The Skull Redo Part 2

 Painting the skull was amazingly fun and rewarding, the final outcome is something I'm very proud of and could say is quite possibly my favourite model so far. I have captured what I wanted to capture well, which is the menacing presence of the skeleton enemies when they shout and scream at the player. 

Maya render

Sketch-fab Render

I can't wait to see how this would look with realistic looking textures rather than hand painted, as I feel it could still capture the menacing look it holds, yet the stylised shape of it would give it a rather strange look. 

Overall I feel very happy with the outcome of this stylised render and can't wait to do more like it. The model was not full planned out either, I just saw how much the jaw changed the look of the skull while in game and decided that I needed to include it if I wanted to give the skull it's own sense of character.

The Skull Redo Part 1

 After I had so much fun making the skull, I really wanted to deep dive back into Zbrush to create something else. It was after looking at the skull in game that I noticed some of the proportions weren't entirely accurate (or at least not as good as I wanted), so I went back to the model again to key in the features properly. This time I stuck to the in game reference image like glue, rather than being relaxed like I was the first time. This yielded a much better result that I was much more proud of and help up some nice accuracy to the in-game models. 

This time, I've squared a lot of the features off, made the back of the head a lot smaller, added detail to the brow and cheekbone, completely remade the nose and remade the upper jaw section. I also sculpted the teeth in Zbrush this time instead of making them in Maya, which again made it look much better and closer to the game. 

Then I hopped in game again to play one night and noticed how on some islands have dead skeletons lying around telling a story, and they all have their lower jaw. 

Sea Of Thieves (2018 Rare)

Much to the confusion of my crew mates, I spent a good long time looking at the skeletons on the floor through my spyglass to get the right idea on how I wanted my skull to look. The lower jaw added so much personality to the skeletons that I wanted to include, so I went about sculpting it the very next morning.

Here I have arranged the skull with the jaw in Maya in three different ways to represent what I mean. The first being how the enemy skeletons appear, with their jaw agape and at an angle, a few teeth missing showing they're ready for a fight. The middle with the jaw slightly open suggesting it's been displayed on a stand of some sort, and the third with the jaw shut, indicating it either lying on the floor, or the skeleton is lying in wait.

I love the outcome of this, and I can't wait to have it textured and looking mean, and to see how well a realistic texture would fit on such a stylised and animated look.

The Skull Part 2

 Painting the skull was super fun, I had a great 9 hour session getting the whole thing to look perfect. At first, the UV looked daunting to me being the shape that it was, but once I got the feel for how it was lay out, I managed to produce a result I'm very proud of. I will definitely be doing a few variations of textures for this model before moving onto the realistic textures version, and it has even inspired me to create more skulls from the game after this one, and even my own variation.

Here is the skull with the base colour on, rendered in Maya. I attempted to make the glow of the eyes and the nose look genuine even without an emmissive map (but added one later).

The proportions of the skull are slightly off from the game, as being a bit rusty in Zbrush after not using it for so long, I forgot all about dynamic perspective, and had been sculpting the whole time without it, and so had to alter the sculpt afterwards to fit the reference better. I've noticed the skulls from the game have a lot sharper edges than my skull, and the eyes are pushed further back so that the player can still see the silhouette from above. When I sculpted my skull, I was using reference images from concept art and in game images so my skull ended up being a mixture of those two. 

The skull in Sketchfab with a normal map, lighting, and emissive maps is all included Here

I feel as though this model has really pushed my skills in terms of sculpting, UVing, and painting and I have enjoyed every minute of my time with the model. Now I've finished this iteration of the texture, I shall be doing another skull from the game, and then my own variation of the texture. The other skull from the game (Hateful Bounty Skull) is a glistening silver skull with a few more deeper cracks throughout, and more glowing parts in different areas.

Hateful Bounty Skull (Sea Of Thieves - Rare 2018)

My version from the same perspective

The Skull Part 1

 This model has been a bit different that my previous ones, as I decided it would be easier and a bit more fun to try and sculpt it in Zbrush. I haven't touched Zbrush in a while so jumping back into it was a bit daunting, but it eventually came back to me and I have been able to produce a nice looking bounty skull that fits the style of the game nicely. 

