Making the First Character for my Game | Devlog

Support the Project: / legend64project
Blender Tutorials:
/ royalskiesllc
Music:
シーク (Sheik's Theme) - Marble Pawns
The Cave - Super Castlevania
Rotating Room - Super Castlevania
Dracula's Castle - Symphony of the Night
Fairy Fountain - Zelda & Chill
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:44 Modeling the character
1:37 References and moodboard
2:08 Texturing the model
4:44 Rigging the character
6:29 Shape Keys
7:12 Posing the character
8:40 Facial animation system
9:56 Thank you to my patrons!
#devlog

[@mouse_87]

Este canal y este proyecto son una joya! Poder revivir, homenajear y revalorizar la estética de la N64 me parece espectacular. Esa estética tan particular producto de las características y limitaciones de la consola, pero que dieron como resultado un diseño único y maravilloso, que además nos transporta a nuestra infancia. Gracias por mantener viva la llama de la N64 para todos los que somos fanáticos. Fue la consola que quise tener de niño y no pude, por eso los gráficos tan característicos de N64 para mí siempre serán los mejores gráficos que jamás habrá, porque eran los que veía en las vidrieras de los negocios de videojuegos y soñaba con jugar algún día. Ni la ps5 ni ninguna otra consola podrá superar eso.

[@Legend64Project]

Thank you. This is the feeling N64 graphics gives me as well.

[@mybrainhurts3727]

@@Legend64Project You make the modeling look so easy! Did you start with a flat plane? I'm a noob, I don't understand. I've always wanted to make an N64-style game, and I'm so happy I found your videos.

[@Soroosh.S83]

@@mybrainhurts3727 i think everyone use cube and subdivison modifire

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

It always blows my mind when I try to imagine how difficult it would have been to make characters and animations like this _back in the 90's with the actual limitations of the N64 and the dev hardware they would have had at the time._

[@stanbasicidol9444]

It was highly technical back then, a thing you could hardly get into without some degree in digital media on the basis of the UI and softwares made and meant for 3D design being almost unusable without someone who knew f it teaching you. Nowadays things like Blender can be crashcoursed trough trial and error with a few weeks or months of time and enough willpower. Zbrush is unironically super easy because the majority of functions are "Padding" as I'd like to call t, like a BBL on a skinny girl it's just addition for the looks and nothing else.

[@westingtyler2]

okay so yeah. I can't remember what system it was for, and maybe only the early 90s or 80s for actual CG movies, but early on they couldn't do bones or rigs; they had to manually type in the positions of all the vertices for each frame. it was super technical and math-heavy. they could not even tween/interpolate, as in create the first frame and the last, and have it auto move between them; they had to do all this math stuff for EVERY FRAME. for Jurassic Park 1, all the animators working with Phil Tippet were used to doing stop motion for dinosaurs and were not computer animators, so they built toy-sized metal dinosaur puppets with sensors, so they could hand-animate the cg monsters in real life, and the data went into the computer (I still want this method to come back - of having real-world puppets to animate cg things, and apps like Tvori VR show promise here.) and by the time of the N64, I think many animators were using interpolation and forward kinematics - to move an arm you gotta move from the shoulder down. move the shoulder, then the elbow, then the wrist. cringe. then around the time of Timesplitters 2, they had figured out INVERSE kinematic - you grab the hand and pull it, and it automatically pulls the forearm, upper arm, and even the torso depending on the way you'd set it up. Inverse kinematics, with keyframing, is still pretty standard. but the true god tier animation I want is going back to having real-world puppets with trackers, so you hand-animate and it does all the on-screen stuff based on that. in lieu of all that, I'm saving up for a Rokoko Smartsuit V2 to do motion capture. motion-captured animations may or may not look ideal depending on the vibe you're going for (In the Sims 2 they famously tried mocap but found it "not cartoony enough" and ended up hand-animating it all.) But moca[ with a suit would be so fast that I'll deal with the 'added realism' even if it's not exactly the vibe I want. PS. (2023 04 25 )Adam Savage recently did a video showing how they are doing the new fraggle rock animation, and they are using hand puppeterring of digital characters with these weird mouth gloves they put their hands in, and it animates on-screen.

