain areas of her design or anatomy. Since the character wears loose fitting clothing I decided to also gather images of other characters from the source material that fit her body proportions and wore tighter outfits to gage their anatomy better. In addition to that I purchased a cheap officially licensed figure of the character which was a great help for referencing certain angles that I couldn’t find a reference for as well as details such as the inside areas of the hair.  

Sculpting 

Base Mesh 

The sculpting process for this model began by noting the relative proportions of the character.  Since I wasn’t able to find a perfectly straight image from the source material I decided to use a photograph of an officially licensed figure which was taken from a straight angle. I found that their overall height was about 7.5 heads and started the sculpting process in Z-Brush. I first sculpted out a general shape of the head using basic brushed like the Move, Clay Buildup, TrimDynamic and DamStandard brushes. These were most if not all the brushes that I used during the entire sculpting process as they gave me the needed flexibility in approach and the variety in mark making that I needed in this process.  As I wanted to focus on learning to sculpt I decided to start with a basic sphere and sculpt all the details from scratch. I overlayed a reference image of their head and started to move areas to fit the general silhouette of the reference images, going back and forth between her portrait and profile angles. I also marked the areas where the eyes would later be in order to get a better sense of the other proportions.  

With the general shape of the head done I continued on to the body. Duplicating the head I made, I marked it the height of the character to use as reference when sculpting the other body parts. I started by creating the general shape of the rib cage and hip areas. I then filled out the area where the two shapes met to form a waistline and added a neck to connect the head to the torso. I also added two teardrop shapes to represent her breasts. I made sure to check the silhouette of the model to make sure nothing looked out of place and that it looked harmonious. I then continued to sculpt her thigh and calf areas, adding general shapes to form her feet after. I worked on the legs first as I wanted to get a proper understanding of her height and body proportions as they would complete all the areas that would account for the height of the character. With this done I was able to compare the character’s height and proportions were close to the reference material. I then created the forms of her upper and lower arm, connecting to the chest with smaller shapes for her shoulders and adding a place holder shape for her hands. Once the basic form was complete I went back to the references and adjusted any proportions that seemed off in the model and it’s silhouette.  When the base was done I continued to refine details on the model until i was happy with the look of the base model.

I continued to work on the hair of the model using the same brushes as before. I ended up with decent looking hair which I thought would work fine. However later in the process I would have to remake it as I didn’t like the level of detail in the hair as it looked quite flat after sculpting from just one object. I decided to incorporate some loose strands oh hair to grind the model together. This was done by modelling the bangs and tail hair strand by creating paths for the hair to follow on Blender. This ended up creating a lot of volume as well as a general overall aesthetic to the final model.  

I then moved on to making the clothing for the character. I first started by retopologising the base mesh, this was so I could start sculpting clothing with much cleaner topology. I started by modelling the kimono first as it is the lowest down piece of clothing, later mowing on to the pants. As I didn’t have access to Z-Brush I had to sculpt some of the clothing on blender as it was the only tool I had available to me besides Maya. I was pleasantly surprised that the tools I used there had similar counter parts however the program didn’t offer as much freedom to sculpt as it wasn’t as powerful. After finishing the kimono and pants I moved on to making the belt. I first twisted the geometry of two cylinders in Maya and later imported it into blender to bend the geometry to the shapes I needed. Once that was done I started making the accessories of the character like the earrings and the hair clip. I designed the hair clip using hard surface modelling as it gave a better result that if I had tried to sculpt it. I also created the base of the flip flops using the same process.  

The retopology was easy for the parts made in Maya as I just had to delete some of the edges to bring down the poly count. The kimono and pants were significantly harder as it took a while to figure out how to make the quad raw tool not go through the topology. I solved this issue by deleting the polygons on the inside of the clothing, leaving only 1 plane for the quad draw tool to create geometry on.  
 

Texturing  

When texturing I used some of the fabric materials to create the textures for the textiles. I varied the density of the pattern to make it look like the pieces were made of different textiles. For the kimono I recreated the design patterns found in the reference images for the icons and the smoke trail pattern on the shirt. To get the wood texture on the flip flops I used a dirt modifier and scaled up the texture until I had a result I was happy with. For the hair and horns I used planar projection to create the gradients. I also applied an extremely scaled down fabric material to the hair, to add some more textural depth. For the body, I used a skin texture without the height information. I also applied a couple of blending shadow tones to bring more definition to the skin. I am however quite unhappy about the texture of the eyes as it looks quite out of place with the other textures in the model. This is partially due to the pixilation I got when painting the iris on. In addition I think that they were too big for the model however this can also be fixed when moving around the eyelids if I were to use this model in the future.