

#Baldurs gate 3 character creator skin
This way we can control the color details and manually adjust them to fair and deeper skin tones, which previously was a huge problem with the “multiply color” approach. Color customization happens here by combining 4 maps: Hemoglobin, Melanin, Vein Map, and Yellowing Map. Skin is one of the most advanced and tech-heavy shaders we now have in-game.

The first two use a simple system of multiplying the masked area with a custom color but the difference between them is that an ID map allows us to have 11 color parameters for each color on the ID mask vs RGB mask only allows 3, but allows blending between the masked areas. So far we have 4 different types of color customization in our character shader: ID mask color customization, RGB mask color customization, skin color customization, and Gradient Map customization. The most basic customization that we have in our character shaders is color customization. One of our core requirements for most of the character shaders is customizability. My advice would be to always go a bit higher than needed for personal things to make sure the render looks its best. I see this issue in lots of junior artists' portfolios: they tend to over-optimize their personal projects to a point that it eats up the quality of their mesh.

This is also one of the common things that I usually advise on most portfolio reviews – up your polycounts. Most of the mid-size and even smaller details like buttons and claps are now modeled which allows the lighting to do its job so your model looks higher quality than the one with flat-baked details. If I compare polycounts of DOS2 vs BG3, I’d say they almost doubled for characters.
#Baldurs gate 3 character creator how to
Higher polycount is actually another key in terms of how to improve your model quality. So ZBrush tools usually come up very handy for things like that and allow for quick iterations. When I was working on the common head UVs for all races some areas like the nose and eyes needed to be stretched to allow more texture resolution so UVs can hold up on faces of any race like Dwarves or Githyanki. For organic stuff, I personally also like to use ZBrush together with Maya for my UVs.

At Larian we use Maya, 3DCoat, Topogun, and RizomUV. We allow artists to use any tools that they personally prefer for retopology and UVs. While blocking out a character we usually communicate with tech animation, animation, and combat design and test our blockout in the game so that everyone can agree on practical details.Īt Larian we believe in the freedom of artistic expression, so the modeler is allowed to change things from the concept if need be, and in most cases, there are opportunities for modelers to come up with the design elements themselves. Direction defines the general tone and some specific visual features that should be present, and provides some reference material that would guide the Concept Artist.Īfter the concept is done, the modeler can start with the blockout. When all the limits and goals are established, the next step is visual direction. There are usually a lot of requirements on the look of the character from the combat and systems design teams, and lots of rules and restrictions from tech animation. It usually starts from the writing team and design team, since we need to know where in the game a creature or an NPC will be used and what is their story. The first step is getting as much information from all the departments involved.
