Screen Accurate RotJ Darth Vader VR Avatar Low-poly 3D model

When this VRChat Avatar was commissioned, the goal was simple: Create the most accurate and realistic Darth Vader inspired model, then make it run in VR. And now, I an share this model with you too!

This model is game ready, VR ready, and looks great in renders! The rig is designed to work in Untiy and VR chat, but will work in most 3D software. The cape is rigged with a series of bones to make Dynamic Bone simulation possible, but you can overide that in your software of choice real time cloth sims. The lightsaber blade is rigged to be fully controlable through animation or scripting.

Incudes the Darth Vader model, Darth Vader lightsaber hilt and blade models, full texture sets in up to 4k resolution, custom made punchcard texture for the animated lights, custom unity shaders (Built in render pipline, shaderforge editable). Vader is fully rigged and fully UV'd. Textures come in an efficient channle packed format, as well as individual textures to fit any workflow.

How Vader was created:

We dove into a plethora of behind-the-scenes photos, documentaries, museum exhibits, and several re-watches of ROTJ. All to make this model the most accurate it could be.

To create the model we started with a body double for David Prowse, generated with the Human Generator plugin for Blender. From there I blocked in the hard surface elements. With those landmarks set I began sewing and simulating the leather bodysuit, and gloves. After the suit came the cape and robe, which were extremely easy to simulate, retopo and pose thanks to Blenders Surface Deform Modifier. With soft surfaces done, I went back to the blackout and polished off the armor and electrical boxes.

Once the high poly was constructed and looked perfect for the client, I began the VR-ready versions. Since this is a VR Chat avatar we did 2 versions: The main, best looking, and more intensive avatar; and the Fallback, a paired down resource cheap avatar.

With this UV'd, retopoed and rigged, I brought the High Poly and the Main VR avatar into substance to bake, sculpt and paint the remaining details. This is where we went above and beyond on screen accurate details, some of which are only identifiable through rare behind-the-scenes photos from ROTJ.

Both our avatars performed well in VRChat, and both met the technical standards for a fallback avatar, so everyone should be able to enjoy the client's best suit of armor.