3D Character Creation Tutorial for AAA Games

3D Character Creation Tutorial for AAA Games

In the vast majority of cases, AAA Games is at the forefront of technology. They can offer high production values due to large budgets and teams of people dedicated to all aspects of presentation and mechanics.

The main attraction of these games is the storytelling aspect, which not only offers great stories and competent storytelling, but also evocative and frequently relevant characters. Therefore, it is necessary to pay special attention to this part of the game character creation. If you are not quite satisfied with your current level of modeling, you can learn 3D character creation tutorials to improve your skills.

How to design 3D game characters

Characters are a very important part of the game. Especially in AAA games, attractive 3D characters that fit the game’s background are most likely to attract attention. So in order to provide players with a better gaming experience, a good 3D character creation is needed. The following are some points to note. Of course you can also check out the related articles How to Create a Realistic and Attractive 3D Female Character?

1. Understanding the story of the game

We need to briefly understand the background of the story and what characteristics are needed for the characters. ls the main character a merciful pacifist, or a boorish anti-hero? Are they a disingenuous liar, or a earnest Mage?

You can use inspiration from other game artists and their iconic original characters to help generate new ideas and inform your own creative process. Once you have a broad idea, it’s time to start refining the details.

2.Evoking empathy

A character is supposed to resonate with the player, evoke empathy and emotion, and be someone the player can support and see themselves as. Without these elements, characters can seem superficial, clichéd, or boring, which can lead to a negative gameplay experience for the player.

3.Adding character traits

Just as in film, television and literature, the creation of character traits is extremely important. After all, a character without a soul is not worth remembering.

When you are making the 3D character creation, you can list your character’s quirks, mannerisms, etc. Do they have dangerous impulses? Do they have trouble speaking? Do they prefer to be alone or do they want to be part of a team very much?

Give the 3d character traits that make his or her existence meaningful. Making your characters feel like real people (even if they aren’t actually designed like humans) can help bring them to life, leading to a better gaming experience.

“My ultimate goal is to be able to create pretty much everything you need to create a fully working high-quality video game.”
— Henrique Sales

Our lecturer, Henrique Sales, is a senior 3D generalist and Unreal Engine programmer in Brazil. His expertise covers almost everything needed to complete artwork from scratch, including topics such as modeling, texturing, binding, animation, shaders, and implementation on game engines.

He offers this 3D character creation tutorial at Wingfox: AAA 3D Character Creation: From Beginning to Unreal Engine 5

Before Starting

Before we start, I will give a brief explanation over all the files included, software being used, and some warnings you should know about.

Getting Started

In this chapter, I will tell you where to download the Software and the plugins used, work showcase from people already established in the industry, what we are going to use from them and how to get started working with it.

Tips and Tricks

In this chapter I will take about the tips of making your character creation workflow better and faster, every tip in the whole workflow I got I will tell you all of it.

Character Sculpting

In this chapter, we will start creating our chapter, sculpting her body, hair, hard surface parts. I also got assignments for you in this chapter. From this chapter on, you will get the assignments that I made for you, and start to do your assignment every chapter after to help you get in-depth.

Clothing

In this chapter, I will tell you how I define the clothing structure that'll be used, how I do the cloth sketching, simulation, and detailing.

Polishment

Retopology and Baking

In this chapter, we'll make the adjustments for the low-poly version and delete everything that won't be shown. After that, we will make the UV's of the character, decimate your model to lower the polycount, and then pass the information from the decimated into the lowpoly. We'll bake it inside Zbrush.

Texturing

At first, I will try matching Viewport with UE5, making sure that the looking will be similar in both painter and unreal engine 5. and then introduce another guide to help you through starting with Substance Painter. We'll do the texture with Substance Painter.

Rigging

At the very beginning, I will talk about the theory about what your topology needs to have for proper rigging and get you to know a little bit about the Unreal Engine Rig. And then we start to skinning the character.

Getting to Life Inside Unreal Engine

In the last chapter, we will overview the project file and the plans for the final animation. I will use the plugin Kawaii Physics to make the simulation that makes the best results for the character.

3D character creation tutorial

In this section, you’ll learn every step needed to start with an idea and get your dream character ready to play in UE5!

You can view the character creation steps and learn every trick to make your own creations as easy and beautiful as possible.

By the end of this tutorial, you will have learned everything you might need to make a high-quality game character of your choice.

On how to work with characters, you’ll learn everything from sculpting to texturing, rigging, animation, and in-engine simulation concepts.

And you’ll also learn tips and tricks to make your workflow faster and better.

Note: To learn this tutorial, you do not need to have prior knowledge about the software and the technology used, but it will be easier for those who have that knowledge.

In general, you only need (at least) an introductory knowledge of 3D: what are meshes, low polygons, textures, UVs, rigging and game engines, etc.

If you’re interested, feel free to add this 3D character creation tutorial to get started and improve your digital art. Welcome to Wingfox.