My Workflow for Creating Modular Game Character for Unreal Engine

My workflow for creating a character simliar as Sekiro
Tools I'm using:
Unreal Engine
Blender
Substance Painter
MetaHuman
Marvelous Designer
Plugins for Blender:
Game Rig Tool
cgdive.com/game-rig-tools-ble...
Voxel Heat Diffuse Skinning
blendermarket.com/products/vo...
Send to Unreal
www.unrealengine.com/en-US/bl...
Facebook:
/ ge.zhan.94
Chapters:
0:00 Demo
01:10 Face - MetaHuman
01:57 Cloth - Marvelous Designer
02:14 High Poly Modeling - Blender
02:49 Low Poly Remesh - Blender
03:21 Rig Character - Blender
04:25 Animation Retarget and Test - Unreal
05:07 UV Unwrap - Blender
05:42 Texturing - Substance Painter
06:10 Modular Character - Unreal
06:50 Outro
#unrealengine #blender #sekiro

[@_Rodders_]

This was a great walk through of the work flow, and probably one of the nest on KZbin at the moment.

[@Foxcoder]

wow, thank you.

[@subatoistormborn5499]

Best basic walkthrough I’ve come across in 3 years of looking. Great work! I look forward to more videos.

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@siuilaonarach4546]

Very good work! I just started my Blender/Unreal Journey in February and this is extremely similar to my workflow! I am currently in process creating a Modular character creator for my game where you can swap out head/face, Armor, Weapons, Hair/Facial Hair and bodytypes. Thank you for putting together this comprehensive methodology into a video, having watched hundreds of videos I have to say this is the only one I've found with the full overview workflow beginning to end. Thank you for putting all the addons and details in the description as well. You earned my sub, sir. Very excited to go watch the rest of your videos.

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@user-jj5bf1hm9o]

Thank you, you are literally my hero rn. Instant subscribe. I’m waiting for next videos👍👍

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@3dbiagi]

This is really helpful, best workflow explanation! absolutely subscribed! thank youuuu

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@deepelements]

You guys are lucky. I had to figure this out on my own with may own custom made character.

[@Turzaluk]

Awesome, thanks for the video!

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@havinthiranv]

Just noticed one thing this is your biggest video in your channel, subscribed you at 750 subs now you have 1.4k subs in just 4 days, congrats bro keep growing. post like this (btw i was the first comment in this video 😂😂😂😂😂😂)

[@Foxcoder]

thank you heaps, i wasn't expect this can get so much views, glad it's can provide some helpful info, for sure I will make my next video for explain in more depth and detail, when time permit

[@lgent2435]

Can't wait for the tutorials.......

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, I will make more once time permit

[@izanagisora]

I will be waiting ​@@Foxcoder

[@havinthiranv]

bro honestly the best simplified explanation of workflow, i am waiting for next videos. New sub bro. How much do u pay for subtance and marvelous designer softwares?

[@Foxcoder]

I purchased substance painter through steam 2 year ago on steam with perpetual license, at the time I remember it was around $200 AUD, sorry forgot exact amount, and now in steam 2024 version it's $289. otherwise you can pay $28.99 AUD subscription fee monthly. the Marvelous Designer is a pain , I have to pay $39 per monthly for subscription fee. there is no other way I can find to get a perpetual license. considering the valuable time it saves me, it's still worth it at the moment.

[@havinthiranv]

thank youu soo muchj

[@andersmadsen8052]

You can get 1 year free MD with UEFN

[@havinthiranv]

@@andersmadsen8052 damnnn

[@Somordorp]

Marvelous designer is really expensive for us solo developers :/

[@OBxARKWAYNE]

as a total rookie, i had no idea what u did the whole video but it inspired me to go ahead and fire up blender and make somehthing heheheeheheh keep up the video my guy gonna do wonders Cheers (y)

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@MarkyGramone]

This is nice. I've been wanting to do this forever. I have a knight templar that I want to get in game but never could find out how to split the meshes up so the lower part of his robe has nice flowing fabric properties

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, I planned to make more videos to explain in more detail and depths for making character and work with unreal, possible in next one or two weeks time, when time permit.

[@grit-mike]

This looks amazing, hoping to pick your brain sometime!

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, a bit scary but thank you.

[@TafariMosi]

awesome

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@Dagg-sd8pj]

Sheesh bro the character model looks cool as f***

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@Kaedric999]

Good Video, it might also help to show the benefits of making it modular, like showing the character wearing a different outfit and the simplicity of switching between them. :)

[@havinthiranv]

@@Kaedric999 Yes I 100% agree with you, @Foxcoder please allocate some of your time teaching us this topic

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, I just done this first character and has no other parts I can switch, I will add more character and make them sort of inter changeable, I will make more related videos in the future.

[@Foxcoder]

@@havinthiranv sure thing, I will make some more characters and post more related videos in the future.

[@ViralUnrealEngine]

Fantastic video bro can you make a video tutorial with cloth weight paint in ue5 please

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, and yes, I will post video in the future about cloth simulation in Unreal.

