Talking About Models

2022-10-17 by Lunarium Works

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In this devlog, I'll be talking about the modeling process that went into creating the various EGO models seen in One More Cup of EGO. Also included are the humanoid models made by Robert in VRoid Studio.

Now, it's been a hot minute since I've picked up Blender. Probably the last time I crossed paths with it was about 2 years ago during the Pandemic when I decided to pick it up on a whim to try and make a fight animation. After taking about three days straight to make barely 2 seconds of animation though, that dream was cut short.

Anyway, I was going into all of this very rusty and out of practice. Luckily, what I did have was previous practice modeling weapons from a reference. My general workflow, then, consisted very simply of placing a static reference image in the distance and then using the axis viewpoints to move edges and vertices according to the 2D sprite reference from L Corp.

Shoutout to my two best friends during the whole thing: the loop cut tool and mirror modifier.

Fourth Match Flame: First model, pretty simple all around. I chose to start with this one since it consisted of a lot of basic shapes. That matchstick running through the center was so much more of a hassle than it had to be, though. It was here that I realized that beveled edges were the key to beauty, bar none.

Wingbeat: Ok, I'll admit, I was really lazy on this one. Another very simple model geometrically, so I just stuck an icosphere on a stick and called it a day. The "wings" were made from a subdivided cube where I moved the vertices to somewhat match the wings in the reference image. From there, it was just a matter of duplicating the wing and rotating them slightly.

Hornet: So here we are, the first raid boss. I was very much dreading having to make anything than a set of stretched cubes, and hornet definitely was my first real test in modeling. I'm split between naming the gun barrel and the stock as the hardest parts to model.

Bear Paw: No rest for the weary. Right after the pain of making Hornet, I had to go straight into a model that consisted almost entirely of organic curves. Not only that, but it was also asymmetric to boot. Ironically enough, I actually found more success using a cube as a base to start off of than a sphere. God bless subdivided cubes.

Regret: So somewhere, this one didn't actually end up being as hard as it was. At first, I tried to make the whole hammer head out of a single piece like a total moron. Second go around, I whipped out the 'ol reliable subdivided cube. After making a single layer, it was just a matter of duplicating that layer and modifying it a number of times to form the entire hammer.

Grinder Mk. 4: This one was pretty simple. Models made primarily of geometric shapes like this tend to be pretty easy. Making the smiley face was a lot funnier than it really should've been.

Harmony: I've never actually seen this weapon in-game, so it was really confusing trying to figure out just how the heck you were supposed to shoot this thing. Either way, another pretty simple model since it was just a giant block.

Solemn Vow: Probably one of my favorite models, and one that made me really wish we had the time to texture these models. Since the model ended up being made of a lot of separate pieces, however, making the butterfly-shaped indents on the body ended up being really hard to align properly.

Magic Bullet: Fun fact: the L Corp. sprite was horribly low-res, so I hard to rip the sprite from Ruina instead. As another rifle model, this one was another pain to model accurately. Flat surfaces just feel off on guns, so I did my best to put some curves and texture on the model.

Bloody Desire: Man, I hated making this one. At first, I thought the axe head would be simple to make. Some higher power must've heard me, because it ended up being one of the most difficult single pieces I've had to make by far.

Red Eyes: So remember when I said Bloody Desire's axe head was a pain? This model is made out of two cylinders. Agony. I very much used and abused the hell out of the knife tool here to cut out edges. Since I needed raised lines, I had to draw each feature three times over, once for the raised part, and once on either side to slant back down. Probably the hardest part of this model was having to try and avoid N-gons (faces with more than 4 vertices), which is a tall order when you're carving the model up like a pumpkin.

Laetitia: Another rifle, another sob. I can't tell if this or Magic Bullet ended up being my favorite rifle model. While this one ended up being a bit blocky, I was pretty proud of the flintlock mechanism that you can't really see in this image as it's on the other side of the model. The wrappings on the barrel were made with curves and the shrinkwrap modifier, and were an absolute pain to get working.

Fragments From Somewhere: After the sheer complexity that was Laetitia, I'm not ashamed to say that I just busted this one out in like 5 minutes.

Our Galaxy: Read the above.

Da Capo: So here we are, the final boss. Probably fitting that this ended up being the last model I made, seeing as it's a rather iconic EGO from L Corp's late game. If I never again in my life have to model musical notes and a treble clef in 3D, it'll still be too soon.

Robert's VRoid Studio Models:

I don't have much to say on these, as I don't know much on how Robert went about making them. I will say that they ended up pretty good, especially for his first encounter with the software.