- You humans took my home away from me. Now I shall destroy yours. - In this video we will
do a quick breakdown for both characters from this project. Later, we will take a look
at the scenes I created for the steel frames. We'll talk about lighting, rendering and finally about the
animation I did for the intro. Hello everyone, I hope you
enjoyed this short animation, as this is the first time
on the CG Boost channel, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Juan Hernandez and
I am a 3D Character Artist. I focus mainly on stylized art but I also enjoy working
on realistic stuff. On screen, you can see
some of the stuff I create in Blender. This video is a general introduction to one of my latest creations. I will show you my personal workflow for creating such periods and some tips and tricks to work
efficiently as an artist. Before starting I also
wanted to let you know that both characters will
be available for free at CGBoost.com/resources. Where you can also gain access to our free Blender introduction course, and our Blender shortcut PDF. You can sign up for free and
only an email is required. So the first thing I did
before going into blender was making a concept. As you can see it doesn't have any colors. It's not very polished, but
at least I have a clear idea of what I wanted to create. Originally, I wanted to
make a stylized robot and then I thought it
will be fun if a character will be controlling the
robot from the inside. So eventually I came up
with idea of the evil sloth. Regardless, if you know how to draw well or not, making a concept
is a very effective way of trying out many ideas
in a short amount of time. And believe me, some of the
things I do are super rough but it's always very helpful. So I encourage you to always
put something on paper, before going into Blender. To create the robot, I started
by using simple geometry to block the shape and to make sure that the
proportions are correct. I even made a simple rig
to make sure that he's able to touch the floor and I could match the
model to the concept. You can also disconnect the bones and use the rig to change
the size of objects until you're happy with the proportions. I use any technique to develop the design. I use Subdiv modeling for simple objects and booleans or even sculpting
for complicated parts. At this point, I do not
care much about topology since I focuse on the design. Look for inspiration online to come up with different ideas
for the parts and joints. I also had to treat this
robot as a character and an environment at the same time. So when working on interior,
constantly check all the angles to make sure that it looks great. Once I am happy with the
design, it's time to clean up the geometry by
retopologizing what's necessary. I want to have clean topology which is easier to work with,
less demanding on resources and it looks well with subdivisions. It's also a good time to add small details and make the model more
complex and good looking. one big advantage of using subdivisions, you can use the simplify
option to globally tune it off. This is very helpful if your file is laggy and you need better
response from the view port. One personal tip is to
keep subdivision levels as low as possible. There is almost no benefit from it and it only slows down your computer. I even turn it off when
I'm working in edit mode. I mentioned this because I see
a lot of artists using lots of subdivisions when
there's no benefit from it. Another tip when working
on hard surface project is to use the solidify modifier together with a bevel modifier
and custom bevel weights. In this way, we can control the sharpness of edges created by the
solidify modifier only and make sure it looks
good in subdivisions. The arm of the robot is
a very important feature and it's the place where
the weapons are hidden. Making this kind of weapons
can be a little tricky. So what I did was work only on the shell, later when I had the rig,
I use it to open the shell and then put all the models in place. Once I was happy with the result, I could attach the new models to the rig and put everything back into the hand. You can also save the open version and the closed version
in your pose library. So you don't have to be
doing it manually every time. For the robot I created my own rig. I worked mainly on one
half the entire time which made the whole process easier. So once everything was
set, I mirrored the rig including all the constraints
and functions I needed. I did not parent any
geometry directly to bones. Instead I use Vertex groups
to attach the mesh to the rig. One nice advantage of this,
is that the mirror modifier also mirrors Vertex groups. So by adding an extra Vertex
group with a correct convention you can control each side individually. I also created a custom controller to open and close the weapon. And I did that by using actions. That means I could make a short animation of the weapon opening and
connect that animation to a bone to control the timing. Since I'm still using
all my mirror modifiers, I could do all the UV work
only on one half of the robot. I use the UV offset option
to move all the UV islands to different tiles and then flipped it so the direction is correct. You can use any methods for texturing. In this case, I use substance
painter, which gives me a lot of freedom and faster results. To create the slot, I started
in a similar way to the robot by putting together any
geometry to get the main shape of the character. Afterwards, I take the
model into sculpting to refine the shapes. I use dynamic topology
so I do not have to deal with polycount. I keep detail size as low as possible so that the geometry is easier to handle and the shapes are smooth. Creatures with fur can be a little tricky since their look can drastically
change when adding fur. One thing you can do is a
sculpted version with fur, and later shave him off. Other is to make a paintover and get a rough idea of the final result. This is not super accurate, but at least it will let you know if you are going into the right direction. Once I was happy with the result I could move into retopology. I lock all the main loops of the face and the arms and connect
the rest of the areas. I can also finish the mouth
