Red Coat 3D Image Creation

All Content ©Niall Horn

After been given my Project Briefs for college I have tried to bend them so I can do some 3D For my Final Output. Thanks to my awesome teachers (Andy and John).

For one Image I want to some Red Coats that are been blown back by a Cannon Explosion. 

I decided to bite the bullet and Model all the Assets myself with no external help as well as texture,fx,lighting,rendering will all be done by me in the coming days. FX is my main interest but all aspects of VFX I find amazing so I was very excited all the way through!

I looked at a lot of Reference, I knew this was not going to be Digic Pictures Assassins Creed 3 Cinematic Quality but I wanted it to look good. I started by modelling the Body and all the Clothes. I faked the cloth look by using Noise Modifiers and the Mesh smoothing the Noisy Mesh to create the look of creases. Once the Clothing was complete I modelled the Musket, Again I looked at reference but Its not mega realistic but it looks good enough and I don't have the time to waist detailing as I have 2-3 other Digital images to make!

I then went into Mudbox to create the face of the solider screaming and then texture paint his face. That only took like 20 mins. Back into Max to assemble the Model Then I exported It out as a Final FBX file.

I then have started to do the scene setup for the final Image using a simple Pflow system to create the rocks explosion which will emit Fume FX eventually but for now its more like Previz.

I created Both The Models and The Scene Set-up/Previz in Around 6 Hours.

Asset Creation Time: 6.4 Hours
Polygons: Solider: 137,000 Musket: 14,000

Screen Shots: 

RedCoat And Musket Turntable Render:

Also Here is a test animation using a Mixamo Rig. I plan to try and rig it myself in the near future.

Update** 15 September 2013

An amazing animation company called Image Metric's have released a Free Ware Facial Animation rig. I quickly did a pose and put it on my Red Coat Model. I am soon to experiment with this for more realsim in the face. (Thanks To Image Metrics).