Yearbook - Character Creation

whispers65

Ok this project is turning out bigger than I ever thought it would be but oh well I'm into it now and it is fun. The way to go is keep pressing forward...

I'm creating what amounts to an 8th Grade Yearbook (only one grade due to the shear amount of characters even for a small school). I had the grandiose idea of creating one for each year but after trying this, there's no way. This will be a one shot pony unless I can age everyone well and make a college one.

And why so many characters? Sports Pages. I can't imagine creating 20 guys and they all play football, baseball, soccer, and basketball. Not counting other things like swimming, track, etc. And then there are clubs. Same with the girls.

So I'm working on creating 40 of each. (yes, that is a big number) And that should cut down on the need to eliminate a sport or someone doing too many things that aren't feasible. But then again when I was in school, I played basketball, soccer, and did track and went to competition in weightlifting all in the same year. We didn't have baseball or football. During my 7th thru 9th grades, I went to a small church school.

I need ideas to create characters, especially for the guys. The girls are easy as there are lots of women characters and I'm working on a way to easily age someone from infant to old fogy-hood (no offense, I'm quickly getting there myself).

So far I've:

1) Used all of the YT5 characters in the store.
2) clone characters from them (facial changes)
3) Used older guys and regressed (not that easy so far)
4) came up with faces by combing different morphs and settings.
5) I will be adding a set of twins. I already have one for the girls.

I try and use a variety of skin tones, hair styles, etc as seen in the render. It's just easier with the girls because there is so much to choose from.

I'm running short on hairstyles and skin textures. Skin textures aren't all that bad. I expected everyone to look like Neanderthals but so far so good. I wouldn't mind some more though for variety especially more ethnic ones. For girls, it'll be easy as there is Zevo's skin builder addon along with tons of other textures. (and really this isn't another 'there isn't enough guy stuff' thread, but it is what it is and I'm making due with what is available.)

In a word, what am I shooting for? Variety. Uniqueness. Some characters I've created so far I like and others are well mainly filler. Some I chunked out entirely. They just didn't work or looked too close to others.

So any ideas?

I'd love a random face generator or find out how I could go about setting up one myself. Well an entire creation process from head to toe would be nice. I saw something like that for V4 or Genesis females but then again it was for females which there isn't much of a problem to begin with.

Thanks!

gbritton

Brilliant idea Whisper. This is a nice concept to generate a lot creativity within yourself.

If you are just sticking with YT5 characters, I would recommend changing the sliders on the various hairs that you have already used. Keep in mind that many children's styles are the same in a given year - we all remember seeing a lot of boys wanting the Bieber style recently. But even with the same style, there were always the children that forgot to comb their hair or chose to have the more un-kept look for yearbook pictures.

For skins I often change the diffuse colors to achieve different skin tones (light vs. tan) and occasionally for children I will even use a female skin to achieve a more youthful skin appearance.

If you are going to use other characters, Genesis or Genesis 2, you have a lot more options to work with. For skins on G2, I recommend The Ultimate Merchant Resource Skin Texture Kit for Teen Jayden 6 by ForbiddenWhispers. It's a tremendous asset to have for re-skinning G2 Jayden.

Keep up the great work and what you have so far is awesome. If you were going for a full yearbook, my guess is that other members would enjoy making contributions, but then you'd probably have to buy yourself a "yearbook editor" hat. :P

whispers65

gbritton said:

Brilliant idea Whisper. This is a nice concept to generate a lot creativity within yourself.

If you are just sticking with YT5 characters, I would recommend changing the sliders on the various hairs that you have already used. Keep in mind that many children's styles are the same in a given year - we all remember seeing a lot of boys wanting the Bieber style recently. But even with the same style, there were always the children that forgot to comb their hair or chose to have the more un-kept look for yearbook pictures.

For skins I often change the diffuse colors to achieve different skin tones (light vs. tan) and occasionally for children I will even use a female skin to achieve a more youthful skin appearance.

If you are going to use other characters, Genesis or Genesis 2, you have a lot more options to work with. For skins on G2, I recommend The Ultimate Merchant Resource Skin Texture Kit for Teen Jayden 6 by ForbiddenWhispers. It's a tremendous asset to have for re-skinning G2 Jayden.

Keep up the great work and what you have so far is awesome. If you were going for a full yearbook, my guess is that other members would enjoy making contributions, but then you'd probably have to buy yourself a "yearbook editor" hat. :P

Thank you for the kind comments. One big reason for me doing this is to learn more and actually find a reason to use all of the content that I buy rather than just collecting it lol.

I'm not necessarily trying to stick to YT5 as just around that age. Before Jayden and Josie came along the choices were primarily YT5 and K4 which I don't care for. Actually, I'm using some of the Jayden and Josie characters and making them younger to fit this starting category now. One of the guys I included was a younger version of Jayden or at least I hope so. YT5 fits more Junior High where Jayden and Josie could be High School. To me it would be cool to have an Elementary, Junior High, High School and College yearbook. It would be a lot of work though. Myself, I only have 8th and 9th grades. It was a good time in my life school-wise. I have a senior one but I wasn't in it.

On hair styles, I didn't think about that. I'm not around kids at all so I really don't know. I may see one or two walking to school or in a store but that's about it. I'm always around adults at work and they rarely have the same style (sometimes in the same week lol) so I get caught up in everything has to be completely different. I'll take a look at the hairstyles I do have and see about making them look unique.

On skins, I never thought about that either. I'm a guy so I tend to think guy stuff is for guys and girl stuff is for girls even in 3d lol. I'll try some female skins. I did change the diffuse on a couple of characters and that seemed to work ok although to me it didn't look as good as the original values. I also have several skin merchant kits but since I'm not an "artist" (I keep hearing my mom's voice) so I haven't tried to do anything with them yet. I know I can change the textures and replace skins in the diffuse slot but as far as other settings I'd need to change I don't know. I'd like to learn how to create my own character from scratch though. That'd be cool.

Thank you for taking the time. These were some good suggestions!