Instructor Info

Nikolay Naydenov is a Senior Character Artist currently working in Gameloft. Nikolay always had deep interest in art. In his spare time he was either reading a book or scribbling on a notebook ever since he was a child. He has been in the game industry since 2007 and had worked in many projects. The project that he is most proud of is the game titled March of Empires. He loves his job as a character artist especially when he is given freedom to do his own concepting and ideas. His advice for everyone just starting out is to spend lots of time learning software programs, be efficient and fast, and also spend many hours learning the anatomy, studying faces, and muscles underneath the skin. As every profession, to be good at something, you have to practice a lot. He recommends students to always look for improvement and never settle. He believes good things require sacrifice of time and other pleasures and this can turn your passion into a profession.

Course Info 

In this course, you will learn how to make a low poly character from a high res mesh. First, we will start by exporting the high poly in parts, using the Decimation Master tool in Zbrush. Then we will import them in 3ds Max, and start making the low poly by retopologizing the decimated meshes. We will learn how to retopologize and make the most out of our forms with fewer polygons. Then we will make the UV coordinates for our low poly and bake the textures in Xnormal.  After that, our textures and low poly will be imported in Substance Painter, where you will learn how to make realistic metal, leather and other materials for your character texture. Then it will be time for Marmoset Toolbag, where we will make the most of our textures and model, to achieve the final result that we like. Last, but not least, we will learn how to make low poly hair from scratch. From making the hair planes brush in Zbrush, to making the texture and normal map from Fibermesh, and ready game hair in Marmoset.  The end result will be a beautiful production-ready game character.