Priest

The Priest! My magnum opus aside from my Maestro game. She went through the same pipeline as the Maestro minus the high-quality sculpt part. Also this time around is a much more advanced rig. At first the rig was just the unreal engine rig for her body and a separate custom rig for the book. However, I started thinking ahead at how I wanted the book to interact with the priest. It wouldn't be easy to have a free floating object doing spinning, flying, and orbiting actions without a skeletal system that's rooted to something that CAN spin/fly/orbit off of the priest aka a root bone. So the whole rig was remade under the Unreal Engine rig tools since its a tone easier that way. As a result, the book is part of the priest skeletal system so its technically not a separate object anymore. Otherwise I would have a good amount of trouble attaching and detaching the book for certain animations. I do realize that games in general have the book or weapon as a separate object from the character skeleton and attach it afterwards, but I just found it easier for my purposes to do it this way. If I ever wanted to hide the book, I would just make the material on the book not render-able or transparent, which is what I did with an angel character I did for fun in my practice level that you may see in the distance on my animation videos.

This character also has something that none of the others have: Facial animation! Every animation she has has some form of facial animation. I made my own rig tools to work alongside the bones managed by Unreal Engine's bone system. Works wonderfully, better than I thought. I figured blendshapes would be more troublesome so I kept everything under a bone system instead.

Also I used a basic physics asset in Unreal on the ponytail, bangs, and cape. I need to learn more on the physics asset though cause they keep clipping through her whole body :(

Priestess by Infinidium on Sketchfab

She is designed as a holy character, a combat healer of sorts. She has some self defense but mostly engages as a support.

Anyways, she plays different from the other chibi characters, and has 3 modes. The first default mode is the town mode, or no combat mode. This stance is for peaceful strolling through towns. Not many animations in that form and I highly regret not changing the animation for "jumping" in that form. Its quite lazy and it was early in animation development anyway so I was eager to do more of the action moves.

Priestess Animation 1 by Infinidium on Sketchfab

In her combat form she brings out her book. She runs a little faster and thankfully her jump is better. She doesn't have a 2 button combat system like the chibi characters, but more like the Maestro. She has a repeatable basic attack combo X+X+X, an alternate spell, and 3 additional abilities.
Her alternate is Sing. In a small radius she heals herself and others.
Second spell is Smite. She must stand still and strike an area in front of her with holy lightning.
Her third spell is Holy Nova. After a long cast time, she explodes with holy power, healing and damaging those around her.
Her 4th spell can only be done in the combat form (more on the final form later...). Its a simple Escape. She throws down a ball of energy to blast herself back and others away.

Priestess Animation 2 by Infinidium on Sketchfab

Press T for a unique taunt animation in combat form!

Her best part is her burst mode, or limit break, or whatever you want to call it. At maximum power, she can go into an Angel form. (I do not have an example on Sketchfab QQ)

The priest gains wings of an angel! I really love the concept of "energy" wings, or living ethereal wings. Blizzard did amazingly with that concept with their vision of angels in Diablo. Some of their "energy tentacle" wings are amazing to see, most notably on Tyrael. I tried to recreate it with some help I found (which was done in unreal engine, how convenient) while making my own effect.
In this form she gains a ton of...everything really. She is able to perform her basic attack while moving freely.
Her Sing ability is no different. Maybe lower cooldown or something but nothing visually different.
Her Smite ability calls down help from the heavens in the form of a rain of holy swords, striking and stay in the ground, sanctifying the area for a short time. Smite has no cast time so it can be done almost instantly as well.
Holy Nova comes in 2 parts, in the first casting part, she can move freely. When she casts the spell, she stays put at her location but the effect is much grander in Angel form. Visually I don't think there is much difference.
As she has gained wings, she can double jump very high! Pressing jump again makes her glide! Gliding is very difficult to make in Unreal engine I found. No one seems to have done it in blueprint form at least. Thinking about it right now, there may have been some options I might have looked over.
Since she has wings and can glide, she doesn't have an Escape spell cause that would be overpowered more than she probably already is.
Basic attack while in the air! She will shoot a maximum of 3 holy blades from her book at an angle to the ground. Let's say they heal and damage cause why not? Press Y to go into an awesome nose dive that blows things away!
Press T for a unique taunt animation in Angel form again!

Honestly animating this character was immensely fun. I really hope to do more like this. Perhaps I could turn the chibi characters into this type? Who knows? But I am very proud of my work here.