Turning Real Faces into Game Characters: How EinScan Libre Helps Build Lifelike RPG Worlds

Discover how Neocore Games uses EinScan Libre to turn real faces into lifelike RPG characters and capture detailed 3D environments, boosting game development efficiency.

Where the Story Begins: The Client and Their Mission

In the heart of Central Europe, a team of passionate creators at Neocore Games has been crafting immersive role-playing adventures for two decades. Founded in 2005, the independent studio is known for its dedication to storytelling, detailed worlds, and lifelike characters across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox platforms.

As the team began developing its next RPG title, one challenge became clear — the need for highly realistic 3D human models that could seamlessly fit into their narrative-driven universe. To achieve that level of realism, Neocore Games turned to 3D scanning technology to capture the subtle expressions and unique details that make digital characters feel alive.

Challenges on the Path to Realistic Characters

Before adopting 3D scanning, Neocore Games primarily relied on traditional photogrammetry for capturing human characters and environmental assets. While effective in certain cases, this method posed multiple challenges, particularly for full-body models and large-scale scenes:

Cumbersome setup: Photogrammetry required extensive lighting and a controlled environment.
Special preparation: Characters often had to be coated in white paint to ensure proper capturing results.
Time-consuming process: Capturing large-scale scans demanded thousands of photographs, yet the resulting data was not always sufficiently clear.
High post-processing workload: 3D artists had to spend significant time remodeling captured data into production-ready models with clean topology for animation.

From Photogrammetry to Freedom: EinScan Libre Comes

To address the inefficiencies of traditional photogrammetry, Neocore Games adopted EinScan Libre, a wireless and standalone all-in-one laser 3D scanner, as part of their content creation workflow. After testing several options, the team found the device remarkably easy to use and highly efficient for their needs.

“We found a person who owns one of these scanners, and we took a look and it seemed promising. And then we decided to give it a go and we bought EinScan Libre. And it turned out to be perfect.”

Balázs Kiss, 3D scanning expert at Neocore Games

According to Kiss, EinScan Libre combines portability, simplicity, and reliable data quality. It captures accurate 3D data within seconds and produces ready-to-use results without extensive setup, making it an ideal solution for fast-paced game development environments.

Balázs Kiss, 3D scanning expert at Neocore Games

Capturing faces in seconds

One of the standout applications of EinScan Libre at Neocore Games is human face and head scanning. With the new workflow, capturing a person’s face takes around 30 seconds, generating detailed and accurate mesh data almost instantly.

3D artists can then refine and retopologize the scan into an optimized model with fewer polygons and clean topology, ready for animation. Compared with fully manual modeling, this approach saves significant time while maintaining consistency and realism in character design.

Capturing face data with EinScan Libre

Scanning nature on the go

Beyond characters, EinScan Libre has proven invaluable for environmental asset production. Lightweight and portable, EinScan Libre can be carried in a backpack for outdoor scanning, enabling the team to quickly capture complex, organic objects such as rocks, trees, and terrain surfaces. The field scans can then be meshed immediately and brought back to the studio for further refinement, streamlining a process that was previously cumbersome and time-consuming with photogrammetry or drone imaging.

Outdoor scanning with EinScan Libre

Empowering Creativity Across Industries

Integrating EinScan Libre into Neocore Games’ workflow has transformed how the team creates 3D assets. The scanner not only accelerates the capture of human characters and environmental elements but also allows artists to focus on creativity rather than technical constraints, bringing richer, more realistic worlds to life.

With compact, high-performance 3D scanning tools like EinScan Libre, creators can now achieve levels of realism and efficiency that were previously difficult to reach. Beyond gaming, these tools are empowering industries such as VFX, CGI, and virtual production, where speed, precision, and creative freedom are equally vital.