#preproduction document

Time Management - Finishing Production Planning

Now that I have completed appropriate research to fully carry out my project, I am in a good position to divide up the time I have for this project, to give each part necessary resources to finish the project in time, while making significant use out of all the time available to me.

I created a Gantt Chart in Miro, documenting the entire production workflow, and noting time spent on blogging and other university written requirements. I have planned to work on my lighting for a very large proportion of the project, because it is very important to do alongside texture creation, so I don’t get any unwanted surprises from only implementing my character into the engine at the end of the deadline. 

I have given myself time to rig and skin my characters into my Gantt chart to do as a stretch goal, but if I run late on my plan, this time can be utilised instead to finish up the base requirements.

I finished up my preproduction document, and ended up including most of it into my final presentation, due to the document being relatively condensed as it was. But I am excited to now get started on creating Wren, and I’m looking forward to the months ahead.

References

Industry News - Unreal Engine Capabilities

Regarding recent industry news, characters can now be created within Unreal Engine with Character Creator 5 - however this is currently primarily being used for more VFX and cinematic workflows, rather then game art. Unreal Engine’s real-time rendering, dynamic lighting and advanced character generation is transforming workflows across games and film.

While questioning what budget I should have for my character. Previous characters showcase low geometry and small texture sheets, so I’d like for this project to demonstrate high detail and complex characters, rather than restricting myself for performance that is becoming less needed. But I need to research what polycount a character can go up to while still remaining performative. Characters on Artstation and articles online can go well over 150k triangles, nearing 200k. 

Industry News - MetaHuman Updates

Meta humans have become a hugely central part of modern real-time character pipelines within Unreal Engine 5. As of 2025, Epic has now fully integrated the MetaHuman Creator within UE5, allowing artists to build, customise and animate these characters with staggering realism, without having to utilise external software, web or complicated tools.

Additionally the quality has been improved, with skin shaders, hair rendering and facial detail all getting updates, with a larger 3D scan database. Clothing now autofits different body types, and the parametric body system gives developers more control over an individual's shape.

MetaHuman Animator 2.0 is a huge upgrade as of last year, it now allows developers to animate these characters only using video from a phone. The lack of need for motion capture studios or suits massively reduces developers costs, while maintaining high quality results. Developers can transfer these animations seamlessly across all MetaHumans, and edit the characters without loss.

Meta humans are currently, primarily being used as a base mesh for further tweaks for AAA and AA games, due to the quality and efficiency. They are additionally especially effective for generating many realistic background characters/crowds, quickly - since unique details aren’t needed. Epic additionally has cross-platform and pipeline flexibility, allowing MetaHumans to be edited within Unity, Blender, Maya, Houdini etc. Proving to be a very modern, versatile tool.

As a Junior Character Artist, understanding the MetaHuman workflow is an important tool to learn. The success suggests that a developer's role will be changing in the upcoming years. This tool makes it easy to create high-quality characters quickly, which means there is less demand for basic character creation skills, and more demand for specializations. Typically, entry-level tasks for juniors are now being replaced by MetaHuman, by generating realistic faces and bodies instantly, while handling skin, shaders, and rigs. 

Learning how to customize MetaHumans, and sculpt additional unique features on top, with custom clothing and props, will showcase I can work within Epic's MetaHuman workflow. Additionally showcasing more stylized work, that isn’t just mimicking what MetaHuman is already achieving will get me to stand out more in the battlefield of job hunters.

References

Epic Games (2025) All the big news and announcements from the State of Unreal 2025. Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/news/all-the-big-news-and-announcements-from-the-state-of-unreal-2025 (Accessed: 5 April 2026).

Tereshchuk , A. (2025) Top Unreal Engine features for game development. Available at: https://gamestudio.n-ix.com/top-unreal-engine-features-for-game-development/ (Accessed: 5 April 2026).

Fabric Design

The concept demonstrates a complex pattern going round the base of Wren’s cloak. To comprehensively plan this project before I undertake it, I need to spend time deciding what the pattern on the fabric will look like. To start with, I drew out the two ends of his cloak that was visible, and tried to design the center of the cloak that best combined these ends together

However I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the results, it being overwhelming and not straightforward in the imagery or the symbolism, so more work here was needed. I gathered reference images of eastern fabric patterns that utilised cranes and some form of plants, and designed a selection of patterns that matched the theme of my first iteration, but I didn't limit myself to keeping the edges the same. I utilised the far left reference image very heavily for the shape, and wings of the cranes in my variation.

I felt that my last design was the most effective, so I drew it out neatly in vector/stamp form, to be able to print directly onto my texture sheet later.

I was very happy with my resulting design, and it will speed up the texturing workflow of my project. 

Marvelous Designer

Marvelous Designer is an essential tool to learn within the character artist’s field, so I want to utilize it within this project. I spent time getting familiar with Marvelous Designer, not having used it much before, and followed tutorials to create a base mesh for Wren’s trousers to familiarize myself with the software. I researched haram pants sewing patterns and copied the shapes within Marvelous to create a mesh I felt well matched the concept. I experimented with adding elastic to the edges, however ended up removing it, as most of Wren’s clothing appears to be simple draped fabric.

