Art: Main character / Drop Hunter ('Scilly')

[Vianvolaeus]

This will serve as the design issue for the main character, user of the 'megasword'.

Will update as appropriate.

The idea of using the ears from #1294, but with the existing character design, was explored briefly.

[Vianvolaeus]

real solution is to make it more conforming.

How's this? Reduced the jacket flat a tiny bit, reshaped the skirt.

On the right is the oldest one, short, for comparison.

[avaer]

Thanks, I think the left skirt curvature looks good 👍

[avaer]

The shoes look quite speedy and streamlined and are appropriate in motif, but they feel like they are like the powerup form rather than the base. We should keep them around for later usage, but I think we might need new geometry for the base.

I was thinking something much more normal (rather than electronic/teched up) and easy to make if it were made as merch. I think any of these would be good.

[Vianvolaeus]

Gotcha, i'll get on that after this material work.

One question: we've got both the double socks and the robotic leg (armor?) being proposed here:

Which are we going for? I've made the armor pieces anyway in case they're being used in an alt version - if not they'll be handy later.

I can also combine both.

[avaer]

My gut is that we have enough robot going on, and we should just do the right side (double socks with cool shoes).

[avaer]

I feel like the armor is on brand though, again a sort of power up situation, just this is already a sufficiently complicated character and I want to make our lives easier.

[Vianvolaeus]

I've stashed it for later. 👍

[GaladWarder]

Grabbing a lunch break real quick, but this is the sketch for the pose I have in mind; let me know if it's totally in the wrong direction - if not, I'll have it finished up later today

[avaer]

Looks great! 🥇

[GaladWarder]

Here's what I came up with!

[GaladWarder]

Haven't changed the concept template yet, figured I would get this out first, can retroactively update it if needed.

[avaer]

Looks great, I have no comments 👏.

[Vianvolaeus]

Forgot to post these earlier - more casual shoes based from the concept. Got a variant in regular and upscaled.

I can easily add in decal details and other stuff if need be.

Working on jacket - Not sure if the old scarf is needed or preferred?

[Vianvolaeus]

Finished this bracelet. Colors and pattern are mostly procedural if we need to change anything. I kept the narrow pattern that underlays underneath it as it starts to get quite muddy texturewise if it's included.

[Vianvolaeus]

Jacket's adding a world of difference. Just need to fix a couple of things and I'll post a shot

[Vianvolaeus]

(HDRI only)

(Single Light)

There's some skinning issues that need to be fixed, but it's nearly there. If a decision is made on the scarf I can add that, or texture the jacket as appropriate

[Vianvolaeus]

This gif is illegal to our standards but I'm posting it here anyway. (might be handy for socials or something. note: recording cut the first bit of animation, it's actually fine in the real thing)

[avaer]

Progress!

Shoes

Shoes copied from the design are fine, it's cohesive.

Bracelet

Bracelet looks good too, but IMO it should be more prominent. It could be large.

Scarf

The original scarf was nice and sizeable and can be kept. It works fine in the sketch too.

Jacket

Let's make the jacket texture more geometric rather than splotchy, with similar shapes to the original jacket. Even in the sketch it looks like they are more hard lines than splotches.

Visemes

Re: visemes, can/should some of the morphs be baked? Some of features, like the smaller pupils, are more part of the character than a morph, even though it was hacked together with a morph. Also I know it's a nightmare to get right since the visemes in the test scene are breaking limits. So that makes me think that a small set of these morphs can be baked into the geometry rather than us having to set them.

[Vianvolaeus]

Bracelet looks good too, but IMO it should be more prominent. It could be large.

Sure, I can scale it. Might benefit from more color saturation as well, so I'll give that a try next pass.

Jacket

Gotcha. I wasn't sure, decided to go for cohesion first since geometric is a bit simpler to go back and do later. I'll reference above concepts for it.

Re: visemes, can/should some of the morphs be baked?

They can. This is would be a permanent change to the mesh (though we can set a shapekey to recall the initial state).

The iris sizing and left eye being closed can be permanently added to the basis. This will most likely break some other keys slightly, as the new basis vertex position for the morphs will be different - effectively things like blinks and expressions will be offset as a result.

We can also add the bite mark as a morph to toggle it on and off. Copying geo on a mesh with shapekeys will actually retain those shapekeys - so we could simply copy that area of the face, UV it with the bite mark, and add a morph to scale > 0 it.

If we don't need to toggle it, we can forego that process.

