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Orangutan — Realtime Creature

This project grew out of a long-running fascination with primates and took shape over the course of 2–3 months, developed on and off between other work. It began as a rough sculpt on my iPad before being refined and completed in ZBrush. I intentionally sculpted the entire piece directly in pose to challenge my understanding of anatomy while improving my ability to capture movement, balance, and natural weight distribution. Once the sculpt was complete, it moved through Maya for setup, XGen for the fur, and Substance for texturing, before being lit and rendered in real time in Unreal Engine.

I ran into persistent flickering issues with the hair during rendering that I wasn't able to fully resolve. I decided it was best to move on applying what I learned to future projects.

viewport screengrabs from the project.

My goal was to preserve the sculpted anatomy while keeping the overall look natural and believable.

I've been following Bento Ribeiro's progress on a project recently and really got inspired by how he presents his WIPS

I sculpted everything directly in pose to get more practice with anatomy and create a more believable character. It was a fun challenge.

Texturing was one of the trickiest parts of the project because orangutans have such dark skin. It was easy to lose subtle forms and surface detail, so I had to be careful not to push the contrast too far.

Texturing was one of the trickiest parts of the project because orangutans have such dark skin. It was easy to lose subtle forms and surface detail, so I had to be careful not to push the contrast too far.

Here are some of the real-world references I studied to ground the pose in believable anatomy, weight, and movement, helping the character feel authentic and natural.

Here are some of the real-world references I studied to ground the pose in believable anatomy, weight, and movement, helping the character feel authentic and natural.

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