Drunken Kung Fu Master

- Production Guide -

by flopoloco

Introduction

This guide is a quick tutorial for making Normal Mapped Models in Blender3D. As you might

already know, models that use normal mapping are ideal for interactive applications (such

as games or simulations), also they seem to be quite useful in 3D CG animation by

shortening rendering times.

Through this guide you will find out how I made Drunken Kung Fu Master but you will also

gain the needed knowledge to apply the workflow pipeline to your own projects. Keep in

mind in order to keep this tutorial short I describe things in general, and dive a bit into

details. I expect readers to be quite advanced in Blender and modeling, but who ever can’t

keep up could have a look on some recommended links, at the end of this guide.

Required tools:

Blender3D: Initially this guide made on a Blender3D 2.46 SVN so it should be

compatible with the current supplied version.

Gimp: My preferred software for texturing, however you can use anything you like.

What’s up next:

1. Sculpting and Concept art

2. 3D Modeling

3. Sculpting (adding details)

4. UV Unwrapping

5. Texture Painting

6. Texture Mapping (apply textures to mesh)

7. Resources

1. Sculpting and Concept art

About this model

At first I only wanted to make a head with Normal Map shading, I started playing with the

sculpting tool in Blender and I came up with a mutated man. Just before modeling I decided

to change the subject. I wanted to keep some characteristics (loss of hair, the closed left eye,

the tongue that pops out of mouth – and is looking quite funny :P). No more no less, a

Drunken Kung Fu Master was ready for the fight.

You might think that concept art takes place in

2D drawing, you absolutely right, but sculpting

in Blender seemed 10 times more productive

and fun. Also what I liked most and considering

as a serious time-saver, was just the ability to use the same model for my blueprints.

Blueprints made just in 2 seconds, by duplicating the model, positioning it a bit rightwards

and rotating in 90 degrees in Z axis.

2. 3D Modeling

The mission here was to make a totally simplified version of the sculpting, so in order to

complete a model I followed the rest steps:

Hiding the back vertices of the head, to work the face details

Modeling an ear (box modeling on-the-fly, nothing too tricky)

Apply a Mirror modifier

Closing the eye holes (keeping in mind the significant difference of those two)

3. Sculpting (adding details)

This part was crucial because the details would finalize the model. A quick tip you can follow

in sculpting is to work in a level until you are satisfied with the results, then you can add one

more level of detail. Below I will show some of the stages of sculpting the Master!

Multires 1

Multires 2

Multires 3

Multires 4

At level 4 there were enough details, also my low-end PC couldn’t keep up

with update rates, so I stopped. Just to finalize level 4 I used a texture

brush in sculpting made the top of the head looking rough, like being

shaved.

You can go as far as you like with details (or maybe as long your PC can handle :P), keep in

mind that microscopic details are not always needed. You will have to consider other

parameters first such as the distance of camera or scene quality, then you can decide which

details you want to work.

4. UV Unwrapping

Unwrapping a 3D model is a simple process, the mission here is to select some polygons and

arrange them in a 2D map.

Just before you start, you will have to bring the model

detail to level 1 (mesh restoration) by pressing the arrow

button highlighted in green. Also avoid pressing buttons

highlighted red because they will bring you headaches.

Remember: Save often!

You can start the unwrapping process by selecting some edges and then applying Mark

Seams (Ctrl-E). Do the same process for the ear, select the loop cut in the base of the ear

(shown as red) and the frontal loop cut (shown as blue).

Hitchhiker’s guide to Unwrapping

1 . Select all

polygons [A] and

unwrap them [U].

2 . Results will be

displayed on the

UV/Image Editor

3 . Rearrange UV points just as you manipulate

vertices in mesh editing (rotate, position, scale).

The easiest way edit UV points

Do the same for

these points.

- Select these 2 points

- Scale 0 times on Y axis

(S, Y, 0, Enter) to align them

horizontally

Select these 6 points, and Pin

them (P) so they will never

move again on automatic

unwrap.

Finally, select all (Α) these UV points while

in UV Editor window and Unwrap (E) them

again. That’s how you can get perfectly

unwrapped UV maps.

5. Texture Painting

You mission here is to export images from Blender and

edit them with an external software. The easiest and

faster way available is to use: Save UV Face Layout

selection. (You can find this in menu bar of UV Editor:

UVs > Scripts) and you will get a result such as the

image at right of the page.

I am sure that you will immediately think that

sculpting details would never match our painting

textures and you are totally correct. That’s why we

won’t export our maps as UV Face Layout but we will use a different approach instead,

called Baking.

If you wonder what is the best way for exporting maps then the answer would be that there

isn’t a best way, both ways have cons and pros so it’s up to the artist (or the evil boss :P) to

decide.

Master only needed 3 textures:

One painted

One specular map

One normal map

I generated 2 of the textures in Blender, these were a Normal Map and an Occlusion Map.

Occlusion map was further used as a tracing image in Gimp for painted and specular texture

versions.

Below there is a diagram of the texture production:

Paint

3D Model

Occlusion Mapping

Specular Map

Baking

Tangent Space Normal Mapping

Some steps of texturing in Gimp.

6. Texture Mapping

Texture Settings

Normal Map Texture

Specular Map

Color Map

7. Resources

Some nice lessons for beginners

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

Head modeling

http://kokos.umcs.lublin.pl/MIRRORS/apieceofstring.com/kos/tutorials/head/head_tutorial.

htm

How to unwrap a mesh (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu2jZwRmz1o

Information about textures

http://www.rubberbug.com/texture.htm

How to bake Tangent Space Normal Maps (video)

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6379634HgSpwjCM