Creating the Black Walker: A Photorealistic Character Breakdown

Introduction

At Pingle, our Character Department has been receiving more projects that involve photorealistic characters, so I decided to make a character that would represent this direction and give me some additional practice with realistic materials and texturing.

The idea came from photographs of a British special forces Black Walker cosplay. I liked the design because it included many different types of materials and objects that could be interesting to reproduce: several kinds of fabric, tactical equipment, bags, straps, hard-surface elements, and smaller accessories.

Before starting the model, I spent time collecting references for the character and its individual parts. I prefer to have references for each element because they make it easier to understand how something is constructed and help me estimate the amount of work required at different stages.

For this project, I gathered images of the full outfit from different angles as well as separate references for particular materials, pieces of clothing, and equipment.

The production process followed three main stages: high-poly creation, low-poly preparation, and texturing.

Building the High-Poly Character

I began with the body that would serve as the base for the clothing and equipment, using 3D scan models as references.

The first prototypes of the vest, boots, hands, and several other elements were created in 3ds Max. At this stage, I was mainly working with proportions and the overall shape of the character before moving on to more detailed work.

For the clothing, I continued in Marvelous Designer. I wanted to establish the main fabric shapes and natural folds there, knowing that I would later refine them in ZBrush.

The interaction between the clothing and the equipment was important because many of the straps visibly affect the fabric underneath them. During simulation, I used simple strips of cloth in place of the final straps so they would tighten the clothing and create the necessary tension and folds. These temporary elements could then be replaced by the actual straps and fasteners later in production.

Pins were useful when I needed to control the position of a particular area of fabric more precisely. I also generated some parts separately, which helped keep the working scenes lighter and easier to manage.

Most of the hard-surface elements were created in 3ds Max, including the base of the helmet and various pieces of equipment.

For the vest, bags, shoulder pads, and similar objects, I usually started with prototype geometry in 3ds Max and then continued working on the forms in ZBrush. There I could correct proportions, develop the shapes further, and sculpt additional details.

I don’t try to use one tool for every type of element. In some cases, sculpting a form or fold manually in ZBrush is faster and gives me more control than trying to achieve exactly the same result through simulation in Marvelous Designer. I also enjoy sculpting folds, so I often prefer doing some of this work by hand.

Low Poly and UVs

After finishing the high-poly stage, I prepared the low-poly version and UVs in 3ds Max using its standard tools.

The finished Black Walker model has more than 200,000 triangles. Since I was creating it as a showcase rather than for a production project with a predetermined performance budget, there were no strict triangle limitations that I needed to meet.

The approach to retopology depended on the element. Some hard-surface pieces could be taken from the first or second subdivision level, while other parts needed to be retopologized manually.

I normally prepare UVs alongside the low-poly geometry rather than treating them as a completely separate stage. This allows me to consider topology and UV seams together and makes it easier to prepare the model for texturing.

Belts and straps are a good example. I try to unwrap them in straight lines so that the checker also follows the object in a straight direction. It makes working with fabric patterns and other directional textures much easier afterward.

The direction of the UVs is also important for cloth. If the patches are prepared correctly, the structure of the fabric follows the expected direction across the model, which helps a lot when working on realistic materials.

Baking

All maps were baked in Marmoset.

The character uses 12 texture sets ranging from 2K to 4K, so I wanted to make the export and baking process as convenient as possible, especially because I knew that some parts of the model would probably require changes after the first baking attempts.

For this purpose, I wrote a small script that takes objects from the current layer, triangulates them, and exports them using the required naming convention.

It became particularly useful whenever I needed to return to a low-poly mesh and correct something. Baking often reveals areas that need additional adjustments, and without the script, every small change would require repeating the preparation and export process manually.

With the script, I could make the necessary correction and export the updated mesh with one button. Considering the number of elements in the character and the amount of iteration involved, this removed a lot of repetitive work from the process.

Working on the Materials

Texturing was the stage that required the most attention because the final impression of a photorealistic character depends heavily on how individual materials behave.

With this character, I didn’t want to use dirt and damage simply as a way to add more visual information. Tactical clothing like this can show signs of regular use without necessarily being heavily covered in mud or looking extremely worn, unless the character is supposed to have spent a considerable amount of time in those conditions.

I wanted the materials to look used while keeping that wear appropriate for the character.

The first step was establishing the basic color, roughness, and metalness values. I also added the initial camouflage, signs, and markings at this stage so I could see how the main visual elements worked together across the entire model.

I continued adjusting these values throughout the texturing process. As individual materials became more developed, some colors and relationships between them also needed to change so that the character remained visually consistent as a whole.

For the fabric, I built the structure procedurally. I created the warp and weft separately, which allowed me to reproduce the construction of the material and control its appearance instead of depending entirely on an existing fabric texture.

The velcro required its own preparation. I created tileable velcro geometry in ZBrush and baked it into a texture, which I then used as the basis for the material.

Throughout texturing, I also checked how the surfaces behaved with different lighting. This is especially important with realistic materials because something that looks correct in one lighting setup may reveal problems as soon as the direction or intensity of the light changes.

Testing the character under different conditions helped me evaluate roughness, surface response, and the relationship between materials before moving on to the final presentation.

Rendering in Unreal Engine 5

I used Unreal Engine 5 for the final renders.

The lighting setup was relatively simple and included a couple of main lights, two warmer lights, and several colder rim lights around the character.

During rendering, I worked with both Path Tracing and Lumen because they produced different results in areas that were important for the final image.

Path Tracing handled the surfaces more accurately when Subsurface Scattering was involved, although the shadows on the low-poly geometry appeared harder. Lumen produced shadows that worked better for the presentation, so I decided to render the character using both approaches and combine the parts that worked best.

The chemical lights are one example. I could take a Lumen render without SSS and combine it with a Path Tracer render where SSS was enabled. This gave me control over the final result without having to rely entirely on one rendering method.

I completed the compositing in Photoshop. I prepared versions of the character with and without the floor and added a hazy glow behind the silhouette to connect it better with the background and create the atmosphere I wanted for the final presentation.

The background itself was also assembled in Photoshop.

Production Time and Challenges

I worked on Black Walker at different times rather than continuously, so the project stretched across a longer period. If I count only the actual production time, it took more than three months.

The amount of detail was one of the main reasons for this. The character consists of many separate elements, and every piece of equipment, clothing, and material needed to work both individually and as part of the complete model.

Texturing required particularly careful work. With photorealistic characters, relatively small differences in the way fabrics, metals, plastic, velcro, and other surfaces react to light can affect the credibility of the entire character.

Because the outfit contains so many different materials positioned close to one another, I spent a lot of time adjusting them and checking how they worked together in the final render.

Advice for Character Artists

For artists who are beginning to work with characters, I recommend drawing people if you don’t already do it. It develops your eye and helps you understand plastic anatomy, which remains useful regardless of the software or pipeline you use.

It is also helpful to combine short 3D studies with larger projects. Quick exercises allow you to practice specific skills and work faster, while a longer project requires you to maintain quality and solve different types of problems across the complete production process.

A character artist working in game development should understand that complete process rather than concentrating exclusively on sculpting or texturing.

A strong high-poly model and good textures are important, but you also need to know how to prepare the low-poly geometry, build correct topology, create UVs, bake the maps, and understand how decisions made at one stage affect the work that follows.

Developing all of these skills takes time, but understanding the complete pipeline gives you much more control over the character and the quality of the final result.