A closer look at Arthur Morgan's model

[@AndreiAndreev-iu6dy]

You are a good model Arthur Morgan

[@heisenberg_9000]

A Good Model...

[@A1finesse]

You’re the only one of these models that I trust

[@coffinboy556]

“I mean- you and me… we’re more models than people now..”

[@HueyTheDoctor]

"LENNY!!?!"

[@snaifhassnan6348]

344

[@Run3yt]

That might be the most infomative video about 3D character models for gaming industry I have ever seen

[@mihailoveselinovic7151]

This info is all out there and easy to access but it's so empirically and concisely presented and all of it is collected in one whole here. Very nice.

[@apexsynthesis1]

Literally

[@phr3ui559]

ok

[@snaifhassnan6348]

934

[@ninjatriplexxx6109]

12:09 when there's a freshly made apple pie in the windowsill

[@lonther3253]

That made me chuckle

[@TinyDeskEngineer]

I was expecting an animation resembling a cartoon character floating over to said pie

[@ZayxSt]

rigga

[@RahhmiPoofs]

The "Blood Mask" is also used heavily as he gets sicker.

[@naught19]

i was thinking that too, especially around the eyes and cheeks where they get all sunken in and pale

[@Bithe_Get]

No thats wrong tb Arthur has different specific sick textures blood mask is for when both sick and healthy Arthur gets injured like taking punches or falling off his horse shots knife it all counts also combat situations in general where blood is flying around

[@OlegEgorov]

3:30 The clothes are unwrapped in such a way that they can be used to apply fabric detail maps (a small tiling normal map showing the micro surface of the fabric) when the camera is zoomed in close. To apply the detail map, the UVs of the clothes need to be aligned with the direction of the fabric.

[@dan_loeb]

the clothing also has repeating stripes which would be very hard to texture properly if uvs were box constrained instead of relaxed as much as possible. you'd end up having incosistent stripe thickness if there was any substantial deformation in uv sizing. the pants use those detail maps too most likely, but they are box constrained during the uv relaxing process.

[@LukasChrapek]

@@dan_loeb Yeah, but you will not see it on pants that much compare to sleeves for example, so they can have box mapping for pants.

[@JaxiPaxified]

I'd guess it's made with cloth simulation, allowing for the pieces to be unwrapped as planes before the deformation.

[@LANGIMATION]

1:40 he is posed that way as it is easier to paint weights for the armatures. this is the more commonly used pose to use for modeling and rigging. the T pose was the original however shoulders would look weird because of it so the A pose was used instead for better model definition and now the in between which makes the model deformation better but also it is easier for riggers to get around the arms. 8:40 the same rig are used for all characters to share animations easier, this is just an armature, the rigs that are used to animate are called control rigs and are much simpler and easier to control. you will see all sorts of shapes corresponding to what it controls on the rig. the armature is just a base, lets say the armature are your bones and the control rig are you muscles. that's the easiest way I can explain the difference. again at 11:15 you will never have to look at the armature for most game ready rigs (control rigs) as the control rigs control the armature and will make the actions simpler to achieve lets say curling fingers, instead of curling each finger one by one there will be a specific control to make that happen at once. 10:49 I call these little bones, "bendy bones" you can use them to alter the model to fit whatever you want the shot to look like, in 2D they use a lot of squash and stretch and this is the equivalent of that for 3D animation. but I personally don't use them that often. 13:20 these face rigs are use in some way just like blend shapes. animating faces is extremely tedious and hard so they will still have the same system but they're called poses, this gives the same effect as blend shapes but you will have more control over each pose if you decide to change it and the in between motion can be altered to look more natural. this is also handy for cleaning up facial motion capture. so in a way they still use blend shapes it is just a more technical method, slightly more work but a indeed a better result.

[@Anton_G_604]

Exactly. It's also a lot easier and more natural to model clothing in a relaxed A-Pose with slightly bent arms.

[@MoosebreathMan65]

The bent arm pose also helps setting up IK on the rig, which won’t work properly if there isn’t a bend between the joints they’re affecting.

[@Mr.GTheWatcher]

Hehe... he said riggers

[@Lexyvil]

I love seeing imperfections on faces, as it's what makes them realistic.

[@justindunlap1235]

Yes! The little blemishes and scars. Its honestly some of the best NPC designs I've ever seen.