After this I made further edits with Marvelous, adjusting the fabric qualities and adding edge wear with tears and rips - which will need to be heightened further within Zbrush and the use of opacity maps on rendering. When I was happy with the fabric created by Marvelous designer, I moved the garment into the Zbrush to start blocking in more folds. The base model within Marvelous Designer doesn’t have the stance of my character, and so the way the trousers hang will be different, and I additionally want to demonstrate cloth sculpting within this project.

As just a quick concept and proof of workflow, I will spend more time refining the sculpt, and exporting a non-triangulated mesh from Marvelous Designer to utilize it better as a base mesh in my final project. Spending more time adding seams and stitching to the trousers within this software will demonstrate the skills required for a Junior Character Artist.

References

Conbry (2021) Marvelous Designer tutorial: Easy perfect topology, UVs, thickness, and details. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhBdZu9u4Qc (Accessed: 11 April 2026).

Dalidacoco (2024) Create with me: Harem Pants, Tie a Knot in Marvelous Designer/CLO3D tutorial with English narrator. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZuVayJJ8Gw (Accessed: 12 April 2026). 

Texture research

To effectively create a character in the style of Arcane, the texturing is probably the most important part. To achieve this specific look while utilising industry workflows required some research and thought.

Firstly, I found that Airborne Studios utilised the Snap Art 4 Filter, which produces brush strokes on uploaded textures. They use this primarily on the world space normal map to achieve readable noise within a reproducible procedural workflow. Airborne Studios did not hand-paint their characters, but went down a procedural, non-destructive route, similar to Street Fighter V (which inspired their approach). 

After creating several painterly normal maps, each with different sizes of brush strokes, they then utilized simple gradient maps for base colour values, and applied masks over the model to change the size of brush stroke for different areas of the model. Above showcases the 3 maps they created for one character, that they masked out for different areas, and smudged together to create a more natural look.

To explore and practice this workflow, I first sculpted a simple hand in the style of Arcane within Zbrush, retoping and bringing it into Substance Painter to bake. I referencing Arcane’s hand models and sculpts for anatomy reference (above), specifically referring to Powder’s size and shape, and utilising Milio for detail, having bonier fingers. I paid special attention to try and straighten my fingers out, not turning them into sausages this time.

I then downloaded Snap Art 4, took my world space normal map into this software and added a painterly filter to it to achieve large, broad, painterly brush strokes. I then took this map back into Substance Painter and applied a colour gradient to it, and further blurred it out with the Blur Slope filter. 

By mimicking Airbourn’s workflow, I resulted in a procedurally generated, painterly hand. I found this approach very effective, and I will definitely utilise it on some of the larger aspects of the character. However I do feel it lacks the uniqueness of the ‘hand painted feel’ Fortiche archives by actually hand painting their assets. This could perhaps be utilised as a base though for further workflows, and the uniformness might apply better to the feathers on my birds.

Alternatively I tried a different texturing workflow on the same 3D asset and bake, documented by Ricardo Sanchez Moreira on 80 Lvl, a Character Artist at Fair Play Labs. He experimented with producing a game-ready character influenced by Arcane, and although I don’t think it looks believable within the Arcane world, it is a very effective and well accomplished character. Ricardo similarly uses a procedural base created within Substance Painter utilising AO and normal maps, with hand painted information on top to further define the stylized look.

I was much happier with this approach, hand painting the majority of my model, as it allowed me to define aspects of the hand not possible by using the world space normally alone, such as non sculpted skin folds, and hue shifts on the nails. For this approach I created a base by layering coloured AO and curvature maps, applied Substance Painter’s stylisation filter, and step blurred before painting over, and re-colouring.

Airborne studios further document’s how they created a furry feel to their clothing elements in addition to this procedural normal based texturing approach. This is a real-time workflow approach that is performative inside UE5 where I plan to render.

This method of shading breaks up the silhouette by spawning particles on the mesh, taking the normals, roughness, base colour and other values to add additional noise. The pixel depth offset is used to blend into the body. I’ll use this approach for breaking up the baby birds’ fluff, fur, and shorter feathers in my character. Most of Wren’s clothing is thin cotton fabrics, so additional silhouette deformation wouldn't be effective on most of his clothing.

An article from Yelzkizi documents the key artistic traits of Arcane, which is very helpful for me to diagnose what makes the style so recognisable. It also describes Fortiche’s workflow, and while I want to focus on mimicking the workflows and production of real-time studios, utilising similar tools as Fortiche to achieve the Arcane look is also helpful. The article notes that all of Arcane’s textures are purely hand painted, and not procedurally generated, and the light and shadows are painted into the textures. 