I am very pleased with the outcome from this sculpt as it looks very similar to the ones in the game. I will spend the next few days retopologising, baking and UVing the model in Maya in order to hand paint it. I am going to be doing a few variations of the hand painted skull. During the sculpt, I opted to leave the teeth out and make them in Maya, as they are very simple shapes that won't take much time to make and place. Overall I'm very excited to get working on the texturing for this model, and I'm certain that this will push the boundries for a realistic texture on a stylised model.

The Dagger Part 3

 This was a super fun model to work on honestly, I didn't think it would be because I'm not really into modeling weaponry but both the modeling and textureing side of this was super fun. As I predicted too, the realistic textures fit on the model decently well, showing the versitility of the Sea Of Thieves art style. 

The centre metal part and the side metal parts are it's weakest points of interest on the realistic textured version as I feel I made the scale of it a little too big. Compared to the stylised texture, I feel as though it looks no where near as good however, making the test still a success.

Comparitavely, The stylised texture does not work as well as the realistic does on the bottom painted part of the handle. When painting this section, I couldn't settle on the look I wanted for it.

For the next experiment, I'll be attempting something a little out of my comfort zone. I will be creating a skull from the Sea Of Thieves. I feel as though that would be a very difficult model to project with a realistic texture, as the shape of the skull is one of the most stylised things in the game in my opinion. 

Sea Of Thieves Foul Bounty Skull (Rare 2018)

This will not only push the boundries of the realistic style versus stylised, but will also be a test to my modeling skills as I have never attemped anything in this way.

The Dagger Part 2

 After a long time with lots of trial and error with certain parts, I have finished the texture for the dagger in the hand painted style and am quite happy with the outcome it has produced.

The end piece of the dagger towards the bottom left of the screen shot is the area I just could not get right. I wasn't sure how to have the orb part or the black end part of the handle at all. The blade on the top however and the silver metal on the top turned out perfectly I feel, and can't wait to see how a realistic looking texture would sit on it. One thing inparticular however is the texture is quite a bit different from the style of Sea Of Thieves. I feel as though a realistic texure would sit quite well on the dagger as not every piece of it is super stylised on the model.

The Dagger Part 1

 For the third test of realism versus stylised, I've jumped back to where I got the best looking results; Sea Of Thieves. This time however, I'm tackling something a lot less volitile, and a lot less explosive. This time I've modeled the dagger the pirates use when voting for a voyage. The simple dagger is quite small but is used a lot, every pirate on the seas has one in the game, but can only use them for voting (or an emote if you want one). I chose the dagger because although it's small, it has a decent amount of textures; metal, wood, leather, and stone. The handle of the blade is made of wood, yet is wrapped up in leather, which I have yet to properly attempt with hand painting.

Sea Of Thieves 2018 (Rare)

I have added my own style to the leather, and included a small chip into the blade's edge to give it a more used look. I am exited to see how the blade comes out in both styles as the gunpowder barrel looked pleasing in realistic and stylised texturing.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker Part 2

 As I expected, the axe itself looks very odd with the photographed textures instead of the hand painted ones. It looks very out of place due to the shape of the model, which I feel made it a semi success. I only say semi as while it is pushing the boundries of the texturing, it doesn't look to fantastic in my opinion. The gunpowder barrel definitely worked a lot better with the realistic textures on it compared to this.

Even after colour correcting and reshaping the images, I couldn't get the axe to look good with the photographed textures. This gives some genuine success however as the experiment is to see how well textures can be swapped from real to stylised in order to portray a different style.

One big difference in the two is the obvious colour change, as I discovered that a greyed out variation of the metal I found looked too similar to concrete flooring rather than metal. I also decided to keep in the rust at the bottom of the axe as the painted one has rust incorporated into the design somewhat.

For my next test due to how well it worked I will be attempting a stylised dagger to see if I can capture realism with a metal weapon even when it is stylised.

The Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker Part 1

 After looking through examples of stylised realism, and also carrying out the gunpowder barrel test, I concluded that I needed to reach further into the realm of stylised models in order for the realistic looking textures to truely look out of place or as boundry pushing as I intended. To do this, I went back to one of my favourite games growing up; Team Fortress 2. I was initially going to recreate the pyro's standard fire axe, but I felt that the shape may be a similar situation to the gunpowder barrel, in which it can look both stylised and realistic because of the shape of the model itself being quite simple.

Team Fortress 2 (2007 - Valve)

Because of this, I decided to create the axe used by the halloween boss creature known as The Horseless Headless Horsemann.

The axe is swung by the boss in the game during halloween events, in which both teams must come together to take him down to get a piece of haunted scrap metal. If a player chooses, they can get their own Headtaker using the in game crafting system and combine the haunted scrap metal with an axe for the Demoman.

I feel like this would be a great test for realistic versus stylised textures, as the shape of the axe head is so peculiar it would be severely impractical in real life so I feel would just look out of place with realistic looking textures. Painting this by hand has been fun, as I've tried to keep the same style as Team Fortress does, and incorporate a bit of my own style in places too.

Stylised Realism

While sounding strange at first, stylised realism is something a lot of companies use in both games, shows and movies to portray a certain method of style. Often, stylisation and realism are at opposite ends of the style spectrum which is a large factor in what makes stylised realism so appealing and unique.

What Is Stylised Realism?

It all stems from the idea of maintaining the original concept artist's stylistic interpretations of a character or scene, and creating the most detailed textures, realistic lighting and shaders available to create a truely believable world for the viewer to immerse themselves in. 

Examples

An excellent first example of stylised realism is from Pixar, before Pixar was it's own company that is. The Adventures of Andre & Wally B from 1984 is one of the very first examples of the style. At only one minute and fourty seven seconds, The Graphics Group (as Pixar were known as back then) boasts two characters, Andre the human like character, and Wally B, the bee. The two characters are in a rendered forest which for the time is about as realistic as one could get through CGI.

Disneyplus.com. 1984. Watch The Adventures Of André & Wally B. | Full Movie | Disney+. [online] Available at: <https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/the-adventures-of-andr%C3%A9-wally-b/3NpHD7vwk2Ov>

The lighting, shaders and textures of the forest and the character are all examples of early stylised realism, which for it's time is mind blowing.

Pixar have gone on to master this techniques better than any other company in the film industry as evidenced by their newer release of Toy Story 4.

IMDb. 2019. Toy Story 4 (2019) - Imdb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1979376/> 

The lighting and attention to detail with the world around the characters is phenomenal, yet still keeping the characters stylised enough to avoid uncanny valley territory. 

IMDb. 2019. Toy Story 4 (2019) - Imdb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1979376/> 

The toys and the humans are both as realistically rendered as they could possibly get without making them creepily human. This is done to avoid any unsettling imagery accidentally being produced in the films as they are primarily aimed at young children. The textures being rendered at such a high level of detail along with the stylistic shapes of the models and characters give the film this stylised realism appearance. For example, take the purple shirt that the man is wearing, compared to the first Toy Story which would have been a single block colour without the threads or the fibres is a huge step up, and is something that most stylised approaches to games or film don't bother to include. The hair is another fine example, as in most stylised things hair would be a single 3D mesh or even a part of the character itself as one object. In Toy Story 4 the hair is visible to each individual strand, making the style more prominent.
Below are more examples of the extent to which Pixar takes this style. The world of Toy Story is truely magical and mesmerising to a child, and Pixar's ability to push the boundries of realism with their works astounds people by the masses.

Scratched, old plastic

80s looking toy

Small details on Woody

The fibres on a pipe cleaner

The old pottery on Bow Peep

The hyper-realistic cat

Stylised Realism In Games

Unravel:

Unravel follows a character made of yarn named Yarny, through a highly detailed realistic looking world with a stylistic undertone. The player must use utilize Yarny's abilities to solve puzzles in unique ways, for example swinging across gaps using the very thing that holds him together, and pulling objects towards him by using himself as a lasso.

