Retro Scifi Helmet 3D model

Retro-styled Scifi Helmet (OBJ-format only). Fully UV-mapped with PBR textures in 4K .png format. Included are 3 main colors: Green, Red, Blue. In addition there are 6 bonus color variants; A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, shown among the above promo images. PBR textures in 4K .png format: Color, Height, Metallic, Normal + Roughness. You can use the helmet in any 3D application that accepts OBJs. I recommend the Daz Studio installation since Daz is a free software and I have provided a ton of click-and-apply options.

I designed this helmet since I need unique, quality assets for creating atmospheric sci-fi character portraits. Good visibility of the character's face was therefore a priority. I also needed a lighting setup that can provide interesting character lighting without any light entering the helmet from outside. The helmet design also required plenty of space to allow for a variety of hair-styles to fit inside. I hand-painted the visor-glass scratches to avoid interfering too much with the character's face. Then I added 2 additional glass presets for a more hell-worn visor glass, which is useful if you render from inside the helmet looking out. The standard visor-glass opacity is set to 30% and the roughness map is set to 10%, to show the glass while still giving a clear view of the character's face without too much interference from the glass.

My workflow has been modeling the helmet in Blender and then Z-remeshing + projecting the meshes in Zbrush to achieve an evenly distributed quad structure with several subdivisions. Next I've UV-mapped the parts in Zbrush and have spent weeks scratching up the metal in Substance Painter. I started with procedural wear and tear and then proceeded to paint, scratch and add imperfections to give the helmet a history of usage. While the helmet is symmetric in its shape, the textures are not symmetric. I wanted the surfaces to have their own individual past of wear and tear.

This helmet is primarily designed to be used in Daz Studio, where I have set up a host of material presets for easy switching between the color variants. The helmet loads into Daz Studio already properly placed for a Genesis male (all generations), with an additional posing preset for females. The difference between male and female helmet positioning is 1-2 units up/down on the Y-axis. I recommend to parent the helmet to a character's head, so that it will perfectly follow any pose applied to the character. Then the helmet can be parented to the upper neck to allow for head movement inside the helmet.

Displays and lighting. Inside the helmet are several displays on the instruments panel and you can switch out the textures on every display. Just over the instrument panel displays are flat planes that have a standard glass material, covering the displays, but can be switched out to provide additional lighting from below. There is a separate upper lamp inside the helmet and two lower lamps that help light up the character from inside the helmet. Since they are separate you can re-size and rotate them as your scene requires to get the light you need. All instrument panel display lights can be used for lighting up the character's face from below. A few extra poses are included: helmet placed flat on the ground + rotated forward.

3 versions of the helmet OBJs are available for download and/or installation: Standard, LowQuality and HighQuality. This is not a game-ready asset, rather it is designed for art scenes, character portraits, book cover art and game-related art. The reason is the high poly count: the standard quality helmet comes at 1,189,373 polygons or 801,807 vertices, with the standard FilterUnit having 436,682 polygons or 440,286 vertices. The LowQuality Helmet+FilterUnit have a total of 971,309 polygons. It is therefore not advisable for game engine use. I personally recommend the standard quality helmet, since the quality difference between the versions is minimal.

The helmet consists of several parts: Helmet-Main, FilterUnit and Lamps. The Main helmet mesh + FilterUnit have together 21 UV-mapped and PBR-textured surfaces. Most surfaces have just one UV-mapping so that they are easily replaced by whatever material the user wants, plus give maximum texture space for the surface as possible. The exception is the Headset which consist of 3 UV-maps: Headphones, Cord and Microphone, and the Displays (interior instruments panel) which have 2 UV-maps per display - each 4000 x 2000 pixels on a 4000 x 4000 map. This reduces the 10 displays to 5 textures, with every other display on the upper or lower part. While the Headphones, Cord and Microphone share UV-maps on a texture space, they all have separate surfaces so that you can apply any material or shader on them individually.