[@r.connor9280]

Portal 64 my dude look him up

[@tezwoacz]

trying to create AAA game today as a small team or solo would be just as difficult I assume, for other reason ofcourse, people tend to forget that N64/PS1 games back in their time were AAA quality, as technology progresses Iam sure that in a few decades solo developers would manage to make what is now considered AAA game on their own within a year or two, actually bizzare to think where gaming is headed in the far future, wont be no need for studios or large teams, just 1 guy and some AI in "moms basement", ironically this is how "gaming" started in the first place, so you could say that industry would go through a full circle.

[@westingtyler2]

@@tezwoacz yeah totally. there's a few weird angles to this. 1) back then just the tools themselves were slower and less robust, so making ANYTHING was more difficult and time-consuming. 2) now that the tools are easier to use, big studios push graphics further and further, often at the expense of creating an immersive simulation, spending so much money that they don't want to risk it and play it safe with the design. now that this tech allows stuff to be made both fast and cheaply by single individuals, we are getting, and will continue to get more, fresh styles of gameplay, and now with the ai stuff, we can have fresh gameplay IN larger open-world AAA quality environments. I'm actually trying to make a game richer than Skyrim at my mom's house, and AI tools are helping a lot. just the other day I got ControlNet in StableDiffusion working, meaning I can create front, side and back textures of characters with the press of a button, all in one image. I concepted about 150 for my game, each with a unique look and back story. now I'm looking into the best way to do mocap (looking at the Rokoko Smartsuit V2.)

[@Low_Fidelity_3D]

"I don't consider myself a character designer, so i-" *proceeds to describe exactly what a character designer does*

[@MrFoxInc]

1:40 "I really don't consider myself a character designer", he says, before describing a pretty common workflow of a character designer Great video, cool character and bless you for sharing your workflow with people! And congrats on switching to blender!

[@Legend64Project]

Well that’s good to hear XD and thank you!

[@westingtyler2]

yes, totally. this is as good as the best stuff on the N64. but also. I deal with worrying too much, too, but i'm making a gigantic game with lots of characters, and I simply don't have the time to make them all amazing on their own, so what helps me is saying "it's not about the instrument, it's about the symphony." or "it's not about this brush stroke, it's about the painting". as in, even if you were to make 10 average-quality characters, when you put them all in a game together with "average" music and locations, people will be blown away. because they aren't seeing or scrutinizing the individual parts, they are experiencing the whole thing as a coherent whole emotional unit, and that automatically blows people away. being imperfect on the details, but pushing in the direction of your vision, people will be wowed by that.

[@moldman5694]

@@westingtyler2 That's pretty good advice actually. I tend to get bogged down trying to make details perfect, so I'll try remember this

[@westingtyler2]

@@moldman5694 another part of this I think about is what I call the Han Solo principle - when filming the original star wars, the Luke actor was like "hey we just got out of the wet trash compactor, so our hair should be wet in this scene, not dry, guys!" then harrison ford who plays han solo and was 10 years older looked at him and said "kid, it's a space adventure movie; if people are paying attention to our hair, we're all in big trouble." any time I have a slightly jank leaf texture on a tree, in my jungle dinosaur game scene, I tell myself "if people are paying attention to that leaf texture, I'm in big trouble." then it helps me chill and move on, keeping my eye on the big picture.

[@mikeroegames]

She is beautiful. Fantastic workflow and topology. And let us not forget those textures. Fantastic work!

[@Legend64Project]

Thank you Mike :)

[@godsturf8210]

Man, she's super cute, you really nailed her design. Everything here is as polished as some of the N64's best looking stuff, so don't be too hard on yourself about the small details. 👍

[@Tazerboy_10]

Yup

[@HeyJinx]

Go outside

[@notkerr]

Bros said N64 character really looking cute lmao

[@harukills]

@@notkerr kirby is cute

[@frickitweball]

@@notkerr okay but hear me out

[@TheGimGamer]

How cool is it that we are getting an official Nintendo wireless n64 controller, can’t wait to play your game with it great work keep doing you at your own pace

[@Legend64Project]

Ah I didn’t think about that! I need to buy one before the infamous Nintendo shortages begin!!

[@BMPK]

@@Legend64Project says no one ever.

[@TheBigQQ69420]

Gorgeous model. That texture painting really brought it to a whole new level.

[@feyternerdworld]

This is some impressive work for someone who is not considering himself as a character designer. I think switching to blender was the right thing to do for you. It seems to better fits your needs.

[@RandomAssaultPodcast]

Vampiress?! Gentleman, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

[@campanella0999]

I wish I knew more about how you modeled the dress itself but regardless this is a huge inspiration

[@turdnugget]

Woah she came out so amazing, your modeling skills are top notch!