[@777redhood]

Incredible workflow explanation.. amazing..please do more, maybe mech or animal characters

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, as my game happens old time in Japan, maybe I will add some animals in the future

[@teddyperera8531]

Thanks for the video. If you can do a complete tutorial video on character creation, that would be great.

[@Foxcoder]

sure thing, I will provide more detailed tutorial for each part when time permits

[@hirakchakraborty9387]

@@Foxcoder It's great. Please do that for us..

[@itsMBWAAA]

Liked and subbed brother. I hope to see a more in depth tutorial of your process. I have looked for tutorials for the whole workflow on YT before and the results are very slim

[@Foxcoder]

thank you I will provide more detailed tutorial for each part when time permits

[@xinpengliu]

棒棒棒，加油！

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@Project_MUSE107]

牛逼 哥们 加油

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@Samb-zu6lx]

Great video. Tbh with Unreal there’s a lot of hurdles but rigging, weight painting and fixing deformities for CUSTOM mesh is a headache. Start your tutorial with your rigging workflow 1M views first 48 hours😂

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, and glad it's helpful, I'm planning to make more videos to explain in detail and depth, maybe in next one or two weeks, when time permit

[@kthxbye1132]

This is a really good break down of your workflow! Thanks! Do you also work with Face meshes?

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, I didn't change metahuman's face mesh polygons, but I'm using substance painter to manual draw eyebrows and beard, and export texture, and also apply rig to the head.

[@songbinchen2907]

犀利！

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@darkknightleon9843]

牛哇😆

[@Foxcoder]

thank you

[@user-os4zq8wi8t]

Nice walkthrough! bro, can I ask that if it's true that you use low poly body and clothes parts and use high-detail poly mesh's texture to enhance the gameplay?

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, the high poly is used to texture baking into low poly mesh, the texture is using low poly's UV, to make higher quality, we can export the texture in higher resolution, I keep all my texture to 2k for balance between game performance and graphic quality. so the texture is still based on low poly ( well with normal info from high poly texture baking)

[@user-os4zq8wi8t]

@@Foxcoderthanks bro❤

[@alkistagaras8269]

Nice video! I have a question and a couple of suggestions!. Did you model the body? Like the hands etc or you took them from somewhere. And for the suggestions, take a look at auto rig pro, it works great with unreal and with the voxel heat skinning addon. Lastly i can see you have some baking errors in painter, first thing you should do is to bake the curvature and AO by mesh name, not in the common window, in the AO and curvature window. And second try to bake with cage or break your model in the parts that the errors occur. Hope that helps!

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, the arm came from Blender's human base mesh asset bundle, but i model and sculpt the wraps arm, face from metahuman, cloth I designed in Marvelous Designer and adjust in blender, and rest I model myself in blender. i did separate the parts and set match by name in both common / ao / curvature setting, and I found the error actually due to my lower arm bone has weight affect the cloth area, got blue island I didn't tidy up, thx for the suggestion, I will make those area fix when I work on it next time.

[@alkistagaras8269]

@@Foxcoder Thanks for the insight! My pipeline for unreal is something similar to yours, i don't really meta humnas since i do more generic-stylized characters but i use auto rig pro and the other tools you've mentioned

[@Foxcoder]

@@alkistagaras8269 thx for the suggestion, I through Game Rig Tool is the subset of Auto Rig Tool, maybe i'm wrong, I got the Auto rig tool free version (24h only) 4 weeks ago, didn't have chance to checkout, guess i will get it a try, cheers

[@maxb123321123]

Could you upload a sekiro bar posture? Please

[@skillbox8744]

Nice damn work! do you have the full process, I dont mind to pay for it.

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, and I will provide more detailed tutorials for each parts when time permit, I'm not planned to get things for sell yet, I will put all videos in my channel for now they are all free.

[@LiamTurner-g9k]

If you were to go into detail on each step you could easily sell this process as a course Good Job

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, Just made another video to explain in more details, for now it's still my hobby project, and I'm more than happy to share my knowledge , glad it can provide some good info.

[@smithywerbenjaggermanjense8970]

What is the advantage of creating multiple rigs for each body part group? Tnx for the video!

[@Foxcoder]

Thank you. One thing I can think about is having a modular character system that allows me to switch clothes in the game. This way, I can change the skeleton mesh for different parts at runtime. this increases the variety of characters, such as random NPCs. I can combine different parts for each character, so they won't look the same. saves me from creating hundreds of different characters.

[@smithywerbenjaggermanjense8970]

@@Foxcoder Makes a lot of sense! Thanks for the answer.

[@forge7973]

manny as base rig? and meta for head? im very intrested to know how you add a head rig to a many rig :)

[@Foxcoder]

if I need reuse Manny with different head, think I can export the Manny mesh, and replace the head with new one, and assign weight for head bones, then import back to unreal, guess it should work

[@Bluemaze64]

You mentioned your modular character blueprint. Would you be willing to share that file or make a detailed YT video on it?

