Walking Old African Elephant Low-poly 3D model

The African Elephant is a 3D model made in Blender 2.79 that forms part of a series of African Savannah inhabitants. This product has a wide variety of applications as it includes realtime and high resolution models. The model is both rigged and animated using Deer Rigger, which is a modified version of Rigify for Quadrupeds.

The product consists of,

1. 4k Color Texture, with Masks
2. Non-overlapping UV's
3. Realtime Model made-up of 2144 Faces
4. High Resolution Sculpt model
5. Rig
6. Active Modifier stack
7. Animated walk cycle
8. Cycles Material Node Network

The African Elephant product consists of several files,

1. elephant_realtime.obj : A realtime, low poly version of the elephant consisting of approximately 2k polys and non-overlapping UV's.

2. elephantSculpt.blend : High resolution sculpted elephant consisting of approximately 400k polys.

3. elephant_walk.blend : Rigged and animated elephant, with an active modifier stack that's ready to render for Cycles.

4. elephant_walk_sim.blend : Rigged and animated elephant, with an active modifier stack including a Soft Body Modifier for a dynamics simulation.

5. elephants4kColor.png : Color channel texture map in 4K.

6. elephants4kEarMask.png : SSS channel Mask in 4K.

7. elephants4kTuskMask.png : Oren-Nayar channel Mask in 4K.

8. elephants4kNormal.png : Normal Map baked from high resolution sculpt in 4K.

The realtime model is lite enough to be used in games and apps. Whereas the same model can be subdivided to produce a high resolution model that can be used for cinematic close-up to wide shots, without having to rely on a Normal map alone to reproduce the model's details.

The scene is setup such that all animation is performed on the realtime model, this information can then be propagated to the high resolution model for rendering. The setup of the modifier stack handles much of this task.

Visualization of high resolution data within the 3D viewport is made possible through the Subdivision Surface and Shrinkwrap Modifiers. This technique does not compromise on system performance during animation and posing.

The animation file (elephant_walk.blend) consists of a particular setup with both realtime and high resolution meshes within the same scene. In order to keep the file size of the scene small the high res model has been linked into the main file (elephant_walk.blend), therefore ensure that the path to the high res model matches its location.

It's subsequently best to leave the high resolution model on a hidden layer during animation and use the setup detailed below to control LOD. This will also improve system performance.

The realtime model is setup to subdivide (through the Subdivision surface Modifier) at rendertime. Increasing subdivisions here will allow the realtime model to more closely match the look of the sculpted model. Vertices generated through subdivision will match surface points of the high resolution, sculpted model through the Shrinkwrap Modifier.

Deformation is then performed on the model through the Armature modifier.

Dynamic, secondary animation can be baked into the model with the Soft Body modifier. Visualization of this modifier within the 3D viewport is by default, disabled. Performing a soft body simulation on the high resolution model will mean that the subdivision surface modifier will have to be applied first. A weight map for such a simulation has also been provided see elephant_walk_sim.blend for an example. If you have any questions I'll be glad to assist you, so please don't hesitate to get in touch.