Devlog 3 : 3D characters

In this devlog, I’ll tell you all about 3d characters in PMC!

Hey gang! I’m back from the dead! (this devlog might have been planned to be out by Halloween^^;)

It’s been a while since last devlog! Three months actually. I was on holidays for a part of it, did a lot of non-gamedev related work, fixed a bike… and finally started working on the 3d models!

So first things first, drawing reference pictures :

Here’s (most) of the cast. As said in the previous devlog, my big inspiration is Final Fantasy 7. And like in FF7, the characters will have two models (except if I find it too much work and keep only one). These ones are the “overworld” versions, with cartoonish proportions.

After making the references, it’s time to open Blender and start making some polygons!

After the models, it’s texture time. While I’m taking inspiration from FF7, I don’t want to make a PS1-style game (a style that I really like btw). My goals with the art-style I’m going for is : 1) lowpoly 2) cool looking 3) easy to make. So for the textures, I’m going with simple gradients - a not-too-hard style to produce, and is a good halfway point between modern and retro.

It took me 6 hours to texture all of those models. Not bad!

After that, it was time to rig them. Rigging was easy enough as I could copy and paste the armatures between them… but weight painting took me so much time! I’m a beginner so I don’t know if there is a better way to do it^^; (and automatic weights weren’t what I was looking for, as I don’t want to bend the models)

And that’s it ! Next up, animations ! I’ll also probably start working on either the fight models or the backgrounds before next devlog… We’ll see.

(animations here come from the mixamo library www.mixamo.com)

Did you like this devlog? Please leave a comment if you would want to see more specific stuff, what details I should talk about more, what I should change, etc. For example : I didn’t put a full timelapse here as I didn’t think it’d be interesting enough, but if you would want to see one, feel free to ask :D

See you on the next one!