Importing the character mesh into Unreal

Today I managed to get my mesh into the unreal engine (using a default texture, as my character's texture is still in production) and have it run around using animations from a standard Unreal character. I learnt that it's fairly easy and quick to use the standard animations, but because they are designed with carrying guns in mind, they wont be suitable for my characters. Instead I need to design my own animations, and overwrite the standard animation sequences. The biped used in the UT file Male_Skeleton seems to work well with my character mesh, so at least it will save time there.

The only major problem with my mesh seems to be here (looking up his legs under the 'skirt'). The mesh deforms badly and also the seams don't appear to be welded. I should probably be able to fix this by adjusting the rigging. Also, Ive also managed to export a skeleton mesh inside my character mesh, which shows up at inopportune moments, this can be fixed easily by re-exporting the mesh. Will post up the texture shortly, when it's finished.

The finished mesh

Here is a screenshot of the finished mesh in 3dS max.

UVW mapping

Again, this was completed before I went away. The head and body are now unwrapped and ready for texturing. It's a bit difficult to see what's going on with the head unwrapping, but this is due to the structure of the head - it's made up of different parts which are often at right angles to each other. Unlike with an organic head, it's not necessary to have them all flowing into each other.

Head UVs
Body UVs

Colourways

More old work I havent uploaded yet. These were used to work out the colouring for the head. I like the top left, but would also prefer to have more small white areas and lines, which were difficult to portray at this drawing scale.

Concept Art

Ok, so I've been away for a week or so, and yes it was a lovely holiday, thank you for asking. I've just realised that I never put up the concept art for my characters so here it is.

zbrush and scripty bits

Oops, been a bit lazy with posting recently. Here's some work I've been doing in zbrush on the character head. The basic shape was imported from the basic 3DS Max mesh shown in the previous post, and then sculpted further in zbrush. Unfortunately the version of UT we're using doesn't accept poly normal mapping (please, correct me if I'm wrong), so I wont actually be able to use it in the machinima. It's still useful in terms of working out the texturing though. I particularly like the wood texture just outside the mouth, which was acheived using a custom alpha brush.

I'm changing the script a bit as well, I've gone off the idea of having them talk about nothing and more thinking about what it would be like if Hindu gods were in a big brother house. I was talking to a friend about it, who's into scriptwriting, and he wrote a little bit, which I love. I dont really like the first bit about the blue puppets, but the rest I'm definately going to use. I'm going to try to have the full script finished soon, and I'll post it then.

Nomination two days after fire incident. Casper is in the diary room.

BB:Who do you nominate for one point and why.

C: Well firstly I want to nominate Bluey because he doesn’t like my jokes about blue puppets and how they’re all pedophiles and drug dealers. I didn’t hang out with many blue puppets when I was getting constructed. I heard they push drugs and fuck kids. He calls me colourist, but he’s just a blue puppet, so he must be lying.

BB: Very good, who do you nominate for 2 points and why?

C: I want to nominate Sean because he tried to kill me.

BB: How does that affect you, as a housemate.

C: I like to live; I was burning to death and he beat me, intending to kill me.

BB: But he didn’t kill you?

C: No, obviously I’m al…

BB: What? So he didn’t even kill you? Your last chance, how do his actions effect YOU, not the other housemates or the postman, but YOU as a HOUSEMATE.

C: Well, I guess they don’t.

BB: This is your final warning, who do you nominate for 2 points for eviction and why!!!

C: Well, I suppose I’ll nominate Sean because he’s also blue.

BB: You may return to the house.

Have started modelling the character today. I'm pretty happy with the head, but the body needs more work or I will run into trouble when it comes to animation. The polycount stands at 2348, before any smoothing is applied. I need to make a final decision on the costume worn by the character as well, before continuing on the body modelling. I also need to work out which animations I will need. I'd like to have a rotation of the arm at the shoulder, from palm facing up to palm facing down - is this easy to do or not? Before finishing the body, I should make up a dummy model and try out my animations with it, to identify any potential problems.