Kingdom Hearts 3 - Outsourced Characters and Props

We worked on Chip and Dale, they are mostly the same save for the face and some texture work on the bodies being different.

Remy or as he's known in the game "Little Chief" was worked on by the team.

Turn around of characters that don't belong to a specific disney world in-game. Huey/Duey/Luey are all the same model with different textures. Chip and Dale have the same bodies with different heads. Remy aka "Little Chief" is part of the cooking minigame

Wreck-it-Ralph as a summon. One of the few models we recieved some initial data for from Disney, but still had to build up for the game. I remember needing to count the exact number of stitches from movie stills on his overalls to get complete accuracy.

Ariel was a model that was recreated from the PS2 version. There were many details that were painted in texture that we had to recreate now that the overall polygon budget was higher

Stitch was a model that was recreated from the PS2 version. He was a bit more straightforward than Ariel's conversion

Turns of all of the summons. Lakshya was responsible for the models and textures, VFX was added by Square later

For this scene we worked on the birds, an ambient NPC that was shown for a few small cutscenes.

For this scene we worked on the rabbits, an ambient NPC shown in a few small cutscenes.

We worked on the the transition of Madam Gothel to her older self. The hand and face models are specific to the old version and transition. The cape has 2 different versions, one that is on the character and for the fall.

For Rapunzel we worked on the long hair above the sholders, with the rest being solved by square and the short haired version. As well as the old version of Madam Gothel

Pedestrian NPCs for the Rapunzel world Kingdom of Corona. There is quite a lot of modularity to help create variants.

Pedestrian NPCs for the Rapunzel world Kingdom of Corona. There is quite a lot of modularity to help create variants.

A collection of props from the Rapunzel world, Kingdom of Corona. Each of these had to be recreated by the team at Lakshya. Lighting was slightly adjusted on the bag and the crown for better visuals.

A collection of props from the Rapunzel world, Kingdom of Corona. Each of these had to be recreated by the team at Lakshya. Lighting was slightly adjusted on the bag and the crown for better visuals.

Original toy designs we worked on, punch dinos for a progression mini game in the Toy Box world.

One of the very first models I remember working on. An original toy doll for the Toy Story world who gets corrupted by heartless.

Turn around of the Toy assets we worked on at Lakshya which are enemies you can battle.

Various toys we worked on that are used as set dressing for the toy box world.

Various toys we worked on that are used as set dressing for the toy box world.

We worked on the Monster's Inc version of Sora, Donald and Goofy. These were a lot of fun to work on.

Monster's Inc CDA based on the characters from the movie. They were built from the ground up to be movie accurate

Turns from the in-game viewer of the Monster Inc version of Sora, Donald and Goofy.

Turns from the in-game viewer of the CDA character from Monster's Inc

We worked on the cold/frozen version of Anna, as well as the sword that breaks for this scene. Everything from the sword breaks to the snowflake frozen patterns had to be movie accurate

The Pirates version of Sora, Donal and Goofy were quite the challenge to balance between getting the grime detail and not making it look too awkward on their more stylized proportions.

Gibbs is one of the characters where I was able to do hands-on work. I proxy modeled some of the clothing items like the vest.

I came on to help direct the texture creation of Tia Dalma. Tia Dalma had a ton to details that we had to get correct, so texturing was a rather large task.

We worked on the rock crabs that were used in gameplay and for cut scenes.

Turns from the in-game viewer of the Pirates version of Sora, Donald and Goofy.

Turns from the in-game viewer of Gibbs and Tia Dalma

We worked on various NPCs that are in the port and some that are pirates as additional crew members

We worked on various NPCs that are in the port and some that are pirates as additional crew members

Props for pirates that were visible in cutscenes, we worked on the compass, map (wrapped) and map (open). All of these were in single scenes for a few seconds, high accuracy was still required.

Props for pirates that were visible in cutscenes, we worked on the compass, map (wrapped) and map (open). All of these were in single scenes for a few seconds, high accuracy was still required.

We worked on the Pirate's Keyblade Wheel of Fate and it's transformed version Highwind (not pictured)

We worked on the Pirate's Keyblade Wheel of Fate and it's transformed version Highwind (not pictured)

For Big Hero 6, we worked on the suited version of Hiro, the face was done previously for the non-suited version

GoGo from Big Hero 6, we had to accurately build her entirely from scratch

For Fred, we worked on both the head as well as the full suit. His head is primarily seen during cut scenes.

We worked on the suit version of Baymax, the rocket glove is it's own piece that we also worked on

For the Dark version of Baymax, it uses a lot of the same pieces as the default version with new helmet, shoulder, hand and wing pieces. We also had to make the chest slot operational. The cube effect was handled by Square

Turns of Hiro and Gogo from the in-game viewer. Hiro's hair face and skin were completed for is civilian clothes version earlier

Turns of the different versions of Fred from the in-game viewer

Turns of Baymax and Dark Baymax from the in-game viewer. Cube effect on Dark Baymax's right hand was created by Square

We worked on Pooh and Piglet for the 100 Acre Wood mini game world

We worked on Rabbit for the 100 Acre Wood mini game world

We worked on Gopher for the 100 Acre Wood mini game world

We worked on Roo for the 100 Acre Wood mini game world, the Lumpy the Heffalump was created before I was on the project

We worked on Tigger for the 100 Acre Wood mini game world. There was a lot of care that was put into his tail's geometry and textures to make sure it would deform correctly with his bouncing

All of the 100 Acre Wood characters were remakes of KH2 versions to fit with modern standards. At the request of Square, they were all done as sub-division modeling to get the cleanest shading possible

Kingdom Hearts 3 - Outsourced Characters and Props

It was an absolute honor and dream to be able to contribute to Kingdom Hearts 3's development. I worked on this while at Lakshya Digital from around 2015-2017 and I am listed as a Lead Artist: Character in the credits alongside:
https://www.artstation.com/chuckjones3d
https://www.artstation.com/asterix
All of the characters and props were part of a collaborative effort between the team in India and my coworkers in the Seattle studio, these could not have been done without them. I am so proud what everyone was able to achieve for this project.

My tasks included reviewing art to make sure it met Square's standards, providing paint overs, various technical guidance on UVs, modeling and texture creation. In some instances I was able to provide more hands on work which will be specifically detailed under the asset. The standards for accuracy were extremely high, even if they were viewed for only a few seconds it needed to look like it came right from the movie. A vast majority of the assets had to be built from scratch using reference images provided by the client and from their respective source material. Other assets came from PS2 era Kingdom Hearts games and had to be brought up to modern modeling and detail standards. There are several other things we also worked on that don't really capture well or are not really seen by the player, such as the food for the cooking mini-game.

All of the video and screenshots were captured by me.

©Disney ©Disney/Pixar. Developed by SQUARE ENIX.

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