This project began when I found this model on Sketchfab by artist Jhe Wei Yang of the classic Godzilla monster King Ghidorah. I thought it would be fun to re-imagine this creature through the lens of Dungeons and Dragons.
Jhe Wei Yang created this incredibly detailed model that I decided to use as a base for this project
The Forgotten Realms campaign setting for Dungeons and Dragons has a lot of fascinating lore around dragons, particularly regarding the differences between Chromatic and Metallic dragons. In this lore Chromatic dragons are evil-aligned creatures and are considered the ‘lesser’ dragons. More powerful are the Metallic dragons, who are good-aligned. Both types of dragons also have different elemental-based abilities based on their color.
I thought It would be interesting to re-imagine Ghidorah as a Dragon turned Hydra, where a Golden dragon overtook the wills of two lesser Chromatic dragons and somehow combined their forms into its body.
After purchasing the model I opened the file in Maya only to realize that this mesh was going to be very difficult to UV Unwrap. The level of detail on the model meant that the mesh had almost half a million vertices and the mesh was tessellated. This was a great model for a 3D print, but it would be very difficult to use for animation.
A high-poly mesh can be great for showing intricate detail but can create issues when used for animation.
Instead of switching tracks and finding a different model of Ghidorah that was already UV Unwrapped (which, in retrospect, would have saved a great deal of time and effort) I decided to use the re-topology tools in zBrush to try and get the model to a state I could use it in.
The first step was organizing the file into like parts and determining what parts of the mesh could be combined
Next I used the Dynamesh tool in zBrush to reduce the complexity of each part of the model and re-meshed each part to get quads. I combined parts of the mesh to reduce the complexity and removed any intersecting faces. It took awhile to dial in the settings but I eventually got to a mesh that could be UV Unwrapped without too much trouble while still retaining needed details of the model.
This topology is much cleaner and easier to cut into flat UVs
Once I finished cleaning up the model I then imported it back into Maya. There I started assigning textures to each part of the model and making sure that all parts were correctly labeled and organized. I then UV Unwrapped each mesh using Maya’s UV Editor and made sure that each part unfolded into a flat plane to limit texture pinching and stretching.
The next step was my favorite- Texture Painting in Substance Painter. I just love how quickly you can create custom textures and layer different effects to get a particular look. Something new I tried for this project was creating custom textures using stock images. I really wanted to focus on representing the elemental powers of the Chromatic dragons with a lava-inspired design for the red dragon and an tundra inspired design for the blue dragon. I’m really proud of how this texture painting turned out overall!
After finalizing the textures and exporting the files it was a simple process to connect the color, roughness, bump, and normal maps files to the Pixar Textures using the Hypershade Editor in Maya. Once the textures were all rendering correctly I created a simple camera move and added some lights into the scene. It took about 5 days for my machine to render 240 frames using Pixar’s Renderman. Finally I compiled the images using Adobe After Effects and added some sound effects and color adjustments. The final product is the following 10 second video: