Creating a Game Character in Blender

Create a game character with Blender's free 3D toolset, while you build your modeling, sculpting, and texturing skills.

Blender has a lot of complex menus, nodes, and processes. But when you combine these with a little imagination, you can create realistic game characters straight out of another world. This course shows how to build a character with Blender's free 3D toolset, while you develop your modeling, sculpting, and texturing skills. Christian Bradley shows how to create a base mesh, sculpt the character, and bake it down into a low-poly version suitable for game play. He also shows how to UV unwrap the figure, apply normal maps, and paint in base colors and other details with Blender's Texture Paint mode.

Introduction

• Welcome
• Using the exercise files
• What you should know before watching this course
• Basic interface options and shortcuts in Blender

1. Getting Started in Blender with the Base Mesh

• Setting up image planes
• Blocking out the leg
• Adding the mirror modifier
• Adding edge loops and smoothing
• Blocking out the chest and hips
• Blocking out the arms
• Blocking in the back and neck
• Blocking out the hands and duplicate fingers
• Blocking out the hooves

2. Using Retopo to Make a Low-Poly Head

• Using Dyntopo in sculpting mode to make a base mesh on the head
• Using retopo to make the head base: Part 1
• Using retopo to make the head base: Part 2
• Adjusting the low-poly head mesh
• Adding horns to the character

3. Sculpting the Character Forms

• The multiresolution modifier
• Setting up the sculpt menu
• Laying down clay strips to define form in the body
• Sculpting the hands
• Finishing the hand and sculpting the head

4. Creating the Lower Poly Version of the Character

• Duplicating the mesh and creating low and high variations
• Reducing the polygon levels
• Cleaning up the scene
• Creating an accessory for the minotaur

5. UV Unwrapping the Figure and Adding Materials

• Using the Relax add-on script
• Overview of Blender unwrapping basics: Part 1
• Overview of Blender unwrapping basics: Part 2
• Combining the UV elements into one UV space

6. Making the Normal Maps

• Exporting the models
• Baking normal maps in xNormal
• Baking normals in Blender
• Applying normal maps

7. Texture Paint

• Overview of the texture paint mode and brushes
• Painting the figure base colors
• Painting the figure details
• Reviewing the final painting details

Next Steps

• Goodbye