Happy Halloween!
Halloween is all about horror games, right?
In the spirit of the season, I created a Japanese-style Jack-o'-lantern mask. (Don’t worry; I made sure this didn’t interfere with the main game development!)
I’ve been interested in trying out 3D scanning, so I bought a pumpkin at the grocery store and scanned it. I used the 3DMakerpro Moose scanner for this project. Although photogrammetry is a more budget-friendly option, it has the drawback of requiring you to complete all photoshoots before you can see the results in software. To speed up iteration in case of errors, I opted for a 3D scanner instead.
While the initial learning curve was steeper than I expected, I now realize it wasn’t a bad investment. Once you get used to it, you can create high-poly data for small objects in about an hour, which is quite efficient. Plus, if any issues arise during the scan, I can spot them early on, allowing for quicker iterations. That said, the texture quality is generally better with photogrammetry.
For the workflow: I quickly retopologized the scanned data, baked the texture, and then used geometry nodes to align and carve out the eyes and mouth in real-time. And that’s it – my mask was complete!
There’s a chance this mask might even make an appearance in Niraya of ■■, which is slated for release next year!