Unravel 2 (EA)

Unravel's game world is a wonderful mix of photorealism and stylisation, that leaves the player feeling as though they are venturing through one of Pixar's own films themselves, with the high poly meshes and photorealistic textures, it captures a style most games only hope to achieve.

Halo Infinite:
In a switch of styles, Halo Infinite takes the once realistic style of halo and adds a semi cartoonistic approach to the franchise. 

Halo Infinite (343)

In the images above, Brohammer (the pilot) is portrayed in a styled realism fashion along with Master Chief being the same way. The shape of the armour and colourisation is a lot softer and more stylistic than 343's previous two Halo games.

Halo 5: Guardians (343)

This image from Halo 5: Guardians demonstrates just how big of a leap in styles the company has taken from one game to the next, with 5 being heavily realistic with lifelike characters and renders in cutscenes.

Illustrative Rendering:

This term has been coined by the developers of Team Fortress 2, a long standing class based shooter set in the 1960s. While stylised realism is not inherantly used in game, the concept art for the game demonstrates it well.

The concept artists for the game chose to create a unique silhouette for each of the nine playable classes, in order for players to distinguish the exact threat incoming even in the darkest areas of the map. The early concepts for the game are very remenicant of early war time posters and propoganda, with fine examples of stylised realism in play.

Team Fortress 2 Concept art (Valve)

The art from concept differs massively from in game, as the character models in game are no where near stylised realism, and are more cell shaded, cartoon renders. While the detail from the concept is missing, the key parts of the silhouette remain, allowing the characters to continue to be recognisable and icon amongst the gaming industry.

The Gunpowder Barrel Part 3

 After going out into the world to collect the textures for the realistic version, I spent a good hour colour correcting and tinting to match a similar colour scheme to the hand painted version. It took a while, but looks to be worth it as the final result came out quite decent in my opinion. 

I tried to maintain the colour scheme as best as I could throughout the test, which I feel I have managed to do. The painted wood is a little on the cleaner side on the realistic barrel, yet I feel as though that is more true to how it would look if the barrel were to be brought to life. I feel like I must push this test furthur with a more stylised asset, as the barrel looks natural with realistic and stylised textures either way. The paper on the front however still holds a bit too much stylisation though, and looks odd with the realistic textures, which I feel is down to the large cartoonish tears in the top and bottom. The bolts going through the paper is something I expected not to translate well to realism, yet seems to fit quite nicely on the model.

Even though both models only have an albedo, the realistic model has some sheen to it due to the lighting conditions I took the photos, giving another spec of realism. I have tried to angle any lighting from the sun in the same sort of direction on the texture to create a realistic looking sheen without using a metal map.

I think this model was only marginally successful in pushing the boundries, as both textures seem to sit comfortably and not look out of place. For the next experiment, I am going to try something a lot more stylised with a visibly stronger silhouette. For this, I will be looking into stylised realism in games and other industries to develop a furthur understanding of the medium.

The Gunpowder Barrel Part 2

 Now that I have taken the time to hand paint the gunpowder barrel, I've come to the conclusion that I really enjoy hand painting stylisted textures. So far the only texture I have made is a stylised one, with a realistic texture either in Substance or with photographic texturing on the way. 

So far there is only an albedo on the keg and nothing else, but I will be placing a roughness, normal, metal and potentially an AO map on it when the realistic texture is finished. This is so I can have them rendered with proper lighting in UE4 to give them both the best look they can achiveve and also give the textures the same advantage. The realistic textures will be created using images I will take myself using my own camera equipment and be placed into photoshop. I feel as though so far the stylistic textures fit the barrel well and at this stage I think the photographical textures will look out of place on the stylised shape of the barrel, especially on the paper as that is the most misshapen.

The main reason I have settled on Sea Of Thieves assets to try this experiment on is because the game holds a very unique single brush stroke type style which I feel is a very good example of the stylised versus realism that I wish to obtain.