[@cycyshawty2866]

i never would have thought they have different hair for when you have a hat on, the transition is so seamless when you get ur hat knocked off

[@Vrga]

Arthur has the same fingernail texture on every finger? Literally unplayable

[@SunScroll999]

LOL

[@fenrix155]

3:13 the cartel makes these in real life

[@krizh289]

lmaoo

[@chrisnotpratt1903]

Damn, that's dark

[@cakersoStupid1]

@@chrisnotpratt1903Like lenny

[@NkosanaMakhubele]

​@@cakersoStupid1 Lennnnnnnny😢😢

[@invisible_editzzz]

@@cakersoStupid1 Well that took a dark turn

[@R3deemedBoy]

2:15 legit happened to my arthur, like, his hair wouldn't grow, so I shaved it, and just, bam. I got to see that for a good minute till his hair randomly popped back.

[@STANNco]

i dont work in game dev industry, so i can't know for sure, but i think it's probable, and worth mentioning, that the rig you're showing is the game-rig. Whilst when the actual animators would hand animate something, a special animator-friendly rig is made, which gets converted into the barebones game rig (though if everything is motion capture maybe that's not needed, idk)

[@youbaouahdi4358]

Rockstar used to do that with their older games like GTA Vice City and San Andreas where they use higher poligon detailed models with better faceposing features for the cutscenes (which were mostly done with motion capture) but hzd a different in-game model that's less detailed during gameplay

[@Jam_Axo]

i believe every animation is mocapped, down to the littlest things, the only example i can think of which would be hand animated is left clicking with no gun in rdr online (it does this little fist pump animation)

[@THEkidNurCLOSET]

I think a lot of studios switched up the classic t pose to accommodate for cloth sim. When I was working on COD all the base bodies had a slightly more natural pose. It made it easier to get more realistic folds when creating a garments through cloth sim. If the arms and shoulders were super straight it made more difficult to get a realistic looking garment. All of our scan data models also had a similar pose. Just allows you to see the folds better which gives the clothing a more realistic look :). Loved this video. Gave me a little gaming industry ptsd but always loved it.

[@6TheBACH]

For anyone into 3D modeling like me, this is an amazing work you did here pal. Hope you come back to make more videos like this.

[@Ric_enano2019]

13:29 Bro said 🤨

[@ainz0617]

Rock..Star

[@Anton_G_604]

Looking at the map at 5:03 they most likely use something called specular shift for hair. It's a map that varies the spec along the strand based on the height intensity. Very simple and effective technique. The previous b/w map you showed was a height map since there are no normal or SSS maps for hair which are very expensive.

[@ericpalacios920]

12:08 Mario 64 title screen flashbacks

[@MurphyTheOldMan]

a person who works in game industry, getting amazed by Rockstar's work makes me smile. It shows why they are the best in the world

[@moabd7575]

7:47 i cant sleep now thanks

[@Ligmaballin]

Yup, i also get freaked out from face texture maps, just looks creepy.

[@PERTEKofficial]

@@Ligmaballinback in the day when I was modding halo:CE I thought the face texture maps looked like profoundly obese versions of the characters. Lol

[@JoHnWxNoW98]

I just discovered this channel as first video in the home page, I'm saving a lot of videos, seems really interesting

[@beltranarana478]

Incredible video really, most 3D/Gamedev videos in youtube are quite amateur but you clearly have a professional understanding of the process and pipeline! As for the neutral 32x32 normal map, my guess is that they use it for all characters at a distance instead of relying on individual mip maps. I work in environment art, not character art, but it is something I would definitely do. Great video!!!

[@_MaZTeR_]

The mb.1 texture is the sub-surface scattering cartilage glow effect, when a light is shining behind Arthur's ears, nose and lips. Not exactly sure why there's also a texture that just has the ears.

[@HueyTheDoctor]

Just wanna echo what others have said, that you expanded the scope of my understanding of how models work in modern engines like RAGE more effectively than any other youtuber has. Excellent video.

[@JohnyTuga]

7:36 I believe that might be the mask for when Arthur eventually gets sick

[@backstept]

7:41 I think that's a weight map for subsurface scattering in the ears, nose, and other parts of the face.

[@MondoMurderface]

The bent elbow helps with bending. When an arm is straight out, the shape of the elbow is lost. So to retain the shape of the elbow at a bend, they keep the arm bent in the base pose. Same applies to knees as well, a lot of modern A-poses include a small knee bend.

[@SeriousDragonify]

I wonder how much physics is put on Lucia's cake in GTA 6.