[@sonicsimplorio928]

Time to fan art 🎨

[@TheBreadPirate]

This is ridiculously impressive, it turned out great!

[@SafeRemain]

herhhhh

[@DanPos]

I'm sure you know by now but you don't need to change weights with shape keys, blender has a weight paint mode - you should look into it!

[@westingtyler2]

yes, I agree. using the weight paint mode to get the deformations right, might also make it easier later to do the animations in the game engine since your coding doesn't have to synchronize the rig animation with the blend shape blending.

[@yusukee6533]

Damn, I subbed right away when I hearded the SOTN ost

[@peacemaster8117]

Welcome to the cult! This character is so cute, I'm already in love...

[@lemnyelow2260]

You honestly inspired me to get into 3D modeling n64 style characters. Granted I haven't begone the process yet but I now have such an underlining appreciation for the aesthetic the n64 brings. Look forward to how your game turns out in the future, the art direction is outstanding!

[@terrawest9500]

This game looks so good. Thank you for making it.

[@FoxerTails]

Man, those facial expressions look like they would fit right in with Ocarina of Time. And from the modeling references, I could see why. Great work as always!

[@brokenscart7989]

I love the eyes just being a texture flat to the face, and blinking.

[@SuperVillianStudios]

The music for this video is already getting me into that nostalgic N64 game feel

[@GrifChan]

I like how her hair looks so nice

[@manfob22]

The Victorian design looks nice ! Keep it up, your design workflow is really entertaining. I have a question, but it might be too early to ask: Do you have an idea of how your game will look like gameplay wise ?

[@Legend64Project]

I do, but sadly I’m limited with what I’m able to do in Unreal Engine at the moment and haven’t been able to test out my ideas. Hopefully this will change once I upgrade from my old laptop to a cutting edge pc!

[@Jumpycnat]

Great video! You're a really talented 3D artist, you captured the look of the N64 just about perfectly! I seriously can't wait to see more of the game.

[@CrimsonDX]

She looks amazing!

[@silvergleam1128]

This is incredibly done and seeing the visual style done again today gives me hope for an idea I'm conjuring up. Best of luck on your project and I'm excited to see more of it come to light!

[@SebastianGraves]

I love this man. Best of luck with the project, I'll be watching.

[@Legend64Project]

Cheers I appreciate it :)

[@lifeartstudios6207]

you can use custom data channels to change your facial expressions without needing to make a dynamic material instance. Hope that helps reduce some draw calls for you.

[@Legend64Project]

Interesting! I will have to look into that! Can you point me to any videos demonstrating?

[@coffeepowerupgames]

Wow, this looks cool! You really nailed the N64 aesthetics!

[@dinocactus8356]

Always loves the n64 style especially when it's the higher poly models! It's awesome to see someone interested in the 64 style like I am lol keep up the good work and maybe one day I could learn to use blender and make characters this good. Also the Victorian style looks great, I'd say try and mix the two style dresses to match the castles esthetic too.

[@jakehellspawn4709]

Dude thank you for posting on tiktok otherwise I might have never stumbled upon this project! Very excited to follow the development and see what you come out with

[@Legend64Project]

Thanks for stopping by :D

[@Atmos_Glitch]

That's uh... That's alot of _polygons_ for a 64 styled character 𓁹‿𓁹

[@fatgods2921]

Seems like a huge undertaking while working solo. I can't wait to see more.

[@tursala]

Impressive work, as always. Please keep it up, looking forward to this game is my main hope atm.

[@shiftedfocusmusic]

This is so awesome. I really enjoy your Devlogs. It's very inspiring.

[@nope3324]

it's really fun seeing you make this character, I hope we'll get to see your character making process more in the future!!!

[@iknowcharley5]

This is coming along GREAT

[@Legend64Project]

Cheers, I appreciate :)

[@ritof-rice]

Thanks for showing all of your process! I speed up the video to 0.25 so I could follow along and learn what you were doing because I want to make a game and Im just new to blender so making any character is a very hard task for me and there isnt much tutorials out there. so thanks for the great video

[@Rob-hm4jx]

This is really fueling my nostalgia, it looks amazing! Looking forward to more :)

[@Nexus-11]

EPIC! I would love to see a tutorial for your next character video.

[@nkanyisoinnocentkhwane3752]

I love the design so far so I think you're definitely onto something

[@CrazzeHL]

this is looking so great! it's giving me the exact Legend of Zelda nostalgic vibes nice work, keep going, mate!

