Posing John Constantine as a MultiVersus Character in Blender
About me
My title is Renan Fabricio, a 3D Character Artist from Brazil with 7 years of expertise within the sport trade. I at present work at Revolving Video games. Most of my profession has been distant because of the lack of sport studios in Rio de Janeiro once I began.
Initially, I labored on varied tasks creating one or two characters every. In 2019, I pursued full-time distant alternatives and was employed by a Brazilian indie studio to develop a vertical slice for the Soulslike sport Deathbound. Throughout that yr, I designed 7 characters for the demo, which helped safe funding from Tate Multimedia, permitting us to finish the sport. I’m pleased with this achievement, although I’m not with the studio.
For the previous two and a half years, I’ve been a 3D Artist at Revolving Video games, engaged on undisclosed tasks.


Introduction – Posing characters in an current sport
Constantine, a DC character, holds a particular place in my coronary heart and within the hearts of many Brazilians because of the 2005 movie starring Keanu Reeves. With this in thoughts, I made a decision to create a 3D stylized model of Constantine from the comics, as this sport options DC characters. This text is not going to solely reveal the workflow of character creation but in addition posing characters in Character Creator.

Pushed by my love for combating video games and the will to work on tasks like Multiversus, I sought out somebody on ArtStation who was creating Multiversus fan artwork ideas. I wished a collaborator who may create a 2D idea, permitting me to concentrate on the 3D design.
I discovered Francisco Matias, additionally a Brazilian, who graciously accepted my invitation and created 2D ideas of Constantine. You may try his portfolio. I’m very grateful to him for believing on this collaborative fan artwork mission.

Each time I embark on a protracted private mission, I try to include a brand new software program, addon, or method into my workflow. This strategy ensures that my course of turns into extra environment friendly, sooner, and stays aligned with trade requirements.
Beforehand, I seen that posing characters in ZBrush took a substantial period of time and was some of the difficult steps for me, particularly since I’m not an expert rigger. Posing appeared fairly daunting, significantly once I wanted to create a number of poses for a similar character. I aimed to showcase the character in a minimum of 4 totally different poses, together with extra props, to focus on varied facets of the design.

I started my seek for auto rigs on YouTube and stumbled upon an extremely detailed tutorial of Character Creator 4 on Michael Pavlovich’s channel. I extremely advocate checking it out, because it enabled me to begin working in CC4 in lower than a full day.
Blockout in ZBrush
Through the blockout stage, my main focus is on resolving proportions. It’s a lot simpler to deal with this early on fairly than having to make changes later with a number of subtools. Following this, I block out the primary shapes of the character and its clothes, guaranteeing that the silhouette works successfully. The meshes might seem messy at this stage, however they function a base for the next step, which entails retopology in Blender.

Retopology with Blender Add-on
I’ve been utilizing Blender for about three years now, and I’ve been totally having fun with my time with it. I’d wish to advocate a paid add-on referred to as RetopoFlow for anybody . Whereas I used to do retopology in 3ds Max or TopoGun, I at all times intention to consolidate my workflow inside a single software program.
I’ve discovered Blender to be extremely highly effective for retopology duties, together with making seams and unwrapping UVs. Investing in RetopoFlow has considerably sped up my workflow and streamlined my retopology course of.

UVing with Blender Addon
One other paid Blender add-on that I completely love is UV Packmaster. It automates UV mapping in an extremely organized method, in contrast to something I’ve seen earlier than, and it’s remarkably quick.
What’s extra, it permits you to seamlessly transition between manually organizing your UVs and mechanically filling in gaps with much less necessary shells. This considerably reduces the time spent on UV mapping and streamlines your workflow. Moreover, it consists of quadify instruments, making it significantly efficient for cylindrical objects, belts, straps, and even skinny and straight UV shells.

Returning to ZBrush with the brand new topology geometry, I utilized it as a base mesh to create the high-poly mannequin. Provided that the character options simplified data and a stylized design, this course of was expedited.

Texturing
I received’t delve into each layer of my textures. As an alternative, I’ll emphasize the significance of grayscale in stylized characters. In Substance Painter, you possibly can simply entry this function by clicking on the Show Settings icon, enabling publish results, and accessing shade correction. Set the saturation slider to 0, permitting you to persistently monitor your values whereas creating the feel.

