How It's (Being) Made

This is not my first attempt at making a model of Walt, but I am committed to this being the most accurate and realistic model that has ever been made. This includes me basing it off of hundreds of references, learning new modeling techniques, and coming up with innovative ways to get the best results possible.

From Bronze Beginnings

To make this model as accurate as possible, I knew I couldn't start from scratch. Previous attempts to model the head using photos led to less than satisfactory results. I needed to try something new, and luckily, Unreal Engine had released a new toolset that could help me do. This tool was designed to allow people to take previous face models or even face scans and turn them into skeletal meshes for Metahumans. There was no current head model that was accurate enough to use and for obvious reasons, Walt wasn't available to take a 3D scan, so I had to turn to less conventional methods. Using Polycam, a 3D scanning application known for producing very high-quality results, I was able to create a nearly exact replica of the head from the expertly sculpted Walt the Dreamer statue in Epcot Center and use that to create a skeletal mesh with a bone structure and muscle position nearly indistinguishable from the real person.

Bringing Walt to Life

The next step was to import the skeletal mesh into Metahuman Creator, where I could see apply a preset skin and hair to the model, allowing me to modify it and increase the accuracy.

With the skeletal mesh uploaded, the first thing that needed to be done was fix the top of the head, which was slightly bulbous due to the sculpted hairstyle. After fixing it, I was starting to see Walt's face in the animations, and I knew I was on the right track.

After applying a preset texture, a default hair, and a moustache, I could tell that I was getting close, closer than I had ever been before, but it still felt off. Looking back, the skeletal mesh was a little messed up when converting the scan. The mouth was wrong, the chin wasn't properly defined, the ears were the wrong shape, and the nose was a little off. I went back and manually adjusted each aspect of the skeletal mesh before re-importing it, and I believe the results speak for themselves.

With the model looking as good as it can with default presets, I needed to get to work making custom components for walt, starting with his signiture hairstyle. I had never modeled hair before so it was a learning experience, but I eventually learned how to use the sculpted hair from the scan data as a guideline for the generated hair in Blender. From there, I was able to comb and cut the hair into his signiture look.

What's Next.....

Theres still so much left to do. I need to make a custom texture of Walt's face that matches him down to the smallest freckle. I also have some leftover editing to do on the skeletal mesh, particularly with the eyebrows which are slightly exagerated. I need to make custom animations, make his iconic suit, duplicate his mannerisms, and hopefully find a voice actor who can match his voice and tone before finally creating an extremely high quality rendering showcasing the model.