[@jonny9425]

Really great job it's rare to see great tutorials from ppl that are actually good artists

[@RW1A]

Absolutely adore her design. I wish i could make good models like that in blender

[@donbologna5486]

This is so awesome to see! Keep it up i wish you the best of luck!!

[@jordansprojects]

Love her design! Thanks for documenting your process.

[@Luzo-wx2eo]

Smash, next question? Nice work man.

[@lashghost]

Looks very cool, I am excited to see what else is to come!

[@LUCID_Rokka]

Nice "Moodboard" 😉

[@yourcommander3412]

This lady got vertices where it counts mate !

[@RetroPlus]

That's amazing, you nailed the style. Looks exactly like a character from ocarina of time!

[@TheRoboticFerret]

just wow. I mean, clearly you have heaps of experience but this video makes this kind of work feel achievable for a beginner

[@LeviAckerman-cl6iy]

I'm in a games development course and this is so interesting to watch!! I can't wait to binge all of your videos, hopefully one day I'll get to make my dream game and I'll be sure to credit you when I do ❤

[@BoyNamedKelly]

It’s almost like you’re a Castlevania fan… 😆 I love it

[@philb2052]

This game is going to be killer!

[@AllExistence]

I'm pretty sure there are add-ons for exporting the models and characters into any game engine for blender. And for import from blender for UE as well.

[@lukapie]

spoopy game i shouldve knew since long ago waaa

[@zackeryyy]

Your stuff is so good you could literally release your own n64/ps1 era inspired console.

[@n64glennplant]

I enjoy your work so far, I just wish this was being designed to run on OG n64 hardware and released on carts 🥰

[@Legend64Project]

Thank you. I wish I had the technical know-how to do that. Sadly I am more of an art guy than a programmer :/

[@lucifer76ao33]

This project is so wonderfull hope one day I can play ur game!

[@shippudenranger9780]

Truly beautiful! I gotta try doing Blender with my characters someday in the future! ❤w❤

[@tylerhughes192]

Looks awesome keep up the good work!

[@m1lan417]

GYATTTT

[@ArcaneWorlds]

Wahey a first character! Reminds me of Zelda I love it.

[@morganlak4337]

This looks super good!

[@topramen925]

Incredible work as always. I personally think the Japanese version fits the overall aesthetic more, but it's totally up to you.

[@skullkid234]

I love her

[@gatovolador3677]

Keep up the great work!

[@Rein-Kingins]

I like this video, that char you made remind me of castlevania on n64. always like the way they look on n64.

[@Jjgm69]

Mommy vampire YES! Please.

[@kaseius]

Following along at the 1:00m at 0.25x speed mark in my own blender, when suddenly extra vertices hah

[@donaldclark2735]

You made drawing the eyes look so easy lol I've been trying to make the same style of game, I'm not great at drawing though so I'm finding the facial expressions really hard

[@djr9999]

cool stuff !

[@sandakureva]

I really need to get on this guy's level.

[@James_XXIY_crafts]

Well, you didn't actually use rigify, you just used the skeleton generation placeholder/target as your skeleton, which works perfectly fine, but it is not quite right, hehe.

[@AaronMYoung]

Hey thanks for the shout out! Great video as always, the character looks great! I have been wanting to switch to blender but have yet to do it :(

[@Legend64Project]

You are welcome, thank YOU for the support. I think Blender is worth it in the long run but it was a pain to “relearn” a few things. Felt like being a beginner again at times! I decided to make the switch because my licenses ran out and I couldn’t justify the expense when there was a free alternative.

[@AaronMYoung]

@@Legend64Project That's what I'm not looking forward to most, Learning new stuff can be draining but I agree I think it will be better in the long run.

[@rittzler]

character looks great, i could go either way between the victorian or japanese type designs for her. and you did a lovely job on her face textures, good stuff! i notice you didnt...actually use rigify? you just used the metarig, and then have a completely new set of controls in the later half of the video. did you not find out about the actual rig generating features it has, or was there something specific about the rigify rig that threw you off?

[@Legend64Project]

Whoa really? I seriously thought it was just creating a skeleton super quick, didn’t realize there was more to it!! That’s awesome if it can be even faster to set all this up in the future. Thank you for letting me know.

