How a French Studio Outsourced All 3D Animation and Skeletal Animation to Our Team in Eastern Europe.

Description

Diamond Character: Bespoke Character, Creature, and Animation Services

Diamond Character: Specialist Studio for Unforgettable 3D Character Design, Creature Art, and Animation

About Us

Diamond Character is the specialist Character Artist Specialist division of Diamond Art Studios. We believe that iconic characters are the heart of any great game. We are not a generalist Game Asset Factory; we are a dedicated boutique studio of master artists, technical animators, and concept designers. Our sole focus is the end-to-end creation of the most memorable, high-quality, and technically sound characters in the industry.

From Realistic Character Art that pushes the boundaries of the uncanny valley to Stylized Character Art that defines a brand, we handle every step. We service clients from AAA to ambitious indies, understanding that a game’s success often hinges on the connection players feel with its cast.

Our Character-Centric Pipeline

We offer a complete, end-to-end production pipeline, tailored to your specific engine, Art Style Guide, and technical requirements.

1. Character Concept & Visual Development

• Character Concept Artist Services: We begin with deep research and exploration.

  • Silhouette & Ideation: Rapid sketching to find unique and strong shapes.

  • Photobashing & 3D Concepting: Using 3D blockouts and photo elements to quickly iterate on realistic designs.

  • Detailed Renders: Final, polished concept art showing costume, materials, and attitude.

  • Costume & Prop Design: Focused design on a character’s clothing, gear, and personal items.

  • Anatomy & Creature Design: Expert-level understanding of human and animal anatomy for Creature Design, ensuring believability even in fantasy.

2. High-Fidelity Sculpting (High-Poly Modeling)

This is where your character’s form is perfected.

• Master-Level ZBrush Sculpting:

  • Organic Sculpting: Lifelike anatomy, skin pores, wrinkles, and muscle definition.

  • Hard-Surface Sculpting: Intricate armor, cybernetics, and gear sculpted with precision.

  • Facial Expression Sculpting: Creating a library of expressions or “hero” sculpts for In-Game Cinematics.

• Advanced Cloth & Material Simulation:

  • Marvelous Designer / CLO: Creating realistic folds and drapery for all types of Digital Fashion Design and costuming.

  • Material Definition: Sculpting distinct surfaces (leather, metal, cloth, skin) to prepare for texturing.

3. Game-Ready Optimization (Retopology & UVs)

Our Technical Art Services ensure your character looks stunning and performs flawlessly.

• Meticulous Retopology Services:

  • Gameplay Topology: Optimized for performance while maintaining silhouette and key details.

  • Cinematic Topology: Higher-density topology built for extreme deformation, especially in the face and hands.

  • Topology for Deformation: Prioritizing edge loops around joints (shoulders, elbows, knees, face) for clean bends and expressions.

• Expert UV Mapping:

  • UDIMs: Used for cinematic-quality assets requiring massive texture resolution.

  • Optimized Atlases: Efficiently packed UVs to minimize draw calls and maximize texel density for game-ready models.

  • LOD Creation: Generating multiple levels of detail (LODs) for performance scaling.

4. PBR Texturing & Material Authoring

We bring your character to life with color and texture.

• Realistic PBR Texturing (Substance Painter):

  • Lifelike Skin: Using multi-channel texturing (albedo, roughness, SSS, normal) to create believable skin.

  • Material Authoring (Substance Designer): Creating custom, procedural materials like intricate chainmail, woven fabrics, or unique alien skin.

• Stylized & Hand-Painted Texturing:

  • Expertise in the hand-painted, Blizzard-esque style, or clean, cell-shaded anime styles.

  • 3DCoat / Photoshop / ZBrush Polypaint workflows.

• Hair & Fur Creation:

  • Real-Time Hair Cards: Creating and placing individual hair cards for a high-quality, performant “helmet” of hair.

  • Groom-Based: Using tools like XGen or Ornatrix to create hair grooms that are baked down or used for cinematic renders.

5. Rigging, Skinning & Animation

The final step: giving your character the spark of life.

• Rigging and Skinning:

  • FACS-Based Facial Rigging: Implementing the Facial Action Coding System for hyper-realistic, nuanced facial performances.

  • Joint-Based Facial Rigging: Lighter-weight, robust rigs perfect for stylized characters or large crowds of NPCs.

  • Body Rigging: Advanced rigs for bipeds, quadrupeds, and multi-limbed creatures, including IK/FK switching, corrective blendshapes, and physics controls.

• Keyframe Animation:

  • Gameplay Loops: Locomotion (walk, run, strafe, jump), combat (attacks, blocks, flinches), and idles.

  • Cinematic Animation: Hand-crafting high-impact, emotional performances for In-Game Cinematics.

• Motion Capture Services:

  • Mocap Cleanup & Solving: Taking raw mocap data (from optical or an inertial suit) and cleaning it, solving it onto our rig, and adding finger/facial animation.

  • Mocap-Based Cinematics: Directing and producing entire cinematic sequences.

Packages & Pricing (Estimates)

We offer transparent, asset-based pricing. Prices are estimates and vary based on complexity, style (realistic vs. stylized), and technical requirements.

Why Diamond Character?

We are trusted by AAA Art Vendors and indie visionaries alike to handle their most important assets. Our specialization as a Character Artist Specialist means faster iteration, higher artistic quality, and a deeper technical understanding of what makes a character work. We create digital actors, not just models.