Technical Challenges

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Before delving into the technical challenges or lore of the character, I'd like to say that this character was made during the creation of this entire online portfolio and that this asset, Ibernian Warrior, actually means something to me, unlike other assets I've worked on for other companies or clients, which I took more as an opportunity to grow. So, firstly, I will delve in the technical challenges I faced and the growth I achieved during the creation of this asset. Secondly, I'll talk about the actual background of the character. And lastly, I'll wrap it up with what I'm going to do with characters like this after finishing this portfolio off. Technical challenges, lore, and plans for the future. Let's go!

I began with the idea to create a new portfolio: coding my own website to showcase my work. It led me to the point where I needed to publish an asset that I had made from scratch. I began this asset with the concept art; the idea of the character, which had been brewing for a while, was one of a world where the land has deep roots in faith and magic. The next challenge was taking the 2D concept and making it the 3D model you see, which will be iterated over, and probably replaced with Metahuman as a base model for the body and face. During the modeling phase, I refreshed quite a bit of my abilities in zbrush. By the end, I was navigating the UI easily, adding in new geometries, like a shirt, underwear, or gloves; I was editing and removing face components I didn't like to transform the new geometries I added, and saving out the tools (model files). For the RIGGING phase (my favorite), I took a library of scripts I've made over the years in Python and MEL, put them in a plugin called Vetala, which is for Maya, and I procedurally auto-rigged my own model. I had to do all the skinning manually, since this was a fresh new model, which is no problem. There were a few challenges during this phase. One of them was an inverted foot roll, which was due to inverted values in some unitConversion and AnimCurveUA nodes. Another was the back and forth between modeling and rigging phases, things forgotten, like UVs, ngons, and more. I used a forgotten code I wrote a couple of years ago and easily solved the challenge. Once the rigging phase was done, it was time to animate the character! I refreshed my animation principles with a walk cycle. I needed something with movement, so that I could add it as a piece to the portfolio. Easily enough, I finished the walk cycle and was faced with one last array of new challenges: exporting everything efficiently, loading the files onto my website, and displaying them in a manner that I haven't seen before. Using my HTML, CSS, JS, and THREE knowledge, I scrapped together this page from a template I made a week before. I added controls for the model and skeleton visibility, animations with blending; lighting with different render options, and more! I had also enabled the download of my rig for anyone to use. If you want, please do so, and enjoy!

PS: I skipped out on the face and kilt rig since I'm currently rushing a bit to get this portfolio done (I'll do them after I publish a few more pieces and remove this little text).

Lore

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The Ibernian Warrior is part of the main tribe in Ibernia, a country in the continent of North Arcanas. Ibernia, like all the other countries, was part of a phenomenon in which they we all in communion with their gods at the exact same time. The land's show of faith had allowed all their Gods to take physical form to walk among their people. The ones that accepted the blessing had fused perfectly with the spirit of the wolf. The ones that did not, either overcame the spirit and ascended to be a hero or were overcome by the spirit and transformed into the animal form - Ibernia being the land of wolves. The Ibernian Warrior is a perfect fusion between man and wolf. One who is quick, strong, and ferocious on the battle field and as a friend. Being able to dodge and avoid attacks, while delivering devastating damage makes them formidable. They also enjoy using team tactics to defeat their enemies or capture their prey, just like a pack of wolves.

Future Plans

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We've gone over the technical challenges and growth, the lore and background of the character, and now it's time to talk about the future! What are the plans for this guy and other characters like him? Well, I'm going to make video games with them - as best as I can! It's what I've wanted to do since I was 13 or 14 years old. So, that's what I'll do!