[@rittzler]

@@Legend64Project YEAH no prob man, it gives you a pretty advanced rig with basically one more button press, haha. It's pretty customizable too! Your models weight painting should still be more or less compatible with the resulting rig, i think you'll just have to put "DEF-" ? in front of all the vertex group names to match the new bones. It's got some quirks when it comes to being exported for game engines, that said, but there's actually a good amount of addons and such dedicated to fixing the headache that the blender to ue4 pipeline can be, and some even specifically for rigify rigs to ue4. Best of luck with future blender shenanigans, i'll be peepin the next update

[@Legend64Project]

@@rittzler dang I’ll have to try it out for real.

[@westingtyler2]

4:50 wow! this was nuts. I'm binging the whole playlist to catch up on what I've missed, and I see you respond to my comment! I'm glad to see the Rigify plugin has been useful, and I can't wait to see even more videos. This series is inspiring me to gear up to make my own devlog videos about my games as I'm able. One of my side projects is #SP, which is heavily inspired by Ocarina of Time's look as well, so I hope to post a video of that soon, exploring the map. Also maybe you know about this already, but you can explore your blender files in 1st person if you hit SHIFT+~. you can turn gravity on and off with G and use the scrollwheel to change your movement speed (and there are actual height settings in the preferences, etc.). it saves a LOT of time from having to dump the .blend into the engine to explore. I even found a way to attach a basic character model to the camera (in a T-pose) so I can get a general idea of what a 3rd person view will look like.

[@Kindlesmith70]

Discovers the wonders of Blender. Funny because I too used 3ds Max at first. There is so much more information for Blender use, and it has come a long way in what it can do. Being 100% free is also a major plus.

[@carlos09121982]

excelente video y gran fondo musical de castlevania

[@zurdoestrada1824]

Thank youuu so much!!!

[@skreamnredskull8941]

Loving your videos, and how your game is turning out! I'm just getting in to modeling, and I also want to get the n64 style... so I might have "stolen" your texture atlas method while texturing my first model (a Marathon style assault rifle)

[@conraddugger4165]

STELLAR, man! If you made any sort of N64 game,design course (especially creating textures) I would buy it in a heartbeat. So would others, from what I read here. Keep up the awesome work!!

[@FUNGUS5555]

lol idk why when you mentioned the switch to blender my body just went "fuck yes!" on its own

[@Legend64Project]

Haha it’s the best

[@OMGItsBirdmanArchive]

Broo she's getting me torqued

[@kruth6663]

Good choice, Blender is fantastic

[@MAGMACULT]

Nice glad i discovered this

[@hikaroto2791]

this was super awsome

[@AlteredEvil]

Absolutely love the work that you're doing, keep it up! I am probably going to end up asking you for advice LOL

[@planetmorgoth2838]

Awesome

[@happyc6770]

cant wait for the next video!! =)

[@Legend64Project]

I’m trying not to take too long with it!

[@ryuoni1966]

this guy is god of MS Paint

[@ubacam]

Each video you release, I become more and more enamored with the project! I love the devlogs and find them very inspiring and encouraging as I slowly improve in game dev. Just out of curiosity, are you making music for the game/ do you have any specific plans for music?

[@Legend64Project]

Thanks a lot Cam. That’s lovely to hear. I’ve had a few people ask if they could work on a few tracks for the game.

[@E-Patrik]

Very informative

[@StrawberryNUKE]

Since this is supposed to be closer to the N64, wouldn't you want her dress to wobble around by her hips like a big bell with light deformations to hide her legs?

[@picklesplaysgames975]

And Rigify has covinced me to switch to Blender for Characters! Thanks dude! :)

[@Legend64Project]

Awesome! Just a heads up, someone already mentioned I didn’t use it the right way in the video. Apparently there are additional options for the rig that I missed. I’m looking forward to trying it out some more!

[@JAZ_2002]

8:36 Slow laptop huh? I know that feeling all too well haha

[@scottalexander_]

how did you manage to get started with low poly modelling? do you have any resources or tutorials you could link to? your work is insanely cool! I cannot wait to see what else you do next

[@Legend64Project]

I’ve had years of experience with 3D but I honestly prefer the look of low poly models, so this game is something I’ve wanted to make for a long time. If you are interested in doing it too, I’d recommend that you master the basics of 3D before jumping into a low poly aesthetic. I’ve seen a lot of people use the low poly style as a crutch and it often limits them later on.

[@scottalexander_]

@@Legend64Project I see. Thank you so much for your time and advice, I appreciate it a lot.

[@teo2805]

Reminds me of the Pokemon 3ds games artstyle, particularly sun and moon

[@splatonk]

my word