I want to realize a nice project. Since I am not an expert, I need help from you to understand very well the process. I followed some courses in UE4, 3DS Max, Photoshop. With these basic knowledges, I would like to create my own game in UE4. First, I would like to create a character. Do you know any online courses in order to create a character in 3ds max in order to use it in UE4? I need to understand step by step to reach my goal. And I’d like that the character looks like my son. It will be a surprise to see him in a game. Also, I want that this character can walk, run and jump. Maybe sends fire ball to kill enemy. So, I have a nice idea for the game design. But I need to understand step by step. From 3Ds Max to UE engine and also, I will need to texture the character (using photoshop, substance painter?). I know it’s big but I am motivated to do this.
go to ‘character creator 3’ (reallusion) and get their free 30 day trial, export all the models (they have morph targets for facial movement)… delete the skeleton and upload the .obj (T-Pose) to ‘mixamo’ (they will put a new skeleton in) and grab your animations… is one way to hit the ground running (so to speak)…
Your definition of “from scratch” is severely flawed.
There are almost no good tourials on this subject Because people always cut corners.
The first thing you should do is download the free project Digital Human and break it apart.
You need to learn the different materials, the different parts of the mesh that are required for proper rendering (offhand that would he the specific eye geometry, the eye occlusion, the tear duct).
you have the not so optional teeth and tongue as well, though they don’t need very special materials.
You’ll probably spend just a week figuring out the skin.
The mesh they provide will teach you what to look for/micic geometry wise for high detail.
Past that, and if you manage to create a custom face, you’ll probably need to learn how to make the Hair Cards and populate the bust with enough of them to render nicely.
The new groom system is an option, but if you learn the cards you can make games work on anything rather then just unreal.
Past that you need to work out the body.
you can download anatomically correct models in lots of places to study their composition.
Sculpting it won’t be as hard as weight painting it correctly. You’ll definitely need to learn how to handle armatures and weight paint for that specific purpose.
The best way is to again, break down pre-existing materials.
The mannequin is a good place to start for the bone positioning and nomenclature, since you need to keep the same base for proper functionality anyway.
Weight paint wise, the mannequin is lacking since it has separated parts. You can analyze bits and pieces of some Paragon characters to get base ideas.
Often times, its easier to cut off a hand form a paragon model, so that the weight paint is preserved, and re-sculpt it all together to fit what you need.
Chrap shortcut as it may be, it does give you the advantage of saving 1 or 2 hours of work painting the articulations…
After you have a good, clean base mesh of the body with good topology you can duplicate it and sculpt the clothing onto it. So weight paint is preserved.
at that point you will probably need to learn the Ue4 cloth and how that’s done.
you can go back between content examples and paragon characters for that.
as you can see there are many ways to get started… it’s easy if it’s fun, it’s, well… a lot of work and learning either way… watch tube video, check other peoples games here and maybe you could get them to put your boy in them…
Thanks everybody! I think I have a lot to learn. I think I’d like to get CC3 and ICloud software for the animation. And it’s not too expansive. I am curious to see if I can create easily a character and use it in UE4. If I can do this process, I will go to the next step.
I will need to be patient! Huge learning curve here
Thanks! I installed CC3, 3DXChange 7 to export animation from Mixamo web site. Wow all of these is awesome. I could create my character, can animate and import it in UE4. I tried to import the animation in UE4 for my character and as you can see, the feet are in the floor. If I use the original IDLE animation, the character is correctly pose on the floor. But my new animation from Mixamo has a small problem and I would like to fix that. Any idea about this?
I think CC3 pipeline extension, 3DXchange7 should be a good solution for me if I don’t create my own animation and only use a site like Mixamo.
Mixamo has sometimes a little offset in it’s animations. You can set a “Import translation” in the asset details panel of the animation, then reimport it (right click -> reimport animation).