In my endeavor to emulate Constantine inside the context of an current sport, I totally examined grayscale and shade variations. This concerned capturing screenshots of my character and creating mockups in Photoshop utilizing screenshots from the sport.
Many video games provide media kits out there for obtain on their web sites, which supplied me with extra sources for testing Constantine in varied situations. This course of was instrumental in evaluating how successfully my character matched the colour values of the sport.
Moreover, I extremely advocate learning texture references straight from the sport itself. Analyze how pores and skin textures are painted, observe the colours of supplies like leather-based, and word any presence of shade gradients on characters. These insights can drastically inform your individual character design course of.
Props
For the props, Francisco created a sheet with motion poses for movesets. I chosen a number of poses and allotted myself one full day to work on every. I utilized the identical grayscale and mockup testing strategy to those property to make sure they balanced effectively with the character.
Rigging Earlier than Posing Character
To start, I imported my FBX character into CC4. When rigging, I selectively select the components that I wished to be influenced by the bones. Due to this fact, components corresponding to hair, eyes, and tooth have been briefly hidden.

Instantly, you possibly can acknowledge the ability of rigging in CC4. The AccuRIG grants you the flexibility to edit each side and supplies picture references earlier than you press the auto-generate button. As somebody not well-versed in skilled rigging, this function saved me from a whole lot of complications.

After auto-rigging, there are many animations you should utilize to check your character and guarantee every part is working appropriately.
On this article, I utilized one of many strikes that Francisco drew. You may both begin posing from scratch, as I did, or use an animation and pause at an appropriate keyframe to start from there.

Considered one of my favourite options of CC4 is the flexibility to use presets of hand gestures. This function saves a ton of guesswork and prevents your character’s palms from wanting damaged.
Merely click on, drag, and paste the hand gesture you need to apply. Moreover, the palms controllers on the suitable facet of the display are game-changing. You may click on, maintain, and drag the palm of the hand to open or shut it. It virtually looks like dishonest due to how efficient this function is for posing your character

One other unbelievable function of CC4 is the flexibility to avoid wasting your poses as presets. Because of this I’ve saved earlier poses, and if I wished, I may simply revert to them and make changes. All you must do is save the pose, after which double-click to use it to your characters. This performance provides a layer of flexibility and comfort to the posing course of in CC4.

These poses will be utilized to different characters too. The presets are appropriate with characters from CC4, permitting you to create poses, save them as presets, and apply them to your characters afterward. This flexibility enhances the usability of the poses and streamlines the posing course of for varied character designs.
Refining Poses in Blender
After attaining a passable auto rigging and preliminary pose, I imported my mannequin again into Blender to begin refining it. First, I painted out some weight influences from bones that I didn’t need affecting sure areas, like the top, after which adjusted the arms barely.
Creating a personality that interacts with a prop is at all times a problem, so I spent additional time refining the angles of the ebook and the palms. Integrating CC4 into my pipeline proved to be price it, because it streamlined the method. We’ve all seen lovely art work items in artist portfolios which can be solely proven in T or A poses, actually because posing characters will be daunting and time-consuming. With CC4, I discovered it a lot simpler to realize dynamic poses.
For the garments, I used sculpting brushes in Blender. The principle brushes I used have been Seize, Clean, Pose, and Masks. I separated small objects like buttons and the tie to forestall distortion however ended up stretching the buttons barely so as to add a dynamic really feel to the gesture.
It’s necessary to view your character from all angles, however I targeted totally on the angle that Constantine can be seen from in a 3D combating sport.
Conclusion

All poses have been created beginning in CC4. For a extra in-depth have a look at my course of, I’ve created a video detailing your entire creation journey.
That wraps up my overview of making this character. I need to lengthen my gratitude to Reallusion for recognizing my work and offering me with the chance to showcase my workflow with CC4.
A particular thanks goes to Michael Pavlovich for his excellent tutorial movies on how you can use CC4. They have been extremely useful and made the ultimate steps of my private mission a lot simpler to finish.
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