Creating 3D Character Models.

Dev Diary #14

A couple of weeks ago, we were put into our teams for the final Game Development game jam and chose a game to take on as our project. Due to not being there at the time, I was only given a description of the game from my teammates and the idea of creating and animating 3d character models when neither me or Esmé (the other artist on our team) have 0 experience in the area, concerned me a bit. At the time, my team agreed on compromising and allowing us to create 'billboard' sprites in 2d which would be much easier and potentially less time consuming since we wouldn't have to learn how to do it prior to making them. Recently however, I was able to watch the video brief that was shown to my team and after watching it, I think 3d characters would work much better. Despite my concerns of time scale and how much we would have to learn, the video specifies that it would be low-poly, a much easier medium to work with than the realistic looking characters I was imagining to begin with. Additionally, I did some research and found lots of online tutorials that would be able to help, including a 10 minute video* that details every stage of the process from drawing and designing the character, to modelling, texturing, rigging, animating and even importing to Unity and programming it to move and animate as it goes. Overall, the idea of creating 3d character models seems less scary than I initially thought it would be and as it's something I've wanted to learn for a while, I've decided that I would give it a go.

* Video found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogz-3r0EHKM&t=703s

Jelle Vermandere(2020, Aug 2) How To Make A 3D Character For Your Game (Blender to Unity) [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogz-3r0EHKM&t=703s