Riley: Character Model Progression
Riley's old mesh and wireframe (November 2019)
Riley's old mesh render (November 2019)
Riley's new mesh and wireframe (December 2019)
Riley's new render (December 2019)
Riley's concept art, not drawn by concept artist
This is Riley, the main character for "Beyond Bermuda". I worked from a concept artist's concepts starting in Autodesk Maya for blocking out shapes, then finished by digitally sculpting her head in ZBrush. The whole process took around 34 hours total, including retopology and UV mapping. Her old mesh consisted of 18,882 tris.
After receiving feedback from art lead and executive producer about her proportions, I made adjustments on her low poly model using Maya's sculpting tools and UV maps, which took a total of 9.5 hours. I also added eyebrows, eyelashes, a set of teeth, and a tongue for future facial rigging. Her whole mesh, as seen in the second render, has 20,330 tris.
Riley: UV Maps
Riley's old UV map (November 2019)
Riley's new UV map (December 2019)
Riley's old and new UV maps, respectively. I made cuts in areas typically less noticed by the camera to hide the seams and maintain consistent flow.
Riley: Character Rigging
Riley's rig, composed of joints, controllers, and a joint-based facial rig (December 2019)
Rig components as seen in Autodesk Maya's outliner
Riley's character rig includes the body rig and a facial rig. The body rig is a basic rig with IK handles for arms and legs and set driven keys for fingers and toes. The facial rig includes an aim constraint that allows her eyes to follow the aim controller for added liveliness in animations.
Some of Riley's animations used to convey basic action as she traverses land and sea, while fending against dangerous fauna.
Riley: Default Clothes Modeling
Riley's wireframe for default clothes (December 2019)
Riley's render for default clothes (December 2019)
I modeled Riley's default clothes after making some of the basic animations. The clothes are designed to be weighted and be made with physics to conform to the character in action. Her shirt has 4,460 tris while her shorts have 1,900 tris.
Updated Mesh
New mesh includes hair and more facial morph targets to fit more varied range of expressions, such as anger, sadness, or surprise. Model's clothes and body textures (excluding hair, which was done by me) were done by Tyler Yungmann.
Character Animations
I created animations for all of Riley's various actions, such as swinging and equipping tools, idle, walk, and run.
I animated Riley's actions in the intro cutscene.