Paul Griffin | Technical Artist

“Challenge Mode” Mod for The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom

Developer	Role	Engine	Team Size	Project Duration
Challenge Mode Dev Team	3D Artist	ModuleSystem	~25	1.5 years (I joined for 3 months)

I had the opportunity to make several assets to this incredible mod developed by some incredibly talented fans. Many people contributed over a year and a half.

You can check out the mod HERE!

I joined quite late and did most of my work over the summer of 2024. The creative lead gave me some loose guidelines and told to make the designs myself. I was able to experiment with new tools and techniques since this was a lower-stakes environment than other projects I’ve been involved in. Due to the volunteer-driven development schedule, I was not able to see most of my assets in-engine until right before release, so there are some visual issues I never fixed (particularly color vibrancy). Nevertheless I am incredibly proud of all the work the team did and I’m thrilled to see my assets in one of my favorite games, even unofficially.

This is a fan-made project. The Legend of Zelda and all related trademarks are property of Nintendo.

Ancient Hero’s Armor Set

Tools	Tri Count	Texture Resolution
Blender | Substance Painter	11,768	1024×1024

This armor set was inspired by the Lomei ruins. The helmet mimics Link’s traditional green cap in the back while mirroring the Hyrulean Royal Crest. The Triforce blends into the three eyes found in ancient Zonai murals. The chestplate, arm braces, and boots are inspired by the owl, dragon, and boar statues littered across Faron. His tattoos are inspired by the Barbarian Set, but also include some more explicit Triforce symbols and a characteristic swirl.

Technical limitations prevented me from using any custom bones in the rig, so it took some work to match the design to the available joints. Also needed to match the underlying body’s existing topology and UVs.

While I actually really like the design in concept, there are some major issues in execution. I didn’t properly consider the physical construction of the armor in-universe, mistakenly assuming the stylization would make it inconsequential. I also should have designed both the high- and low-poly models to better support the bake process (for example, the capped-off holes have significant artifacts). Other issues include a lack of texture dilation, inefficient UV packing (despite some crude usage of overlap), and the colors appearing far too saturated in-engine.

Credit to KnightPohtaytoe for the in-game screenshot.

Seized Shield

Tools	Tri Count	Texture Resolution
Blender | Substance Painter	1,450	512×512

This was the first asset I was asked to make. The magic effect is technically unique despite being heavily based on the Seized Construct’s VFX.

Diamond Talus

Tools	Tri Count	Texture Resolution
Blender | ZBrush | Uniform	22,670	1024×1024

This enemy had to match the existing Battle Talus’ collision as closely as possible. Considering this, I’m pretty happy with the result! I also had fun with the rocky surface (it includes a monstrous face).

I was able to re-use textures for the many crystals and deleted interior geometry, writing some Python to simplify the process.

Unfortunately we were not able to use a translucent material in-engine, resulting in it looking whiter than desired despite closely matching other diamond textures.

Challenge Mode Chest

Tools	Tri Count	Texture Resolution
Blender | ZBrush	2,297	512×512

The Challenge Mode Chest was a late addition. It’s based on the EX chests from previous Zelda DLC, though with longer horns and a few other changes.

Credit to KnightPohtaytoe for the in-game screenshot.

Post Mortem

This was a fully volunteer-driven project so learning to work with others without strict deadlines fully remotely was a valuable experience. More important, though, were the lessons I learned from the mistakes I made, particularly regarding considering stylization to be a crutch where realistic construction was not needed. (This proved especially troublesome for the Ancient Hero’s Armor Set). Nonetheless, I’m absolutely delighted to see my work in a project as ambitious as this one, and it’s been incredibly cool seeing online content creators discover these things on their own.