This week, I focused on developing the short film’s story background and adding textual details to enrich the narrative. The story is set in a future Earth plagued by frequent natural disasters, where most people can only live in enclosed mobile cities, while the upper class has already migrated to outer space. Earth is no longer habitable for humans.
The protagonist is an interstellar colonial laborer who undergoes body modification. Those who accept the modification can use a particle projection system to choose their preferred appearance, including facial features and clothing. However, when the projection is turned off, their true form remains mechanical. Moreover, the particle projection only displays on the laborers themselves and cannot be perceived by human retinas, so humans still see them as mechanical beings.
Although the company exploits its laborers, some individuals value the opportunity for body modification. For example, those with illnesses or physical disabilities can gain mobility they previously lacked and experience views beyond Earth. After her modification, the protagonist deeply misses her former body and her home planet Earth, but due to contractual restrictions, she is unable to return. This background provides an emotional foundation for the short film and reinforces the protagonist’s internal conflict and motivation for self-reconciliation.
In terms of character design and modeling, I aimed to create a protagonist with distinctive facial features, such as sunburn marks and scars. While painting textures, I used brushstrokes to convey a rough skin texture caused by exposure to harsh environmental conditions. Her eyes are designed to express a rebellious spirit without appearing overly aggressive, which makes the overall design challenging. Through these design choices, I hope the character conveys inner resilience and psychological depth, while reflecting her unique identity and narrative background.
In terms of character texturing and modeling, I added detailed treatments to enhance her realism. For example, her cheeks display uneven skin texture due to dryness, and I incorporated hand-drawn hatching in areas prone to compression or friction to create a more natural surface.
To make her skin features more lifelike, I used height gradients to emphasize moles, freckles, and acne marks, giving these subtle imperfections a realistic depth under lighting. These techniques not only enrich the character’s appearance but also convey a sense of life experience and resilience shaped by environmental exposure.
During the character creation process, I experimented with various hairstyles and facial designs. Initially, I planned for the character to wear a cloak and stand with her back to the camera on a sand dune, so I tried using Marvelous Designer to create the cloak. However, upon further consideration, I realized that since the character’s lower body is entirely mechanical, the cloak was unnecessary. As a result, this design plan was ultimately set aside.
For the final facial version of the character, I rendered it in Maya, adding displacement maps and using Maya’s glass-like eye material to achieve excellent refraction effects, resulting in highly detailed visuals.
However, after importing the character into Unreal Engine (UE), much of this fine detail was lost. The first issue is that UE’s displacement maps are primarily designed for terrain and cannot be applied to micro-details such as pores, so the effect must be simulated using normal maps, which are less precise.
The second issue is that UE’s translucent materials have limited refraction and reflection capabilities, making it difficult to achieve the same level of refinement as in Maya. This experience highlighted the need to balance visual quality with technical feasibility across different software and rendering engines, and emphasized the importance of finding suitable solutions for real-time rendering of detailed facial features.
In the character’s hair creation process, I encountered a third issue: after importing the groom into Unreal Engine (UE), controlling the variation in hair thickness proved very limited. UE only allows adjustment of root, tip, and overall width via parameters, and it cannot achieve the fine control over individual hair strands that is possible in Maya using curves.
Additionally, if a single hair strand is too thin, lighting in UE can create a “half-lit” effect, revealing the faintly visible scalp underneath. As a result, the character’s hair in the final render can only appear relatively thick.