Lost Boy Vampire New Member UE5 Real-time 3d Character Technical Breakdown

“So, now you know what we are. Now you know what you are. You'll never grow old, Michael. And you'll never die. But you must feed.”

This is a passion project of mine that started around last Halloween when I rewatched one my all time favorite movies The Lost Boys. The idea became that I would make my own version of what a new member of the vampire gang would look like, but make it into a real time and game ready character model. The goal has been to keep the visual consistency and atmosphere from the movie, while also making my own spin on it.

I wanted to tell a story with this vampire character by giving him four different face versions (human, full vampire, half vampire, bloody) and try depict the personality of a eternally beautiful and alluring yet terrifying creature. His leather jacket is covered with different paintings and writing, some done by himself, and others are markings from some of his victims who were under the unfortunate misconception that they were in for a good time.

I used a photo scan for details and base albedo. I made the vampire head by duplicating the human one and then sculpting on top of it. Body is a metahuman model with high poly and texture modifications. The fanged teeth are sculpted in Zbrush, and then I modified the default Metahuman teeth by hand to match it. The outfit is made using Marvelous Designer and sculpting/modeling in Zbrush, textured in Substance Painter. The tattoos are a blend of my own design and free tattoos samples found online, and I used the Tattoo Master Tool by Ehsan Kiani (can be purchased on Artstation Marketplace, its great!) in Substance Painter to texture them.

The hair is a groom asset from Metahumans Library, but a custom hair style is a planned side project!

The character is a fully functional Metahuman that can be posed an animated, I created three Blueprints that holds the three main face versions, using the same body mesh. The skin shader and material (face and body) is Metahumans but with modification and custom textures blended with default Metahuman, the same for the teeth, both human and vampire version. I then toggled between these materials when changing his appearance from clean to bloody, making it very easy and non-destructive.

I used the MetaHuman Animator Markerless Motion Capture Plugin and Live-link + Webcam setup to capture all mocapping, and then used the level sequencer to bake the animation to the metahuman rig so I could either save and modify one specific frame, or adjust a whole sequence in the Curve Sequence Editor.

Cigarette model was purchased on Fab, and the chair is from a Free Chair Asset Pack on Fab as well.

I took a lot of inspiration from late 80s/early 90s rock stars, making sure the fashion, tattoos, style matches the time. I studied the common body language and charisma of the era to try to reproduce it when I mocapped and posed the character!

If you want to see more technical break downs and explanations, I make a dedicated post just for that!