Kindly, Fortiche have publicly stated the tools they use for creating Arcane. Most modeling was done in Zbrush and Maya, with texturing done in a combination of Photoshop and Substance Painter, which I have access to and am proficient in.

References

GDC Festival of Gaming (2017) The Art Direction of Street Fighter V: The Role of Art in Fighting Games. YouTube video, 9 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDlbJdmo7KE (Accessed: 20 April 2026). 

 The Airborn Studios Team (2022) Airborn: Creating characters for a stylized 3D animation. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/airborn-creating-characters-for-a-stylized-3d-animation (Accessed: 6 April 2026). Polycount (2022) Airborn discussion thread. Available at: https://polycount.com/discussion/62779/airborn#latest (Accessed: 7 April 2026).

Plummage

The feathers of the birds, although similar to hair, need to be handled slightly differently. I’m most looking forward to the creation of Tristen, the main bird, as this is something entirely new I have not tackled before.

To start with, I will be sculpting out a base for all of the fur, feathers and fluff forms of the characters, drafting out a smooth, stylized shape that will have effective composition. Then, depending on the detail and the size, I will either utilise my stylized texturing workflow, or place feather cards.

For Tristen’s longer feathers, I will be placing hair cards, or feather cards, like the head of hair previously, created within Fiber Mesh. Depending on the texture I can create there, I may add additional hand painted strokes within photoshop. 

I have a great reference for the quality of sculpt I should aim to achieve regarding the birds, by Delphine Jobin, before working on the groom and texturing stages. Additionally I read an informative article by Daniel Harris, which explores optimising a 3D parrot model, and the structure of meshes regarding individual feathers.

The quality of these two birds from Arcane are rich in colour and detail, and are my benchmark for quality.

Regarding the fluff on the inside of Wren’s cloak, I found Heimerdinger’s head design well matches the shape and colour, which will be my primary reference there. The process will be to sculpt out the base forms, then later replace, or complement with Haircards (for performance).

References

Harris, D. (2026) Optimizing a 3D parrot model for games and real-time rendering. Available at: https://www.coohom.com/article/optimizing-a-3d-parrot-model-for-games-and-real-time-rendering (Accessed: 5 April 2026) 

Hair

Hair is an area I’ve done a significant amount of research into, since it’s a difficult skill - being a job in and of itself, and creating haircards is not something I’ve done much of before - potentially resulting in a weak area of the model if I don’t prepare appropriately.

To start with, I wanted to explore non hair card related approaches. Morgane Perrin documents the workflow Slocap uses on their character’s hair in Rematch, which creates hair using geometry cards with no opacity maps. To fully explore this workflow, I practically tested it out on a blockout of what my character’s hair will look like. I sculpted a rough face and hair volume within Zbrush, retoped, baked, and brought it into Substance Painter. This is only a test model, and the final one will have more care spent refining, but it works to test the workflow.

I unwrapped the hair into sections divided by the flow of clumps, and unwrapped my UVs all facing the same direction, to improve the ease of texturing.

To follow Slocap’s workflow, I first created a coloured mask for the end and the roots for variation through the hair. Then different values were given to each UV set - or in this case, clumps of hair. Through all of these stages I adjusted the opacity and blending options of the layers to make the changes subtle, but noticeable. Several stages of noise were then added to my model to break up the flat textures.

I believe that this technique works much better on Rematch’s character's hair due to the geometry of the groom adding more visual interest than my round, flat meshes. I did think the colouration and texture was effective at matching Arcane’s style, but it didn’t make up for a very simple mesh. So I will be utilising haircards for my final model’s hair for this project.

Through my research, I read an Arcane inspired hair tutorial, created within Blender,

https://80.lv/articles/create-arcane-style-hair-shader-in-blender-with-this-in-depth-tutorial , which appears to be very effective at creating the desired look. This approach utilises geometry with alpha masks to have a more procedural approach to the hair density, and doesn’t place haircards manually, which was interesting to read.

To begin my hair card learning, I downloaded Fibershop to create some hair cards inspired by the stylized thickness of Arcane hair. I referenced other haircard textures for a reference as to the variation of card thicknesses and lengths I should be creating for a complete variety of strands.

I then used these haircards to place them onto and around my sculpted base, to practice creating a more realistic looking hair style. To do this I followed tutorials by Hazel Brown, who uses the GS Curve Control tool within Maya to place her cards. This utilises splines to curve the cards around the head easily, and although it took a while to get used to, as it replaces most of the shortcuts within Maya I was used to with separate buttons, it was very effective to use, and I enjoyed getting the hang of it.

Progress of hair card placement within Maya

References

HazelBrownArt (2024) Realtime Hair Tutorial. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cDDq9PA7jk (Accessed: 22 April 2026). 

Arcane (2021-2024) Series 1 & 2. Fortiche Productions and Riot Games. Available at: Netflix (Accessed: 20 March 2026).

 CGPal (2026) FiberShop 3.1 (Computer program). Available at: https://cgpal.com/fibershop/ (Accessed: 26 March 2026).