Markeltree offers Character Design services, transforming your concept from initial sketch to a complete 3D ready for use in a game. We are not giving them a pretty render which collapses after they put it in the engine. Our concept artists, 3D modelers, riggers and animators will be your eyes and ears in the studio to bring characters to life that look incredible, perform on the hardware you choose and ultimately match the style and story of your project.
Action games, simulations, and immersive experiences typically require 3D development for realistic environments and character models.
Generally more expensive than 2D due to the complexity of 3D modeling, animation, and rendering, with final cost depending on scope and visual fidelity.
3D games generally take longer than 2D games due to asset complexity, often several months depending on scope.
Unity is commonly used for 3D game development given its robust 3D rendering capabilities and cross-platform support.
Yes, 3D asset creation including characters, environments, and animation is a core part of the development process.
Yes, but performance optimization for mobile hardware is a key consideration during development to avoid lag or battery drain issues.
| Capability | What It Does |
|---|---|
Custom 3D Character Design | All characters are tailored to your world, your story and your audience. There is no stock modelling or reworking of assets on marketplaces. It can be a character who does heroic things, a monster, a cute character, a character, a hostile cast, etc. The source code is given to you, you're provided with the layered textures and documentation – the asset is yours to make use of and expand. |
Character Concept Art and Visual Development | Strong Characters – Strong Ideas. Our concept artists experiment visually with ideas of silhouettes, proportions, costumes, colour palettes and personality in sketches, turnarounds and expression sheets. The direction is reviewed and adjusted before modeling, resulting in nearing the correct direction before it's time to model and needlessly spending time and money to correct the direction. |
High-Poly Sculpting and Detailing | We sculpt characters with high detail to capture anatomy, folds, armour wear, pores, scars and the little things which give life to a character. They can be used to create baked normal maps and are great for making movie figures, art and collectibles. |
3D Modelling for Games | In the realm of games, our 3D modeling besides being clean, it is optimized for fast performance in real time. We develop topology, realistic polygon density, and LOD (level of detail) variants for mobile, console, PC and VR. All the models bend and flex properly during the animation and resist other camera angles. |
Story Mode and Ending | We use physically based textures that include albedo, roughness, metallic, normal occlusion and ambient occlusion maps, as well as hand painted textures for stylized work. Tests are performed under varying light and dark conditions throughout your engine, so that your characters' appearance stays the same at every stage of the game. |
Rigging and Skinning | We create strong skeletons, control rigs, facial rigs as well as skin weights that the animators can really work with. Choose the right rig for your engine depending on your needs – humanoid setup for retargeting, a quadruped or a creature with unusual systems, or a facial system for dialogue. |
Character Animation | We animate your characters with idle, Locomo, Combat moves, Emotes, Cinematics and Facial movements. We provide animation to the weight, personality and the tone of each character and it impacts all formats, ready for use in Unity, Unreal and other platforms. |
Engine Integration & Optimization | A character does not exist unless he can function in your game. Import, setup and test assets in Unity and Unreal, set up materials and shaders, test performance on target devices and troubleshoot problems before your players. |
We know you've got to create characters for your next game, so we give you an overview of your style, platform, budget and production timeline, then recommend the best path for your character pipeline. Before work starts you receive a detailed budget, texture size, tools information, rigging standards and time estimate of polygons.
We develop playable characters with clear silhouettes and high image identity, villains, companions, bosses, as well as NPCs. Both designs take into consideration playability, characters are legible at a distance, readable and different from each other as well as suitable for the game.
We have a range of styles to suit every project, from hand painting for stylish, ponzi-pottery appearances through to anime style works and low poly or photo realism options. We adjust our approach according to your direction for the art, not according to generalised concepts about art forms of one house's particular type.
We make and draw fictional, future, alien and real monsters with plausible anatomy and distinct shapes. Rigging and animation are given special attention – even the most unusual beasts look believable.
We create mobile characters with low weight to run higher game resolution, hyper-casual games and social games. Models are optimized with regard to small file sizes and fast loading speeds, even with various devices, while maintaining the aesthetic appeal.
We develop avatars and characters for immersive experiences as well as customisable avatar systems, modular outfits and expressive faces. Optimizes assets to maximize headset and realtime platform performance.
Have characters you want to improve and ready to go? We upgrade old models, rebuild topology, update textures to PBR, fix rigs and refit older models to current standards, which allows you to use your existing investment again.
We can be an extended art team for you, providing characters, props and environments on an ongoing basis. Pick the level of support, ranging from a single hero character to full asset library.
Players' are more engaged and production is more efficient when the result is a well designed character:
You are introduced to your game, story, audience, art style and technical aspects. We formulate together the character list, set the references, platform requirements, and criteria for success which will supervise the project.
Sketching, Silhouettes and Color Studies to explore character Designs. Review and approve final concept, turnarounds and expression sheets before starting any 3D work.
To establish proportions, scale and general form, a very crude 3-D figure is created. Feedback at this stage is quick and cheap and allows changes to be done early.
A high-resolution sculpt is created which includes anatomy, clothing, accessories and surface detail. You have the opportunity to see the character in 3D and make withdrawals before optimization.
We create a clean, animation-friendly low-ply mesh and generate and map efficient UVs. There is a fine balance in game 3D modeling between quality and real-time and this is the essence of what is often done.
We bake maps on the high poly sculpt with PBR (full or stylized textures). Materials are lit in various light scenarios to ensure they appear as desired in the actual scene.
We create the base, positions, bones and weight bindings and then provide you with the animation needed for your game. All the deformations, from the bending ones to the facial one are tested prior to sign-off.
We import the completed character into your engine, performance and bug testing and fixing. You're handed tidy source files, finished files and clean, clear documentation, revision assistance afterward.
Develop immersive 3D experiences with stunning visual quality.
Markeltree’s AI solutions helped us optimize our data workflows and decision-making process. Their team clearly understood our objectives and delivered a practical, results-driven AI implementation.
