Hellstabber

Game creature.

Rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 2.

Creature Polycount: 20.6K Triangles

Based on concept by Chad Weatherford.

Process:

High-Res Model - The creature was sculpted in ZBrush where a balance was established between the original concept and aesthetics/believability in a 3D medium. This was done by using the concept as a reference for the overall form of the creature while using a mixture of human and various animal anatomies as reference for the mid level forms and details.

Game-Res Model -The high-res sculpt was then re-topologized in Maya to create the game-res mesh. When doing this my main focus was keeping the poly-count at low level with minimal sacrifice to the silhouette and form of the model.

UV - Half of the model was UVed in Maya on a single 4k texture map which was used symmetrically across the model to optimize texture space and reduce the number of texture maps. 

Maps - Normal and ambient occlusion maps were baked in xNormal. Diffuse, specular, gloss, subsurface scatter and emissive maps were created in Photoshop. The xNormal plugin in Photoshop was also used to add extra details to the normal maps.

Textures - The model was textured using Photoshop; 3D Coat was used to paint over the UV seams. High-res animal images and textures were used to create realistic patterns and variation. Extra care was taken to create a pattern that would not draw attention to the symmetry of the model. 

Render - Look dev was done in Marmoset where the model was also lit and rendered. An additional render was created using V-Ray to showcase the original sculpt.