[@Foxcoder]

i'm planning to make more videos to explain in detail and depth, hope i can make more videos in next week if time permit

[@real2late]

Hey quick question: You said that you already created the rig compatible with the UE5 rig. Why do you still have to retarget then? Awesome video btw!

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, and for compatible rig, although they share the same bone hierarchy, the body proportions are different. Directly applying the compatible mesh somewhat works, but with my rig, the animations, especially in the lower arm and wrist areas, I can't good quality. This might be due to incorrect settings on my part. but using IK Retarget allows me for better control. I can also duplicate the existing IK Rig configuration from Manny to use on my rig, enable quick animation retargeting.

[@mayur8782]

Bro can you make video on FP arms with hand gloves please.

[@Foxcoder]

yep, guess I will make one in the future.

[@mayur8782]

@@Foxcoder thanks

[@jhonbells]

What program did you use to place the hair cards , and which program to make the hair card textures. Everything in blender?

[@Foxcoder]

I use Unreal's Paragon character Kuang's hair card as base. export to blender, adjust cards to fit my character's head, add / remove strands as need.

[@jhonbells]

@@Foxcoder nice , thanks for the quick reply. Looks awesome

[@Samb-zu6lx]

What folder is that card base in? I see hair folder but do not see actual hair mesh.

[@bwhity]

nice workflow, step by step tutorial?

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, and yep, I will provide more detailed tutorial for each part when time permits

[@etheleticengine]

Can you use pirated sofwares like Marvelous Designer or Substance Painter in your country?

[@Foxcoder]

I think not, and it's not good for long run, I paid for them as they are big time saver, all texture and clothing can be done inside blender but it takes a lot time to get same quality. I treat it as a hobby investment, and maybe in future I can get paid back if I start to sell assets.

[@Dagg-sd8pj]

Bro i think u gotta make tutorial that would be cool

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, and yep I will provide more tutorials when time permit.

[@gendalfgray7889]

How to animate all of this modularity?

[@Foxcoder]

for my setup, I'm using "Set Leader Pose Component" blueprint node, I will make more detailed tutorial later when time permit

[@bobnot3061]

Hey, that's a really impressive work. About the "lod" face model, did u export directly from the Unreal Engine or Quixel? And did u have to "ring" the face again, or something else? To work well with Unreal engine

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, I export Face mesh directly from inside unreal, did "ring" face meaning retopology the face mesh ? if so I didn't retopology the mesh , as at LOD4, it can consider as low poly mesh. I applied bone rig in blender, and detailed beard and eyebrow in substance painter

[@bobnot3061]

@@Foxcoder Oh yeah, sure, and thank for answering me. I meant rig the face lol, but that's right. I wrote in the wrong way lol. There's any special reason, to export from Unreal Engine, instead of Quixel Bridge? Cause for I could see, from the Quixel we can manipulate the face exprecion etc...

[@Foxcoder]

@@bobnot3061 Oh, I never really thought about that, thanks for pointing it out. When I work on metahuman, I usually just import them into Unreal and test the full body animation directly in my game. then I export the mesh from Unreal. I think the only reason is for me it's easy to do without re-open Quixel, I'll check that out next time see if it's better from Quixel. thx

[@bobnot3061]

@@Foxcoder Hey, thanks again! Well I'm kind of new, about it. I was trying to make a solo 2d game before on unity. But for the time and scopus, I decided to go on Unreal Engine mainly cause of Blue Prints codes. I'm trying to make a horror game now, on 3°person. Let's see if I can make it, it's been 2 weeks until now lol. I'm trying to learn to modify my UV Maps, from my Metahuman, on Zbrush, to have a better expression. Let's see If can I release somenthing until the end of next year. I hope u too. I don't have anything to show now, but I hope sooner can I

[@Foxcoder]

@@bobnot3061 making game solo takes heaps of time, keep work on it, and wish all the best for your project.

[@warriorblood]

How many polys in total for the character?? it looks incredible btw!!

[@Foxcoder]

thank you, it gets 36,354 triangles for the whole character

[@samuelkilik8233]

bro please make a 3 or 4 hour vedio in this one,,,

[@Foxcoder]

thank you. I will make more videos in the future as time permits.

[@kotomichi14]

wow this looks dope :) are you human????

[@Foxcoder]

yep and thank you

[@valeriymalishevskyi1723]

👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋

[@eligijuspranskunas3509]

whats the point of modular character?

[@subatoistormborn5499]

I think so you can swap armor/clothes/weapons spell effects out during gameplay.

[@eligijuspranskunas3509]

@@subatoistormborn5499 you can do it anyway

[@Foxcoder]

yep ,One thing I can think about is having a modular character system that allows me to switch clothes in the game. This way, I can change the skeleton mesh for different parts at runtime. this increases the variety of characters, such as random NPCs. I can combine different parts for each character, so they won't look the same. saves me from creating hundreds of different characters.

[@disartster9090]

nice work.. keep it up.. btw do you have discord channel?

[@Foxcoder]

thank you , I got discord account long ago, but never really use it.