I converted out the .ai of it so it can be used as an alpha stamp - we can stamp it onto any texture we need to going forward.

[avaer]

They can. This is would be a permanent change to the mesh (though we can set a shapekey to recall the initial state).

In that case I think we should bake:

Face.M_F00_000_00_Fcl_EYE_Surprised = 1.0

If the original morph can be kept as a shape key then that seems ideal. I don't think we need to bake anything else, including the left eye, for now.

We can also add the bite mark as a morph to toggle it on and off. Copying geo on a mesh with shapekeys will actually retain those shapekeys - so we could simply copy that area of the face, UV it with the bite mark, and add a morph to scale > 0 it.

This plan sounds good for the bite mark.

[avaer]

Also the hair needs slight edits -- it feels like it came out slightly shorter in Galad's and my own concepts, even if that's a trick of the posing.

Part of it is setting up the curls in the front.

But it's especially prominent in the back, which as we discussed we should shorten and bring up a bit to make it match better with the front and make it more fluid, as if this chara was running around a lot.

[avaer]

Not related to anything, but this demo pose made me chuckle because she looks like she is hunched over like a grandma. I don't know if that is the proportions, loose hands, or the back curvature.

[Vianvolaeus]

Hair: yeah, I'm leaving it till last since it's gonna be more hands-on than what I've already tried, haven't forgotten. Figured it'd be best to get the bulk of the character out the way and save the most time consuming but minor change for last.

Demo pose: Yes. It was really rushed - there's no animation rig to help out here, so it was just achieved using auto IK, Proportionally the legs are shorter I believe.

[Vianvolaeus]

Jacket's been redone to fit the concept a lot better - I was reading the creases of the concept as actual smudge like patterns - I realised I'd got it wrong - that's entirely on me.

Mark is now added as a toggleable mesh! It's UV'd to it's own area in the Face material. This took a bit longer than I was hoping since Substance wasn't playing nice with that, but got there in the end.

Skinning has largely been improved and certain poses should work better, along with running animations. The close cut skirt makes things quite tricky, but it should be fairly manageable for animation and can be revisited if there's any distinct problems.

I've readded the scarf, but we also have a shapekey on the Jacket to toggle it's collar on and off, just in case.

Lastly, the iris sizing shapekey is now added to the basis, and has a toggle - as does the bite:

Next up, if all's well, should probably be the hair pass.

[Vianvolaeus]

Oh, and the bracelet was given some thickness, color saturation, and made bigger:

[avaer]

I think we need to exorcize the large irises by baking surprise, or else the character feels too soft.

It honestly makes the character impossible to evaluate for me to see the large irises base :P

[avaer]

The mark could be blacker, like dried blood.

[avaer]

The jacket texture is good.

I think there is too much of a girly curve in the waist geo. The jacket doesn’t have to form fit but I think it should be a rectangular figure so if it was a silhouette of her fighting in action you’d think it was a boy.

If that means making it more a heavy sweater than a jacket, that could work.

Channel inkling girl from splatoon or frisk from undertale.

[Vianvolaeus]

The irises are baked already at surprise:1 , just showing before/after and toggles.

The jacket was adjusted previously as it was too bulky / bulbous looking. There's not much room here to play with, but I'll see what I can do.

I disagree on the sweater, I don't think that's got connotations to speed, victory and doesn't really match the rest of the character's outfit.

Mark is easy enough to change - color picked the red from the arm's cables/ hit tech shoes. I can change those to match, or keep them vibrant still. Either/either.

[avaer]

The irises are baked already at surprise:1 , just showing before/after and toggles.

Yeah, I just meant that in all of the above shots the eyes are distracting from being able to evaluate it. I'll play with it in Blender some more.

The jacket was adjusted previously as it was too bulky / bulbous looking. There's not much room here to play with, but I'll see what I can do. I disagree on the sweater, I don't think that's got connotations to speed, victory and doesn't really match the rest of the character's outfit.

Hm, here must be some middle ground to squaring. I agree it should be a jacket, but it feels like it should be a jacket in the shape/weight of a heavy sweater (which is my interpretation of the concept art). Either that or it's the figure underneath that needs to be squared to make the jacket look more rectangular.

I think it's all about the head and silhouette in capturing the concept of this chara, the rest is just decoration.

[avaer]

Cartoon Action Hero Shape

https://booth.pm/ja/items/2351859 https://booth.pm/en/items/1048063

[avaer]

We can buy any and all of the references we need if we want to splice a new body.

