Creating the Pigeons

Since we ended up settling for an urban, Piccadilly Circus - style level, I jumped at the opportunity to create some pigeons to dot around and add small pockets of life to the scene. I started by modelling a highly simplified pigeon in Zbrush, taking care to keep the sculpt as clean and stylized as possible.

The feathers presented some difficulties, especially keeping the bake in mind. I sculpted them with the help of Zbrush's Extract

tool, then copied them across the wings and tail accordingly.

Next up was the retopology, made in 3DCoat and corrected in 3DSMax. The wings were a bit tricky, but a few sneakily placed loops and a good cage solved most of the issues. The baking was completed in Substance Painter.

Texturing in the form of simple colors and gradients was likewise added in Substance.

I knew when i decided to create this asset that it couldn't simply be stationary - it had to be animated to blend it into the scene and prevent it from looking like a toy. I sculpted the head and wings separately from the rest of the bird, and rounded the chest area so the head could be pivoted up and down without clipping. I then created different animations in 3DSMax to add some variety to the level birds (e.g. pecking, flapping, and a combination of both):

And finally, a soundbite of pigeons cooing and pecking to add that extra touch:

#pigeon #bird #animal #animation