While this site is mostly dedicated to my work on the game Nature Survives, I wanted to share a preview of a more recent piece of my work and some of the design process that went into this toucans creation.
The objective behind this asset was to create a lower poly animation ready creature that would retain visual appeal when viewed from a great distance. A lot of my work is abstract and fantasy themed, and this project gave me an opportunity to branch out into the territory of creating a real world creature, with a few caveats.
I set an upper poly limit of 2500 as an optimization goal, so the asset would be suitable in a potential game environment that might feature a ton of creatures, or other assets. The asset would mostly be seen from a great distance, but would retain enough detail to hold a degree of visual appeal when viewed more closely.
Toucans feature a very distinct silhouette, specifically in the shape of their large beaks. To capture the appeal and character of the toucan accurately, this detail would have to translate well into my asset. To achieve this, I collected a lot of real world reference of toucans, and shaped the various aspects of the mesh to accurately reflect the toucans distinct real-world proportions.
As I wanted the model to be animation ready, it was also important from the first day of modelling to incorporate a functional tongue and beak that could open and close, and be articulated by the bird when it is set in motion.
The biggest obstacle I initially faced with this project was finding the best way to approach the creation of the birds wings, so that they look appealing articulate well, and don't eat too far into the polygon budget. I studied some models online to see how other more experienced artists had handled this challenge and initially replicated the method of layering the wings with multiple rows of individual feathers that could be articulated one by one. A consequence of this was that even lower poly feathers accumulate, and building the wings out of a series of low poly feathers eventually adds up.
Especially as the asset is to be mostly viewed from a great distance, individual feather detail didn't seem necessary. However if the wings are too simple, they might not animate smoothly, and they might appear unnatural, even at a distance.
So I achieved a middle ground of utilizing the majority of the wing as a base mesh, shaped to the proportions of a toucans wing to cut down on their polygon consumption. I then spent some of this budget cutting the wings into digits that could later move in conjunction with one another through their own independent bones. Finally, I shaped off the ends of each digit to take on the appearance of feathers, perhaps allowing for the tips of the wings to be individually articulated, to give the illusion that the wing is made up of feathers. This would be further communicated later on through the usage of textures.
After some cleaning of the base mesh topology (both to reduce poly count and to help with animations) the model was coming just under my limit at 2380 polys, which is excellent. It was time to move onto the UVing of the model.
As the model is intended to be seen from above, details from the underside of the body would be seen far less frequently than the beak, the head, the tops of the wings, etc. As a result, most of the island space was dedicated to those details. Most of the birds character comes from its head, so it was important to me that the birds facial details including the beak were communicated with the most clarity. The top of the wings will always be visible, and feather detail is important so the upper wings are dedicated a significant amount of the space.
Resolution space could have been saved by mirroring various details such as the wings, but I decided that I wanted to give each island its own dedicated area in the map. My reasoning behind this is that it allows for reskins of the model to feature unique characteristics such as a scar on one eye, or a charred wing, or more distinct color variations across the model. I didn't want to limit the potential of new textures by forcing them to adhere to perfect symmetry.
Much of the toco toucans body is made up of a dark blue/black coat, which especially from a distance makes it difficult to communicate these subtle details. The answer to this problem was to use a lot of contrasting lines across the coat to represent the smaller hairs and feathers across the body. An advantage to these circumstances is that the main body itself wouldn't require copious amounts of island space, allowing more space to be allocated to the beak, wings, eyes, and head.
All the colors across the birds body were layered in gradually using different color shades, and even varying levels of reflectivity, where appropriate. This prevents the textures from looking overly flat, and also gives the coat some more realistic variation, especially when it is exposed directly to a light source.
This is the toucans eye in the dark. When exposed to daylight, these emissive elements aren't visible, but in darkness, they allow the bird to retain some of its visual character through the retention of some of its tropical colors.
Special attention was given to the wing textures. Rows of feathers were implied through the usage of spines and different shades of blue across the span of the wing, and the contrast of tones between each main feather gives off the subtle illusion that a lower layer of feathers compose the bottom of the wings.
The toucan had a necessary level of tonal variation and detail across its body by this point in development, so the time had come to develop a skeleton and rig it to the base mesh.
Real toucans move with a lot of fluidity, not just in their wings, but through the twisting of their necks, and the clenching of their talons, which I wanted my rig to reflect, allowing the bird to retain its real world character.
Once rigged, I would pose the toucanin extensive, but realistically achievable poses to discover and correct artifacts that would appear in the mesh where possible, until the toucan could successfully pose in a variety of positions.
I did experience a challenge when attempting to fold the wings due to the lower poly count, but after some fiddling I was able to define a pose for each of the wings to fold, which I could then use as a template for other poses that would require the wings to be folded or unfolded.
In the end I was able to achieve my goal, a toucan that both... looks like a toucan from a distance, and has a rig that allows for the toucan to achieve a variety of poses, in turn enabling the rig to be animated down the line.
Hopefully this has been an interesting read, and provides a window of insight into my work, and my approach to tackling challenges both in the form of unprecedented obstacles and new projects.
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