Sculpting clothes and hair

Sculpting the hair was a tedious job. I decided to give it a bit of a Bioshock style.

You're able to differentiate hair strands quite easily. There are lots of highlights and dark tones. It feels like there's a lot going on but all the values cooperate with each other.
















After specifying the final shape I started to add more detail buy putting several layers of strands and gradually decreasing the brush size.

I'm hoping the get a nice Cavity map which will work as a basic diffuse map.

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Clothes are almost done too. I need to add small elements like buttons and ribbons. Then I can happily start retopologizing - the absolutely most horrible thing in the world.

Base sculpt

Base body is done. I'm not sure about the face, will probably alter it later. 

Time for some clothing. I started off with a shirt.

I wanted to extract the surface in Zbrush but since the mesh has about 11 millions points, it kept crashing. My next try was to bring decimated mesh into 3Ds Max and create a retopologized base using Graphite Modelling Tools.

I put different smoothing group on the edges and applied TurboSmooth modifier.












This was a good solution. But. As soon as I'd export it as an .obj I would loose all the control over edges.

I finally decided to use Topology Brush in Zbrush.

It allows you to draw the edge flow yourself.

After generating the topology I could add automatic crease and thus control the mesh while subdividing.

Two hours later, with the help of Google Images, I had my shirt. All sculpted and ready for baking.

Back to the character

I suppose it's really about right time to start building my character. I will continue doing small assets for the house along the way, as well as improving on the environment.

I'll repost my designs so I can talk about them a little more.

Firstly I wanted to go for the hood variation. It's got a nice shape to it. Then I thought it would be just too generic. I know it's meant to be fairytale based environment, but I don't want to fall into stereotypes too much.

Here we have a nice comparison. A typical Red Riding hood type character and a more Slavic version, which I think I like more. It's different and it's got more authenticity to it since it's based on historical resources.  












But why not experiment a little?












Ok, these are my three final designs. I asked my friends around which one they like best. Their opinions vary though so I guess I have to make that decision on my own.

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I already started sculpting base body. I've been doing it gradually from the beginning of the project.

It's really simple and I need to give it some character and better shape.

So I'm going to make her super curvaceous.

Fireplace2

This is the design I decided to go with. It's not quite neat but also not completely random. It'll go nicely with the rest of the room.












I sculpted the stones in Zbrush. There are only four of them, but since the block has 4 long sides, it gives me 16 variations.

Surprisingly Youtube has loads of videos with just fire burning. It's used to create Christmas atmosphere or for relaxation. Now that's just sad.
Anyway it was good because all I need to do was take 8 screenshots, crop them and edit a little bit. Et voilá!



I've never done fire in Cryengie so it took me some time. I still need to fiddle with it. It's too stretched upwards and too thin. There are so many options, I would waste hours to figure everything out.

Fireplace

It's time to make a fireplace. I created a separate pin board on Pinterest.com, where I can collect useful images for the current project.

http://www.pinterest.com/ekrzechka/grimm/

All of them are made of piled up stones and it's exactly what I want to go for.

House

It's been a week and it seems like I've done nothing.

Apart from passing the practical driving test. I can legally try to kill pedestrians now! Way to go.

I've made beams for the house with mysterious Slavic drawings carved in.

The entire thing had to be resized multiple times as I want it to be cozy and small.

 I began to make small assets. At some point I reminded myself of Baba Yaga, a witch in Slavic folklore. Her house was standing on chicken legs. Since my house is already buried deep in the ground I figured that perhaps I can make a simple table supported by chicken legs. I quite like the idea. It's quirky.

There are shelves with books and a wooden box with arrows (Bełty in old Polish).


Next thing on my asset list is a dressmaker's mannequin (I finally learnt how to spell mannequin). I wanted to have a cloak on it, that would refer to Red Riding Hood.

I used an old human body base mesh and changed it into a mannequin form.

A cloak is a simple circle shape with Cloth modifier applied.

I got a little stuck with the hood. The best option was be use a sphere and cut holes in it, one for the head and one for the neck.

This is how it looks in engine. I finished it with a pretty floral pattern, added ambient occlusion and I think I'll leave it for now. I need to add detail map later on.

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I thought it would be a good idea to post a list of assets I'm planning to build for this house. 

This is what I originally had in mind and the list keeps expanding.

Cliffs

Further on terrain shadows: they don't work.

I have travelled internets for hours. Apparently terrain shadows are turned off by default because they're unstable and buggy. I had to find a different way of having my alley dark. First I tried to put VisArea. I knew it's only meant for interiors but no one ever said I shouldn't have it outside. It soon turned out the option affects brushes only. I wasn't able to place it properly. I crashed the engine couple of times. I dropped the idea, but since I already learnt how to use VisArea, I placed it around my cave/house and it worked out really nice.

As for the alley, I built a set of cliffs in Max and decided to blend them in with my environment. I have my shadows and I also have more detail and control over how I want everything to look like.

Cliffs still need some adjusting. I need to lower and flatten the terrain above them. Also add grass and the rest of textures (normal and specular maps).

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I decided to make the house wonky and of irregular shape. 

It's big enough and fits almost perfectly with the terrain. I think I may need to adjust the size later on. 

Thanks to VisArea I am able to change the colour of ambient shadows inside. Without this volume everything would be somehow affected by the sun. Cryengine isn't very good with interiors.