Mini Western City
The original concept and idea was a floating western city with a cowboy cat as a main character and it would follow around a tumble weed as it’s a cat it follows it’s feline tendencies.
I ended up changing the concept into what the final render turned out to be since the cat character already exists in animations and games.
Western Building Modelling
I started gathering references for all the western buildings I wanted to include in the project. After getting the references I modelled all the buildings on Maya and textured them in Substance Painter.
Working on the models were very fun as I enjoyed making them the thing that took the longest was organising and unwrapping the UVs as I was building to scale it was tricky sometimes.
Fox Modelling
These are the references that I had when modelling my fox, they all reflect the boxy look I wanted to go for when modelling.
After deciding to change the main character I started searching for other animals that would suit the western setting. In the end I chose a fox, but I wanted to model it as a body looking fox with no detailed features clearly seen as my reference shows.
Rigging
Working on the rigging was a journey as I found it very hard to begin with and after many many trials and guidance I was able to get a completely changed and better rig than from the one I started with. I had followed the same steps but changed the way the controllers and IKs work with the joints which made it a lot better in the end.
I would not say it is the best rigging and modelling of the fox as I struggle with organic modelling but in the end I am very happy with how it turned out.
Animation
With the modelling of the character since it’s a low poly boxy fox the rigging the joints and limbs of the animal would not twist and turn the correct way. After getting some guidance from Manos about animation and keyframing I was able to at least create a walk cycle that would be integrated and plugged into Unreal to move the character.
I got a reference to follow for the animation and keyframing which helped me out to create the walk cycle.
Walk Cycle
I also decided to include into the plot line that the fox would be digging into the sand which I also tried to animate.
Digging
Environment in UE5
First block out to look at how the buildings look like next to each other, this was taken before I started texturing the any of the buildings.
After finishing all the texturing and completing all the models I started building the environment on Unreal starting with placing the buildings then building the world around them.
I built the western environment on Unreal with the use of some extra assets which were available on fab.
Ready assets used from FAB on UE5.
The End
In the end the video itself as a first VFX project to work on from scratch I am really happy with it. As a start I do think I achieved what I had hoped to, the video it self could be better. I had many crashes on Unreal while working which forced me to restart many times which was very frustrating. Since I know I have issues with organic modelling I am still very proud of my little fox even if it’s low poly and a little weird it still works the way it should to some extent. I would love to become better with organic modelling with time, but at least I am better with regular modelling when it comes to real life items.
For the VFX breakdown, again, many crashes with Unreal which made it very hard to make a better and more detailed version of the VFX breakdown. I wanted to include the lights and the sky and the clouds as a part of the breakdown but Unreal stopped cooperating with me while trying to export and fix the renders for the breakdown.