Devlog: Week #5 2

Hello, my name is Dylan and I am one of the two character artists working on this game. While I have made many assets for the game (including a bench, an electrical box, a museum display case, a section of metal shelving, and more), the main contribution I have mad thus far is a sub-boss dubbed the Chimera. The main inspiration for the design is an 1868 reconstruction of the Late Cretaceous marine reptile Elasmosaurus Platyurus in where they mistakenly put the head on the tail instead of the neck.

This first design was made by me for the alpha build of the game. For this design, I stook pretty closely to that reconstruction, with the main difference being the set of flippers right next to the bigger ones since that reconstruction only had one set. I added them to give it a more unique silhouette.

The first step of making the model picture above was sculpting it out in ZBrush. This is to get the basic body plan down and get more intricate detailing in. Then, I port the high poly model into Maya and retypologize it using the quad draw tool. This is crucial because having a lower poly model is less costly on the game performance wise and is also easier to UV. Speaking of which, the next step is to UV the model so that the textures could appear properly. It is here where I made the mistake of rigging the model before texturing it. This was a mistake because the rig messed up the mesh baking, which meant I couldn't transfer the details of the high poly model properly. The last thing that I did to this first model before pushing it into the game was making a rough animation for testing purposes.

When our alpha build was tested, one of the pieces of feedback was that the old design was lackluster and that it needed to be changed. I decided to completely overhaul the design so I can make the concept more clear and also to add in more elements such as a spirit head and flippers to make it more obviously a spiritual boss. Other changes include the anatomy more closely resembling Elasmosaurs and more prominent stitching to better show the parts that are incorrectly placed. I also decided to remake it it before Beta as it gives the rest of the team more time to make it work in game. Picture below is a concept sketch of the new design that I made in around 2 hours.

The modeling process essentially went the same as the last time. The one major difference is that I made sure that I textured the model before rigging it so I could bake it properly. I particularly had fun messing with testing the opacity for the spirit head and flippers. The new model can be seen pictured below.

Lastly, I would like to share a rigging demonstration that I made today.