CAP 3D Modeling Project

StephXPM

StephXPM

is a Top Artist


Here's Volkraken! Figuring out where to start with this model was the hardest part, but I'm happy with how it turned out in the end.
 
TruffledToad

TruffledToad

Hey y'all, first post on the forums. I'm glad that all of y'all are doing such a simply fantastic job on these. One's like Kerfuffle, Tomohawk, and Pyroak are simply amazing.
I do have something I wonder about though. So the Gen 8 models are likely to be in somewhat higher quality than the Gen 6 and 7 ones. Will this impact the construction of newer models, and mean some models will have to be smoothened out, or will you all just stick with the X & Y style?
 
earl

earl

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is a Community Contributor
TruffledToad said:
Hey y'all, first post on the forums. I'm glad that all of y'all are doing such a simply fantastic job on these. One's like Kerfuffle, Tomohawk, and Pyroak are simply amazing.
I do have something I wonder about though. So the Gen 8 models are likely to be in somewhat higher quality than the Gen 6 and 7 ones. Will this impact the construction of newer models, and mean some models will have to be smoothened out, or will you all just stick with the X & Y style?
Click to expand...
The models are the same between gen 6, 7, and 8. Gen 6 and 7 models just are given a lower resolution and different shaders in order to display clearly on the 3DS. Any of the old models of CAP mons could be easily updated to fit the new style.
 
QxC4eva

QxC4eva

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As a number of CAP renders have been passed off as leaks, I think it's a good time to start refining the gen 8 shaders. Here's Kitsunoh with a pose given to me by Clawed Nyasu. I'll write a tut later on how to build it from standard render passes.
 
QxC4eva

QxC4eva

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Here I'll go over how to composite a render to get the SwSh style. Obviously it's not exact to the games but is close enough that you'll need to look twice to tell it's fake :) The style can be achieved as long as your 3d program can render the passes below. Blender, Maya, Max, ZBrush, C4D and Modo are some that I know for sure can do it. Alternatively you can use render layers over passes, they have the advantage of confining each layer to its own set of shaders and geometry. Especially useful if your mon has special effects like Kitsunoh.

  • base color pass - the textured model without any lighting or shading
  • specular pass - highlights on the model to give it a shiny look, such as metal and skin parts. Light source should be the same or similar to the key light (see 'key light pass' below).
  • contour lines pass - outlines along the edges and creases of the model. If your program cannot output this (or has trouble drawing lines around texture edges or special effects), render a mesh ID pass and follow the composition steps here - https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-3d-modeling-project.3536091/page-18#post-6886480
  • occlusion pass - standard ambient occlusion
  • key light pass - the main light that illuminates most of the model, coming from the top-right of the model relative to the viewer
  • cel light pass - a spot light shining straight down from above the model
  • fill light pass - a light shining from the right of the model relative to the viewer, placed slightly behind and below the model's head level. Its purpose is to make the model's shades look less dark.
  • back light pass - a light shining from the left of the model relative to the viewer, placed slightly behind and above the model. Its purpose is to emulate the sun if the model is in an outdoor environment.
  • rim light pass - a light shining from the back and slightly above the model. Its purpose is to emulate environment light, such as the sky if outdoors or interior lighting if indoors.

Once you've got these passes it's then a matter of squeezing them through a network of filters to get the final look:


Or if you're like me who likes code more than graphs, here's the same thing in pseudocode format:
Code: 
out.draw(Base_Color)

// SHADOWS //
tmp = average(Occlusion, Key_Light)
out.multiply(tmp, 0.6)
tmp2 = remapLuminance(Cel_Light, [0.0, 0.5,   0.1, 0.75,   0.15, 1.0])
out.multiply(tmp2, 0.6)

// HIGHLIGHTS //
tmp.applyBrightness(+100/100)
tmp.applyContrast(+50/100)
out.screen(tmp, 0.125)
out.add(Specular, 0.1)

// LIGHTS //
tmp = multiply(Rim_Light, #43deff)
out.add(tmp, 0.4)
tmp = multiply(Back_Light, #ffdc63)
out.add(tmp, 0.75)
tmp = multiply(Fill_Light, #dc31aa)
out->add(tmp, 0.4)

// BLOOM FILTER (<blur>, <brightPassPower>, <alpha>) //
out.bloom(2, 1, 0.7)
out.bloom(4, 2, 0.15)
out.bloom(8, 4, 0.25)

// OUTLINES //
tmp = invert(Contour_Lines)
out.multiply(tmp, 0.25)

return out
Note: the second parameter of the blendmode operations is the amount of weighting from 0 to 1, i.e. the opacity of the 'over' layer.
e.g. out.screen(tmp, 0.125) applies "tmp" as a layer over "out", using the SCREEN blendmode with an opacity of 12.5%.


And here's how it all works...
  • We first take key light and occlusion passes, run the AVERAGE blendmode between them and multiply the result to the base color pass. This recreates the soft painterly shading seen in many of the recent Pokemon games (including Pogo and Smash).
  • The cel light pass is taken and remapped so that any pixel brighter than 0.15 (#262626) is recolored to pure white (#ffffff) and all other pixels between 0.0 and 0.15 brightness are linearly remapped to the scale of 0.5 to 1.0 (#808080 to #ffffff). This is used to give the cel-shaded like shadows in the games.
  • The keylight-occlusion average is run through a brightness/contrast adjustment to increase the area of the white parts, then added via SCREEN blendmode to get that ugly washed out signature effect of Pokemon renders since XY.
  • Lighting is then added in after coloring the lights:
    • light blue for the rim light to emulate the sky
    • bright yellow for the back light to emulate the sun
    • magenta for the fill light
  • Then comes the specular highlights and an optional bloom filter. Optional because I'm still not sure if SwSh has it or not. If your program doesn't have bloom you can do a makeshift one by cloning the image, multiplying by itself a few times, gaussian blur it then compositing it with either ADD or SCREEN. That's what I do and it gives a decent result~
  • Lastly, the contour lines pass is color-inverted (a step you can skip if you can make your program render black lines on a white bg while keeping black bg for the other passes) and multiplied onto the final result. 25-35% alpha is used to get that weird line color effect of SwSh.

Phew what a long post. You can see the whole thing in action below.

 
MrDollSteak

MrDollSteak

CAP 1v1 me IRL
is a Community Contributoris an Artist Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnus
It's great to see CAP coming back to life with the release of Sword and Shield. I've finished off the colours for Volkraken's Texture Map now. Thanks to Tomo Steph and QxC4eva and anyone else who's worked on getting the sheet ready for me to colour in!

Here's a rendering of how both its normal form and shiny form look.

1573714237764.png

1573714265399.png


Personally I think the shiny could use a different body colour instead of the normal red and just wanted to open that up to the floor. I've done a slightly pinker version as an example.

1573714518955.png



EDIT: For the record I have since updated the Texture Map to include the extra dots on Volkraken's face pattern.
 
Last edited:
MrDollSteak

MrDollSteak

CAP 1v1 me IRL
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Just wanted to update everyone on Arghonaut's progress! Here are some very preliminary test renders (the sheen and roughness in particular)! Thank you so much to everyone involved in making this sick model! It was fun making the texture for this one, Argh's a personal CAP favorite of mine.

Argh.png

Argh shiny.png
 
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