Animated Character/Monster For HPL2 Tutorial Series

[Juras]

So as I released my monster pack about a week ago I also decided to make an in-depth video tutorial series on how to make one. Specifically for HPL2, as there are very few tutorials on this subject. Now I'm not a proffesional so don't expect proffesional quality here, but I think I know enough to be able to show my personal workflow on how to make a decent monster, and hopefully teach something.

I will cover pretty much every step of how I made a functional and animated monster that you see in the image below.



The tutorial is aimed mostly towards beginners and for those who are a bit more expierenced but don't quite know how to approach the pipeline of a character, or a monster production. For HPL2 or even other game engine. The end result of your own monster will depend alot on your anatomy, modelling, texturing and animation skills/expierence, but feel free to follow me and a make similiar/same monster as best as you can so that you learn as much as possible by actually doing, and not just watching.

If you already have a monster and just want to know how to for example - rig it, animate it or export, feel free to skip through the parts of my tutorial depending on what you want to do/learn.

Part 1 - Introduction and Designing The Monster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw3FuWb3OQQ

Part 2 - Making The Base Mesh And Sculpting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRFVdSA1cIk

Part 3 - Detail Sculpting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0zrTois3Pw

Part 4 - Polypainting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnwPWcEY_gU

Part 5 - Making The Game Model And UV Unwrapping: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6colArmKo8

Part 6 - Making The Texture Maps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8McUIWXaTs

Part 7 - Making The Skeleton And Skinning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf8WQxlYuFM

Part 8 - Adding IKs, Simple Controls And Exporting The Skeletal Mesh To HPL2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cBo1ETX6k

Part 9 - Making The Idle Animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZDxeZve5TE

Part 10 - Making The Walk Animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnJo3_KOPfs

Part 11 - Making The Run Animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3wMuN5Io1Y

Part 12 - Making The Attack Animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNlNZAUEkXU

Part 13 - Setting Up The Monster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qJnmMgN3tw



Tutorial Files: (All the files from the tutorial including the Zbrush file, Maya files, and other.)

http://www.mediafire.com/download/q8bewq...torial.rar

(Of course if you're going to use this monster from this download in your project, a proper credit is required, unless you made the entire monster yourself)

Software And Hardware Used:

Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Alternative: Gimp) - Used for desinging the monster and composing the texture maps

Zbrush 4R6 (Alternative: Mudbox, Blender, or other sculpting program) - Used for making the base mesh, sculpting, polypaiting and making the game resolution mesh

Blender 2.73 - Used for cleaning up the game mesh and UV unrwrapping

Xnormal - Used for baking the texture maps

Maya 2011 - Used for rigging, animating and exporting

Wacom Intuos Pro Medium (Lower budget tablets like Bamboo will also do fine. I used Bamboo Small for 2 years and made all my ILE monsters with it before I moved on to Intuos. So don't think that you need a good tablet to become good at this) - Used for sketching, painting and sculpting. A tablet is a must if you want to make a good looking character/monster.

Even though my tutorial is aimed towards beginners I won't be covering the basics of each software as basic knowledge of how to use these programs should be expected from the viewer. However you don't have to use the exact same programs as I do. You can for example use different software for sculpting like Mudbox or even Blender if that's what you prefer to use.

Tips/Notes:

Making a character/monster/creature is different from making hard surface stuff like furniture and requires alot more "side" knowledge and artistic skills. Knowing anatomy will probably help you the most when it comes to designing and sculpting your character, monster or creature so I highly recommend studying it or atleast using references. Knowing how muscles work together will also help when skinning and animating.

In the part where I make the game resolution mesh I use Zremesher instead of making the retopology myself. That's because I didn't had enough time to do that and also because most beginners aren't too good at making good topology so Zremesher will actually give them a better result than if they would do it themselfs. That being said, being able to make the retoplogy yourself is alot more useful, so I highly recommend looking into it and practicing it, as it will make you a better 3D artist and give you a better result than Zremesher if done well.

When it comes to diffuse I only use the texture detail from my polypaint as it's often enough for me. But feel free to add extra detail using different textures when composing your texture maps inside Photoshop (or Gimp).

Lastly, I hope I'm clear enough in the videos, I blame my eastern european accent if I'm not. Feel free to ask me in the comments or in the thread here if you're not sure about something, having trouble or just don't understand what I'm talking about in the videos.

I also want to specifically thank Crisosphinx who helped me alot with animation and HPL2 about 2 years ago when I just started.

Hope this article and the videos will be able to help some of you or atleast teach something new!

Happy monster making!