Dr. Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey)
In continuation of my recent YouTube hit with the piece Stardust Savior I decided to continue this Journey creating next gen, real time Sonic video game fan art from one of my favorite franchise titles Sonic CD. Keeping everything geared towards the realism seen in the movie franchise, as a next step the challenge was to try and do an animated short. If you have not already seen the YouTube short "Stardust Speed Demon: The Training of Metal Sonic" I encourage you to view that short before checking out the character in close detail to know how things went on the actual project itself.
The Short:
https://youtu.be/v3JOHC_hXjY
Over the next few months from around May to mid July 2022 I struggled to make my own ideal version of what I thought Robotnik (played by Jim Carrey) should look like should he also continue on to be the same role in the 3 installment of the film set to release in 2024.
Using head scan data, a base avatar morphed up to have a chubby look like the original game character, and my own hand made outfit modeling and texture designs this was the end result. Lots of hurdles in understanding were made, and I am still totally reliant on CC / iClone softwares for now as facial rigging is out of my grasp. At the end of the day the desired asset, a certain level of look and feel, a functional, emote capable humanoid villain based on a celebrity's likeness was achieved and I am happy with the result despite the imperfections.
The short film project link:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/KOA9yX
Breakdown of all reference influences in creating his suit design.
In Game using as pawn motion test
Development photos - here taking in head scan data
Transfer head scan geo onto the head of base mesh avatar using Zwrap
Refit dont need perfect alignment as the nude body is not needed
Added Chubb
Modeling on suit begins Mid May 2022-2nd week in June (1.5 Months)
Modeling the boots session playback
Few days of Zbrush cloth details
Done with UV and bake by Mid June 2022 - Texturing begins
3 Weeks of Texturing with revisions June 15th - July 4th 2022
Textures complete by July 4th
Ref of normal gloved hand source, Japanese volunteer work gloves
Manual Skin Weighting inside of CC3 for 10 days
Lots of problems, very old non intuitive weight painting tools within.
Purchased Reallusion beard and groom kit, manually adjusted on avatar to maintain all facial rigging support.
Face rig testing - no time to invest matching the exact muscle deformations of Jim Carrey for the purposes of this exercise. All morph deformations were left default in the interest of time.
Testing live face moCap from iPhone inside of UE5 but shader problems arose - live capture cannot be used. Instead expressions were morph puppeted per scene in the short film.
Small eye shadow and skin decals added inside CC3 ecosystem since the body was removed from Substance painter/Zbrush pipeline due to CC3 integration from their native base mesh.