haracter Builder

Dadaskis is here... This is by far the most serious post here. At least, the one i'd actually wish to elaborate on. For the time being i've been working on a utility tool called "Character Builder". It is supposed to resolve one of the critical workflow issues that this project had whenever it came to creation of characters.

[previewyoutube="1mj7gKSQJ20;full"][/previewyoutube]

How was it made before?

• Create a high-poly model of clothes to combine in one mesh afterwards.

• Making a quick, dirty low-poly with Instant Meshes.

• UV unwrapping, baking, texturing, quick rigging, tada.

In 8 hours i could make one character! Or, not really 8 hours, sometimes more if you had to make quadruple NVGs for example. This workflow was blazingly fast, really. However, it was suffering from issues that were rather offputting for me as a developer:

• Each character would require at least 8 hours of work, of course, it could be less... but it would come at cost.

• There's no possibility to reuse any parts of already existing characters.

• Higher level of detail usually meant going through several circles of hell. Would you like to take a hellish ride?

• Hard surface modelling (forementioned NVGs) is rather complex.

• It is nearly impossible to go back and change one little thing in a model.

• And so on, if you have certain experience in modelling, you might mention even more of these points.

But, why do you need this tool?

So, i wanted to get a change in my life. Here, i would like to elaborate on my logic when it comes to visuals... I should say that i don't really care about graphics, like, really. I mean, it's cool to have something that might look like something-something high-fidelity, high-detail, and so on. It is also an industry rat race that doesn't seem to be pleasing. In this case, i'm not even an artist, but an engineer that says to himself: "If it works, don't touch it". I use the end results as something for analysis, but in the end, i always pay more attention to workflow. If it is painful to work, then it is almost guaranteed to provide bad results. And, of course, optimization is always something i wish to get in first place. Hence why paying more attention to creation of tools for creation of visual content is way, way more preferable to me. Whenever i've taken a look on my older workflow, i saw a mess that needs a fix, even if i was pretty much happy with the end result (nobody else except me btw). However, after numerous prototypes, i realized i need more solid storytelling. Comics renderer and the entire comics system show characters in more detail. This way, i would need to fix 2 problems: More characters, and, of course, more detail in characters. The old workflow was no longer sustainable in this case.

What problems Character Builder is solving?

It provides a solid workflow to make characters of any complexity. In fact, it works like constructor of characters. If you ever played GTA, you probably were using their dressing system at least once to change appearance of your character. In this case, Character Builder is quite similar. However, in this case, it is usable for making of character models, that later can be used for NPCs or comic scenes. In this case...

• Character Builder is providing "character parts" to add parts that have influence of multiple bones. These can be rather complex clothes or equipment.

• "Character details" are objects that are attached to a bone (100% bone weight influence on all vertices), in this case, it can be ammo rig pouches, radios, goggles, minor reusable details.

• Solid preview of a moving character to show how vertex weights are working.

• Possibility to save and return later.

• All assets can be loaded in real-time, you don't have to wait for Godot to import models or textures.

• Subtextures support and material editing for even more visual control.

• Export of GLTFs with minimal amount of materials by creation of combined, optimized texture atlas.

• Due to more modular workflow, work can be split between multiple artists working on different parts/details.

• And probably a bit more.

How does Character Builder affect the workflow?

It is slow now! I mean, don't get me wrong... When you have to create a character from scratch, it might take a while. However, in the end, if you make enough of these clothes, you can change their textures, make more variation, etc etc etc. So, it is slow to start, but the more you work with it, the bigger your asset library gets and then you get faster development of characters. That means more creative freedom in creation of any characters. This is something i wanted to get in the end. And this tool was the only way to get it working. Of course, i was trying to research it for quite a while. The closest thing that worked the way i wanted was "Mixamo Fuse" program. However, it didn't do a good job with combining materials, it was rather complex to set up my own custom content and etc. Creation of this tool was only question of time and the time has come.

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Thanks, Cali

During recreation of merc_light_unit0, my friend @00::000C - C4 helped me to create optimized high-detailed parts of the character specifically for the head. In this case, @00::000C - C4 made...

• Recreation of 6B47, both covered and uncovered variants (only covered were used in the end result).

• High-detailed respirator with a lot of fancy straps all around.

• GSSH-01 headphones.

• Knife pouch with an additional pen just in case.

• GP pouch (maybe for medicals, maybe for everything).

Once again, thank you very much @00::000C - C4 for participating in development of this character. [img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44790093/2d2eb659bd8273474f00f5f89169c4786479a616.png"][/img][img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44790093/3be108de696edfcd24ace22a3bdb7502eddb778f.png"][/img]

[ 2025-06-09 07:57:26 CET ] [ Original post ]