One of Dummy Labs' first proof of concept was this crash tesh dummy that was designed in VR with Gravity Sketch. The dummy served as sort of the mascot and proved as a useful tool for funny marketing content and memes.
Role:
Character Artist
Industry:
Web3 / Metaverse
Duration:
2 weeks
Challenges
Brand Identity: Creating a fun and approachable character for clients and customers to see as a baseline for the work we could produce as a 3D design studio that specialized in avatars.
Joint Articulation: Having a rigid character, like a crash test dummy, that only articulates in certain ways posed a challenge with rigging and skinning.
Customization: Like most NFT collections we would be working with having a blank base to offer accessory and trait customization was an important consideration in the design process.
My Approach
Design
3D modeling: The dummy was modeled in a Virtual Reality design program called Gravity Sketch that allowed me to view the character from all angles in an immersive space. This also allowed me to get up close and personal with the small important details such as joints which would become crucial in the rigging process.
Texturing and materializing: Since it was a very basic character the texturing and materializing did not include much work apart from applying the logo decal to the sides of the dummy's head. Basic hard plastic materials were used for the body and a black rubber for the joints.
Rigging and Skinning
Rigging: The rig for this dummy was especially simple because it is a bi-pedal humanoid skeleton that only can bend at specific joints (i.e. knees, wrist, ankles, etc.). This made the rigging process a breeze and it had a very robust bone structure.
Weight Painting: Weight painting for this character was different from others because it is a rigid body that only articulated at the joints. The weight painting for this was much different from a normal human character.
Animating and Rendering
Posing: Posing the character was very fun and simple. I utilized programs like Mixamo to find fun and simple poses to edit to make quick and easy marketing content.
Final Renders: Rendering to me is always the easiest part of the process. I set up very simple backdrops and scenes with some studio lights and produced clean and fun renders for marketing promo.
Conclusion
The final product of the dummy avatar resulted in a fun and challenging exportation in character design. We come out of it with plenty of great marketing content for our future clients to reference as a testament of our work. We've since had a number of clients reach out to us to design their NFT collection in 3D and produce playable avatars for them.