[@Andrewtate200]

Jiggly😂😂

[@matthewhuff2226]

That rig is so crazy, I've never seen one THAT advanced

[@n0anime342]

I originally disliked how they reused Arthur for John but I completely get it now. They would have to remocap the face for a lot of random events and make a whole new rig

[@the.orlandogonzalez]

If they wanted to do it that way, then the game would have been delayed until 2019 or 2020

[@Bithe_Get]

John had most of the necessary assets by the time they decided to make him from scratch but copying arthur so ig they worked more for no reason?

[@Ad1tputra]

​@Rocka7038 In the Epilogue, John Marston model is actually Arthur Morgan just the face is different and minor tweaks. So basically they reused Arthur Morgan model. That's why many people say John Marston in the epilogue is not actually John Marston

[@ComradeUranium]

For the same reason Jack ”aged” so quickly between 1911 and 1914 in RDR 1. He uses John’s model with different face and skin.

[@yipperdeyip]

It's funny how people judge the best games ever made by the minutest of details lol. Imagine Bathesda making gameplay/ models that played half as good as a Rockstar game lmao. Never in a million years

[@chopsuey004]

This was really fascinating, thanks for the info, love from Auckland ❤️

[@blendernoob64]

One of my favorite things to do in 3D is reverse engineer game models and rig them and find a way to implement them in Arnold, Cycles or Renderman. Awesome seeing others do the same! I learned so much about 3D and how to construct models from looking at Sonic, Mario and Kingdom Hearts models when I was younger.

[@michaeljburt]

Oooh I'm curious what you found from the KH models. That is one of my favorite games of all time and I think the animations still hold up (even though the poly counts are pretty low, and they use a lot of texture/billboarding as LOD0).

[@forevers1238]

7:35 isnt this the parts that sunlight shines through from behind? that makes ears turn red

[@William11987]

you're right

[@Makakaka]

How do you put all the textures together in blender

[@Ricsidatboii]

SAME QUESTION

[@LANGIMATION]

you have to make different materials depending on the textures you are given and assuming the model is already UV unwrapped it should just be a matter of applying the materials to the model.

[@vast634]

Models like that might in the near future end up in a character creator package, making them available to all kinds of smaller studios. So quality like that can be created by much less artists working on it.

[@borovikmotion]

13:00 it's interesting it uses Metahuman naming convention

[@ShoryYTP]

Probably just a standard that maya riggers use

[@SaurabhYadav-bd3wq]

Or maybe it's the other way around.

[@deandebono3164]

3Lateral helped Rockstar out with rigging for GTA5... probably a carry over from then

[@PDGadm]

I think Arthur morgan in mid T-Pose is the best thing I saw today

[@shadough3180]

As someone going into animation and currently taking a 3D animation class, this was highly informative and very entertaining

[@nuke2625]

You have a gem of a channel. Subscribed .

[@GandoshGanbaataryo]

1:51 its not because its more pleasing to look at. When arms are straight like Micheal textures gonna stretch, when Micheal bends his arm. But if you model it and unwrap elbow bended arm texture stretches less.

[@mfs353]

This is incredible, the rigging part blew me away

[@MossyDroid]

This was really informative thank you so much for making this video and sharing it with all of us 😊

[@OrderTheHeadshot]

"you sir are a Arthur Morgan" -Fish 1899

[@evan11711]

The bend in the arm in the new a-pose is helpful for IK rigging for animations

[@TheRealLifty]

Dude the amount of rigs on Arthur is crazy

[@JacobIsACheese]

most of the clothes is unwrapped in a way that would fit to how the pieces would actually have been cut of fabric and then sown together

[@oamost]

very good video. this is the best possible example material on how they do it in the industry on a Rockstar Games quality level. thank you

[@Aaa90099]

Wow… how did i came across your talented vids. Thank you so much for this beautiful video and explanation. Wish you best of luck

[@nFyrin]

I'm guessing the restrained poly count is due to the highly detailed open world, corridor based games can afford denser meshes for characters because of the simple environments. PBR Materials doing the heavy lifting for the generational leap in graphical fidelity.

[@EthanVillanueva]

this has me pretty curious how they manage to transition so smoothly from a hat state to a non-hat state considering the hair is basically removed. There's that final scene where Arthur gives John his hat and he takes it off and it looks so clean.

[@tater.thot.8863]

Great video! Very informative!

