Constructivist Creations, a company that creates eLearning content for public and private educational institutions, embarked on a journey to which I had the incredible opportunity to collaborate in. Togheter with Alex Maletich, the owner of the company, and Jessica Jayson, the main designer on the project, to bring the character Yellow Tiger to life.
Scroll down to check out a behind the scenes:
Initial Design and 3D Model
It all started with a sketch provided by the team, which served as the blueprint for the character. My first task was to create a blockout—a basic 3D model that established the character’s proportions. This initial step was crucial for setting the foundation of the character’s form and ensuring that the proportions were accurate before moving on to detailed sculpting.
With the blockout complete, I moved the model to ZBrush to begin the first digital sculpture process. In this stage, I combined all previously imported elements and added volume, adjusting the character’s shape to make it more organic and visually appealing. This phase was all about refining the character and bringing out the details that would define Yellow Tiger’s appearance.
Next, I took the sculpted mesh to Autodesk Maya for the retopology process.
Retopology involves creating a new mesh that is optimized for animation. By considering the movements that Yellow Tiger would perform, I adjusted the mesh to ensure it looked natural and saved time in the skinning process later. This step was essential for making the character ready for the animation phase.
Details and Textures
The retopologized mesh was then brought back to ZBrush for detailing. Here, I added details that would be incorporated into the textures. Ensuring the UVs were correctly done was a critical step in this process, as it would affect how the textures were applied to the model. The detailed mesh was now ready for texturing, giving Yellow Tiger a more polished and complete look.
The textures where also made by me by hand using Substance Painter.
Rigging and Animation in Maya
Given that the character was to be used in a video game, the rigging process needed to be robust and versatile.
I created a standard base rig, including an IK/FK switcher for the arms and legs, and controls for the eyes, head, and feet.
After discussing with the team, we decided to embed the tail animations in the animation clip. To achieve this, I incorporated a dynamic system in Maya, using an invisible copy of the base mesh for collision that could be later baked on regular joints to be imported to the game engine.
With the rig in place, I animated Yellow Tiger, bringing the character to life with two complete animations ready for use in Unity, the game engine for the project.
Final thoughts
Just as last time, working on this project is a great challenge, but with the objective of streamlining a fast pipeline for character creation.
I’ve worked on other characters for this very same project.
You can check them out here:
