A closer look at Arthur Morgan's model

Another week and another model inspection.

This clip goes through a model and rig of Arthur Morgan the protagonist of Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption Two.

Some helpful links;

And a link to The Last of Us, rigging clip featured in this video.

Chapters;
0:00 Introduction
0:53 The Model
3:06 UV's
4:09 Hair Texture
6:22 Texture Packing/Head textures
8:08 Rigging
11:46 Facial Rig
13:42 Hands
14:38 Wrapping up

[ninjatriplexxx]

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

[Runyt]

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

[RahhmiPoofs]

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

[cycyshawty]

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

[Lexyvil]

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

[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.

[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.

[fenrix]

3:13 the cartel makes these in real life

[Vrga]

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

[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.

[RdeemedBoy]

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.

[TheBACH]

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.

[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)

[Anton_G_]

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.

[backstept]

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

[JoHnWxNoW]

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

[ericpalacios]

12:08 Mario 64 title screen flashbacks

[_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.

[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

[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.