[avaer]

https://hub.vroid.com/en/characters/3172346798533084285/models/5778696491301072701

[Vianvolaeus]

Right, moving from square to triangle, then: Jacket will require some minor texturing work, since the geo is now warped to fit. Skinning fixes will also be needed.

[Vianvolaeus]

[Vianvolaeus]

Hair variations. Bashed from some existing assets, should be faster to implement if any of these are ok'd.

var1

var2

var3

[Vianvolaeus]

[GaladWarder]

Here's the proportion tweaks - I just tweaked the screenshot directly for accuracy/speed.

A few notes that are hard to show on the concept:

• Cheeks are super puffy, right now the face reads as pretty childlike. Maybe should just be 'deflated'?
• The face proportions are really tricky, but in general, I made the face longer and boxier - with the jaw defining the bottom line more than cheeks. Eyes were also made longer, iris size was left alone.

Other than that, I just pulled the proportions more adolescent; longer legs, slightly thinner overall, broader shoulders.

I think too that the legs look shorter than they are due to the black legging/shorts things - those could probably be brought up to give the illusion of longer legs

[avaer]

Awesome work @GaladWarder, this really helps visualize. 👏

Cheeks are super puffy, right now the face reads as pretty childlike. Maybe should just be 'deflated'?

I agree, we want this to read like she is clearly old enough to be an independent orphan rather than something that makes you ask “where are your parents”.

The impression should be she was raised by the streets and she doesn’t need help. But she is also clearly immature, without adult expectations.

Part of it is the puffiness of the cheeks. Another part is the wider, square, slightly slanted set eyes, which increases the perceived age a lot.

I think too that the legs look shorter than they are due to the black legging/shorts things - those could probably be brought up to give the illusion of longer legs

I agree about the leggings being pulled up to increase apparent leg length; the impression of longer legs changes the proportions.

[avaer]

The mouth was widened and can be lowered too, if we overlay the model on the art in might help.

[avaer]

The clothing in the art is also very cohesive and light in its violet color, whereas in the viewport we have something darker/grittier.

I still think a sweater that’s slightly oversized like in the art would work.

[Vianvolaeus]

The clothing in the art is also very cohesive and light in its violet color, whereas in the viewport we have something darker/grittier.

I was curious why this happened, since i'm pulling exact hexes from concepts where appropriate - base colors changed through the concept art, likely due to us revisiting the older model for a bit:

I've gone ahead and updated.

FLAT TEXTURE vs environment (things are going to look a little less bright in a proper lighting scenario, but just showing the color correction of the textures themselves)

Added some jacket detail in and swapped colors for some of the detail in to introduce more of the neon green,

[Vianvolaeus]

Alternate scarf design for color cohesion as well. Makes the bracelet colors unique to the rest of the model.

Leggings were pulled up.

[avaer]

That seems like it’s going further and further from the design.

The dead eyes and incomplete face make it impossible to evaluate clothes correctly (at least on my end), so I wouldn’t be tweaking the clothing yet.

[Vianvolaeus]

Tackling faster issues first, working on face now.

[Vianvolaeus]

This level of facial editing simply isn't possible in VRoid alone, so I've had to manually edit it. This breaks expressions! I did what I could in VRoid to avoid that, but it simply wasn't happening - you can't get the eye shape or jawline we're going for.

The mouth was widened and adjusted there, though.

Old vs New vs Concept

I know you want screenshots with expressions / posing, but at the moment since it's broken, that's not possible. Ideally the shape would be okayed so I can then go and fix them - bearing in mind that is potentially quite time consuming.

[Vianvolaeus]

Small note as well - the initial proportioning from Grant wasn't symettrical, so there will be visual differences from it. I mirrored the image and worked from that.

[avaer]

This level of facial editing simply isn't possible in VRoid alone, so I've had to manually edit it. This breaks expressions! I did what I could in VRoid to avoid that, but it simply wasn't happening - you can't get the eye shape or jawline we're going for.

That sucks, anything we can do to fix?

I think we're still a ways off. The model eyes look very "normal" vroid, but part of this exercise is to upend that and have unique eyes.

[avaer]

It seems like a rotation plus reduction of iris.

[Vianvolaeus]

We can merge in positions from the basis to fix up aspects of them rather than entirely recreate them which will help a bit, but since changes as such move the base position of vertices, shapekeys end up out of position.

Note that the changes were done from overlaying the 3d shot that was edited rather than the 2d concept, since that has an expression it's not usable to overlay and fit the shapes.