KMNZ LITA 3D Model

Published: Dec 13, 2023

Source files. It’s my first full body 3d character so the topology sucks, the UV unwrapping sucks, and the rigging sucks, but such is life! Also I didn’t realize you’re suppose to “apply” the metarig to get an actual useable rig with IK and junk.

Note that I’ve decimated the rendered model above to about 30% of its vertices just to save on web space. I had big plans for this model and saw it as a framework on which a lot of derivative work could be made. Think SaaS product that produces selfies with your favorite tubers🥔 using an anime facsimile of your likeness. Unfortunately, KMNZ is scheduled to die soon.

Good bye, KMNZ! As your #1 biggest fan, I’ll never accept this. I don’t respect your resignation and I don’t understand why you had KMNZ LIZ under an “at will” contract.

I learned a lot though and could probably make another model fairly quickly. But in what world would I be so entranced by some other collection of 2d pixels that I would want to do this again. Also UV unwrapping 🤮. Actually I don’t think I’m fit for the 3d pipeline; I also hate rigging.

But you know what I… think I like doing? Animations:

This was suppose to just be an image, but I got carried away once I had rigged the model. I wanted to make one of those idle animations from Overwatch’s character selection screen. It’s a bit shitty and stiff because, again, the rig sucks and is partially incomplete in terms of shape keys for the face.

The background is mostly an AI generated image using the line art from the final page of the KMNZ manga!

I didn’t mind the poor AI rendering and my bad mixing of the composite images because it would be in the background, blurred by depth of field, and slightly fixed (colorwise) by ambient occlusion. And I’ll have you know, I spent minutes telling the AI to generate better red texturing for the graffiti lettering.

Going back to “framework for derivative work”. Look I 3d printed a figurine and then painted it:

Yes, I got a bunch of paints and brushes just for this project. In my defense, I also had to paint an eggshell-ish color for a hole I made in my drywall. Lighting in this photo courtesy of gooselight! I’m going to be defensive about why I didn’t sand this because some Twitter fiend commented on it:

  1. I hate sanding
  2. This was just an experimental first-try (at 0.2mm layer height)
  3. There’s an absolutely hideous texturing at the back caused by some fixes I did with a soldering iron

While I’m here, don’t use spackle to fill cracks between two joined 3d-printed pieces.

Next Steps (which likely won’t be done)

I have to update to Blender 4.0 which released during the creation of this. This includes a new Rigify armature which I should actually apply this time.

The shader I used for the model also had an update about a week before I finished 😞. Actually, it would be beneficial to write down how to use that shader on a custom model because as it progresses its workflows become more and more tied to the automated importer which only works with datamined Genshin/HSR models.