[@AveenFernando]

After watching this video, I think I kind of understand why they used Arthurs model as Johns player model in the epilogue.

[@ozordiprince9405]

Why?

[@slavsit7600]

yes, why?

[@HaiderPlayz_cool]

WHY?!

[@AveenFernando]

It's likely that they used Arthur's prexisting player model, and swapped the head with John's. To leverage existing rigging and animation systems, speeding up development and reducing the need to create a new, fully customized rig from scratch for another player mesh. I'm not sure about this though.

[@Felipeluis804]

Actually they put john textures on arthur's skull

[@Gustmazz]

I'm a 3D artist myself and It's so cool to see those characters in depth. Thanks for the video!

[@matslarsson5988]

This is great! I've wanted real game asset analyzed exacltly like you do. I hope to see more. Id really want you to look at some things from HL Alyx, because I love how some of those assets are made. You got a new subscriber.

[@OmarHesham]

It's hard to tell if they used blendshapes on the face or not just from ripping the rig. It could be that the blendshape data was not saved with it. They also could have used the skinning decomposition technique where blendshapes are created and connected to the joints as correctives then programmatically are saved out as skinning data in the rig. This basically provides clean blendshape looking deformation but without the memory cost of traditional blendshaping. That is because the skinning data the shapes are converted to are cheaper at run time. This conversion from blendshape to skinning happens in Maya not in game. Also an indication that some of the corrective blendshape data that might have existed in the original asset was lost in this rip, is that when you bend the elbows and knees you see very bad deformation where it does not preserve the shape and stay sharp areas. This is unlikely the final result that shipped. They probably had helper joints that preserved the volumes in those areas or created corrective blendshapes for them that were either used as is or had skinning decomposition applied to them to convert to skinning as described earlier with the face. Anyway, great video breakdown!

[@rwowry]

i love pretending that i know what any of this means

[@Jam_Axo]

ma1 and mb1 are both probably used for when light goes through arthurs ears and nose, its a very noticable detail in the game

[@HEKVT]

I understand nothing but this is awesome.

[@asmrtastic]

Knowing Arthur turns bald with a hat makes me sad

[@DefleMask]

7:29 - Subsurface scattering (sun rays pass through)

[@wolfgangsam4652]

this is fantastic content! thank you 🤓

[@zachseatdriver9671]

1:46 the arms are bent like this to make it easier for the rigging artist to build the ik handles for the rig.

[@jadenpokemon8952]

Very interesting and well done video. Great channel!

[@oliveuk]

It is more effective to rig a model with a slight bend in the elbows.

[@2ksnakenoodles]

Yeah that's why newer games have the A pose, better and easier weighting

[@oliveuk]

@@2ksnakenoodles I wouldn't really say weighting is the issue. The issue is more about the shoulder deformation. When a character is modeled in a T pose the deltoid muscles are fully activated and the pectoralis are stretched which will give a headaches to the rigger to imagine what the shoulder would look like when the deltoid are at rest. Doing it the other way around is much easier.

[@thenarder]

6:54 actually this ks a good point, during the end of the game (MAJOR SPOILERS) arthur gets TB and will actually be more and mkre pale as time goes on, the bloodmaps would help

[@LiveGameDriveChannel]

7:30 maybe subsurface scattering map?

[@kowy_m]

good to see such things & i'd like more in dev models !!

[@DropsOfMars]

I think it would be interesting to contrast how characters are modeled here to how Valve has mapped characters in the past. Especially where the face is concerned. What they did with Half-Life 2 was considered revolutionary for the time and it would be really cool to see that older milestone sort of examined and appreciated. Also a comparison between, say, Eli in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 vs his appearance in Alyx to see how that rigging of the same character has advanced

[@Lonelystarforever2000]

Now am little curious about the animal models...

[@myself3209]

I really respect 3D artists, for me its like magic what theys do

[@darkassassin716]

Could you compare John Marston's model from Red Dead 1 and Red Dead 2?

[@terence19100]

Yeah the blue map looked like to be for bruising, and the weirdly mental rig could be for the weight system of the game, so the rig reacts real time to numbers changing depending on how much you eat ?? that's just a guess - edit: I absolutely love seeing these videos btw, it's super nice seeing how different studios do so many things differently

[@S4NSE]

that's so cool, thanks for explaining

[@33u_trichome]

7:47 completely off topic but a British person saying “a stab in the dark” is so funny to me,

[@gdragon4829]

This is a great video for studying topology n modelling sorts!