by adding the inside area, making the teeth, the gums and the tongue. One little tip when
working on the inside part of a mouth is to make a
shape key of the mouth open and make sure that the
teeth and tongue fit well. The texturing work of the
sloth is actually quite simple. Since most of the body
is covered with fur. All I had to do is paint the color areas that will drive the color of the fur. The only exception is the
mouth where the lips are dark, but the fur is light. In that case you can use
a different fur material. To create the fur, I use
Blenders particle system. The first layer I add is shirt fur with interpolated children which covers most part of the body. After that, I create the main
particle setting which I use for the lung fur. This is still divided
into different layers to keep my work organized. Arms, legs, body, and head are
different particle systems, using the same settings. I looked, at real life reference
to create this sloth fur but I did made a slight change, I made the fur more puffy
to make him look more cute. For the fur material, I
used blender's principled, hair shader, and I
connect the body texture to drive the color of the fur. Then I play around with the roughness to make the fur look dry and puffy. For the rig, I actually use Auto-Rig Pro. I wanted to experiment
rigging a non-human character with this add-on. So I decided to give it a go. It comes with some
pre-made limps ready to use and a lot of automatic
functions such as IK controls, highlight movement and
controls for the face which I refined using simple shape-keys. I was aware I was not
planning any extreme poses or expressions, so I didn't
have to make it perfect. I created two main scenes
using these characters. One of them is focused on the sloth, and the other one is focused on the robot in a different environment. For this renders, I use a wide format to get a more cinematic look. The first scene takes
place inside of the robot, so I didn't have to model anything new. All I had to do was bring
the sloth and bring him in the right position and then
work mainly on the lighting. Let's do a quick breakdown
of all the lights in the first scene. As you can see, some of the
items inside of the robot already produce light,
but it's very subtle and it does not change
much of the environment. First, we have aerial light, which comes from the side and behind the
character, you can use blue or green colors to make the
environment more artificial and technological. Then we have another area light coming from behind the character. This makes the silhouette
of the character pop. In this case, I use a white color to get more color variation. Then I use a spotlight on
the face of the character. These also make some nice
shadows around the eyes which make the character look evil. I use another spotlight
to bring some red colors to the environment. Red also works nicely in
combination with the blue and gives the viewer more information about the environment
outside of the frame. In this case, it could be fire
or some kind of explosion. Thanks to this spotlight,
I also get highlights around the eyes which gives
the character a lot of life. And lastly, I use a nishita sky texture with low strength to get rid
of any extreme black values. One last step for this render was to do some simple compositing. It doesn't matter how good
looking your render is. It's always going to look
better with compositing. You can do it the right away in blender or any different software of your choice. In this case, I did it in Photoshop. The second scene is located in
the middle of a city street. As always I started by
blocking out each building and figuring out the camera composition. Then I could start working
on each building individually and creating a clean version of the street before working on the destruction. To work more efficiently, I used a lot of collection instances. That means I could
create a different scene with each individual asset that I will use to scatter around the city. This will also save you a lot of memory and it's gonna make this
addressing process easier. To create the destruction, I use the particle system to scatter around bricks and debris along the street. I use different layers for different sizes and I use wet painting to paint
the position of the debris. To create the hole on the wall, I actually took the texture
wall into sculpting mode and use the trim tool to cut the bricks following the texture. I use the same technique on corners and edges of buildings, to create damage. I use a sky texture to
light up most of the scene and some area lights and blocking
planes to focus the light on the robot. At last, we will take a look
at the animation I created for the introduction. This animation was rendered
completely in EEVEE at 4k resolution and is
composed of five shots in total with 672 frames. In the first shot, I kept
the lighting from the top to make the character look mysterious. I also made a subtle Dolly zoom effect with a camera to make
this shot more creepy. To synchronize the lips with the audio, I first animated the jaw movement to make sure the timing is right. And later I animated the lips. In the second shot we can
see the sloth on his way to press the button. In this scene I only
animated the hand going across the shot. To make the hand less stiff, I added a noise modifier to
the IK control of the hand to get subtle moves and
make it more natural. The third and fourth shot are
actually in the same scene. I just play around with
depth of field lights and camera movement. I also played around with sound effects to connect the audio with the visuals. And then we have the fifth shot, when we show the character
for the first time. In here I slowly reveal the
character by putting lights on the side and leaving the
front light until the end. Thanks everyone for watching. If you have any questions
about the project or anything related to
Blender, please write it down in the comments to let me know
so I can prepare new videos in the future. Make sure to subscribe. So you don't miss any
of the upcoming videos. Don't forget you can
download both characters at CGBoost.com/resources. I hope you found this video
useful and see you next time.
