Behind the scenes: another 3D Jord (pictures in links)

Hiya gang,

I've had some requests for information on how the 3D dancing Cobra was made... woof, there's a lot to unpack. This will give you a very surface level view of the software I use and the workflow, but it'll at least provide a sense of how my software works. I've gone through several iterations of 3D Cobras, with one of my earliest being made about a year ago.

A rant about Blender

No bones about it, the 3D software Blender is great. It's free, and can do just about anything. However, people are always surprised that I don't use it. In my experience (and I'm sure for many others), I tried to do the hours of Blender tutorials and simply found it to be way too intimidating. I got super lucky and was recommended Bryce3D (the old 90s CGI software), which served as a great introduction for a dumb baby like myself as it had an incredibly intuitive UI. Some of my more recent works made in Bryce here. They make for great desktop wallpapers.

When I needed to move onto more modern software, I eventually found Reallusion Character Creator & iClone, which was an absolute godsend, for reasons that will probably start to make sense later on.

Sculptris

An IRL friend asked me about modeling, and again Blender came up. Can't help but mention that when I do need to create a new, organic model, I'll use a program called Sculptris (lol I'm sure I've mentioned it here before, sorry). It's completely free and REALLY fun to use when you get the hang of it. Lately I've been using it to do 3D prints! You'll see here the thing being made in Sculptris, then being sent to my 3D printer software, and finally the result.     


Making a boglim

Bear with me, Patreon does not like the idea of embedding images into the actual text. Blehhhh
Regrettably this is all being shown AFTER it was all done, which isn't quite the same.

-I always start with using CC's (Character Creator) headshot plugin which takes a front facing image and generates a textured mesh. While it's not perfect, it's a superb starting point. Dunno why the photo I fed into looks all sparkly.

-The overall face mesh can be adjusted in a ton of ways. I always think of Oblivion's character creator and it's numerous sliders that got abused back in the day. This is key for really exagerrating all the weird nuances of Cobra's giant spaghetti squash head.

-The body can be adjusted with tons of sliders as well. Being able to start with a base head, body, etc is insanely useful in terms of saving time. Because I'm oddly self conscious about doing this, I wanna say that I can also make a rigged body in Sculptris, it would just take me way longer for approximately the same result. A have a ton of base clothes, accessories, etc in the software that can be modified according to the subject. Hair also works the same way, I have a big ol catalog of hair components that can be modified.

-Fun details like the foot rash are easily added via Photoshop. Same goes for his wicked tattoos. The process is basically the same for stuff like his shirt and pants.

-Skin details are added. Eyeliner, dirt, scars, and the overall rough & shiny squality of his skin are all done here. The software is so good with this stuff, lately I've been seeing video games that might be using this same creator... not totally sure though! I know my software can port into Unreal Engine, which is still pretty dang popular with game devs.

-Finally Josh gets transported through time and space into iClone. For the vid of him dancing with Snake, I was able to make the original vid of Snake dancing the background, and then adjusted Cobra's shadow to match. Fortunately because they're both dancing in a big white void, I could simply keyframe the camera to adjust. Motion capture sequences were to applied to Josh, and arranged in the timeline.

Puffers model

I downloaded a free 3D model of a bearded dragon, and assigned it bones so that it could dance during the animation (crude prototype here). However since it looked like Puff was perpetually about to be stepped on during, I scrapped the idea. He has it bad enough as it is.

CONCLUSION

I'm sure there's a lot about the process that is still vague, but hopefully this at least shows you my workflow, and what it's like to use my software. While it may SEEM like these animations would take me weeks, the time saving tools I'm lucky enough to use make the project more of a fun, brief distraction, rather than a massive time sink. If you guys have any questions about any specific work I've done, don't be a stranger! I'm happy to provide what I did as best I can.

P.S. for anyone curious about getting CC & iClone, you have to be particularly good at sailing the high seas in minecraft unless you're willing to go completely bankrupt in purchasing it. For all the conveniences it provides, they want to charge an arm and a kidney for each one. I say this only because I would absolutely hate for somebody to put down a pile of money for the base software, only to realize there's still a ton of nickel and diming for every little feature you're going to need.