[@moabd7575]

finally someone professional acknowledging how much rdr2 engine is superior than anything in the genre, even after 6 yrs

[@Ronuk1996]

Rage is insane even going back to the likes of Table tennis.

[@zachb1706]

Sick of the UE5 cult that seems to have overtaken the discussion. Every UE game is a stuttering mess and it performs terribly for the level of fidelity it offers. It’s made for quick development, not good games.

[@goober123-y27]

​@@zachb1706Yeah I agree, I'm a game developer and I've tried Unreal and despised it, the performance was horrible, the file size was insanely large and everything is very confusing, I just switched back to Unity quickly.

[@Ligmaballin]

Superior? Can't even get anti aliasing right

[@Absence-jj8kk]

I’m no coder or game designer, I’ve been having a problem in rdr2 where Arthur’s hair (level 7) clips through his hat. My only guess is that the game doesn’t remove half of his hair like at 2:17. I installed a mod called “Roleplayers Dream.” I made Arthur clean himself while standing in a body of water that reached his ankles. As the animation played, Arthur’s hat tipped upwards, the hat went back into its normal position a second after the animation was done. And I noticed his hair clipping through his hat. I don’t know if the mod caused this or if it’s always been in the game. If there’s anyway to fix it I’d love the feedback. I’ve tried verifying my game files, reinstalling the game, removing the mod, switching the games location to another drive, and none of what I’ve done has worked. I’m not too bothered by it, it’s just if there’s a way to fix it, I’d love to hear some feedback.

[@thegoblonoid]

The more loosely unwrapped shells works better if you have any sort of tiling cloth pattern. If you straighten the UVs too much it might cause distortions and is very noticeable with tiled textures. Just a guess tho.

[@spidermankey1398]

Rockstar a living example of how a game industry should have developers, stock holders, all the managing leaders coming together to create master pieces that benefits everyone

[@apexsynthesis1]

Awesome video! Subbed!

[@RENALDIAGUSTIAN-s2j]

Please make details like this about the last of us part 2, this channel is amazing.

[@sosa0]

That is some really good topology

[@norman191000]

There are also animated normal maps - or rather blended - in engine that make wrinkles on his shirt fold while walking. The same method is used in horse's muscles. Perhaps you could investigate it further?

[@Cutesticles]

"Micah you rat, you got me stuck in the T-pose dimension"

[@raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad]

I took him into blender and scaled up his hat, did a bit of retypology, stuck a solidify mod on and 3d printed it.

[@luanbrite]

awesome! what about the rig of the horses? would be cool to see how they do XD

[@ahsandhindsa4550]

Yeah would be interesting to see .

[@theveryloosegoose]

This is very interesting. I know your last video is from a year ago, but I'd be very interested in a similar video about the Mercenaries' character models from TF2. Particularly their faces.

[@splintergectornathan9045]

Knowing that Arthur has not that much more of polygons compare to Michael, imagine Michael model with all RDR2 texture things, all those wrinkles maps and etc. Same model but with all those texture thing, he literally might look more freshed by all of those things

[@Tivantri1]

how did you get the model and textures and all that into blender? I'm looking to mod some of the assets into another game

[@AlessandroDiaz-b5h]

So optimized the model :0

[@TUCOtheratt]

They went for so much detail in RDR2 but the "gun in hand" graphics are inferior to RDR1. It's a shooting game, I can't believe they didn't get that right.

[@V-17171]

THATS A REAL MAN RIGHT THERE

[@DaRealBruner]

Do you plan on continuing this sorta semi-series looking at character models from Rockstar games? I think it'd be really interesting if you dissected Cole Phelps' model from L.A. Noire. That game's techniques for facial animations is still super impressive and I'd love to know how they work. Game is super underrated.

[@DrazenPerkovic-p8j]

I edited his model wich took me months to do but now he looks like how he does in the Artwork.

[@Journey_to_who_knows]

2:20 pointless trivia the weird cornrow hair trick goes back all the way to gta4, I’m guessing they use it in most games with dynamic hats

[@justajad2809]

The title made me raise my left eyebrow.

[@checkmate5336]

2:17 evens while his balding he still looks good

[@ArthurMorganus]

How do you export such models from games? I'd love to be able to study different models from games and how they are done professionaly to gain more experience

[@puricat]

god i need him so bad

[@lawrencem-yuen2376]

good job man

[@VictorMatheus-nc8dm]

very nice video, thank you!