VIVI - TALES OF THE 8TH DESIGN (PART 4 - CLOTHES & TEXTUREWORK)

 Welcome back to the madness known as my blog on modelling Vivi. If you have not read the previous part, these three links would lead you there. To recap: I made a ref sheet, modeled the character, made some changes outside the ref sheet, rigged her with shape keys, armatures + an addon, and did a lip sync test. In this segment, I'm going to make more progress by adding clothes, textures, and shader node-based wizardry.

PHASE THREE POINT FIVE: The First set o' clothes.

A proper set o' clothes.

So, the thing about clothes will get a little complicated. You may think I just copy-pasted the body mesh and move things around a bit, but no, I made the clothes from scratch, because of the body mesh will get messy if I tend to do that. Shrinkwrap doesn't work either as the mesh would mess up if there's a ridge (i.e. the clevage).

Previous parts, I did made clothing meshes, but that was made due to I want to upload her in some of the more SFW Discord servers, but none of which are rigged.

PHASE FOUR: The Clothes.

Shirt implemented.

To start things, I model a t-shirt, based off the main "Summer" outfit. This is separated by two materials: The main shirt & the accent (pic related is the reused hair material). I added the UV seams for easy mapping and the texture is actually just some shirt fabric I found in Google Images. Now it may seem the most basic of basic things, but this is going to get a little interesting: I'm going to implement 2 more textures in 2 different UV maps.

The Spade graphic from one UV map on top of another graphic from another UV map.

The initial process of implementing the graphic took me longer than I thought it would be, but soon I found out how, and it's quite simple if you know how Shader Nodes work.

Ignoring the color ramp, you just needed the UV Map vector, image texture, mixRGB, and then insert shader. Make sure the top graphic (the spade) is connected to B and plug it's alpha to the mix's factor.

Soon, I also implemented the seam textures, and mapping those took me longer than figuring out how I implement the aforementioned nodes.

The seams are in a 1024x1024 resolution, and this involves a lot of mirroring.

Then, I implemented pants, though I already modeled those before texturing the shirt. However, I WAS going to make it's own model, but that idea fell apart, so I duplicated Vivi's legs and modify the mesh so it won't look weird... Though they're supposed to be jeans. I forgot the bit I rigged both articles of clothing. 

Vivi's crouching position but those jeans look garish.

And so the shirt & jeans will be nothing more than a template for other possible outfits, once I'm able to perfect the rigs of course. So you see this shiny new floor with some proper reflections? Time to segway to our little tangent.

QUICK TANGENT: Screen-based Reflections is a Sin.

Oof.

I replaced the AI carpet texture to have some real ones in it's place. Now you see this weird Roblox character in the reflection? That's the result of using screen-based reflections if you're using the EEVEE render. If you're on cycles, you don't see it. This is a sinful sight to look at, because real time raytracing is limited. It may look nice at first glance, and then flaws like this show up. Luckily, there's an object that removes that. This object is called a "Light Probe," and it can be inserted as a cube, sphere, or in my case: plane. Place it to the desired location (i.e. the marble floor), and voila, you got proper reflections. 

Perfect.

PHASE FOUR POINT FIVE: Rig & Texture Work.

Shoes.

Sadly, as of November 11th, 2024, I did stop the whole development after texturing them shoes. Guess it's one of those projects destined to fail and the lack of motivation to continue, despite the progress made. 

Note the retextured pants.

ASUZA is a running theme of the whole Viviverse, which is a clothing brand. The name came to be is when I needed to mirror some textures for a different character model, and what I came up with is a logo that's symmetrical... Like Nine Inch Nails. 

HOWEVER, not all hope is lost, because I have exactly ONE good use out of this model before considering downsizing her polycount: She's gonna be in a Lost Legends episode, and yes she talks.

Most of the polycount is likely Vivi alone, and the rest were probably used on that TV stand & couch. Also remember the wiggle bones? Yeah, gotta make good use out of it lol. The only one-time use is also the room she's in. It's actually barren, and there's nothing else behind the virtual couch I had in the middle of the room.

One thing's for certain: I really, REALLY need to make this 1-minute animation quickly, because all February I'm gonna be busy. Oh wait, what the HELL was I doing all month, then? December, is this little room & the lip syncing part. January, I was working on an improved version of The Room, but with blackjacks & hookers... Or chunky pixels & lava lamps.