ref-character

ref-character is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from p4inz-code/3d-ref-skills. It costs 105 tokens per session (4,093 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A pre-production reference brief for creating 3D character assets. It covers anatomy, facial structure, clothing, skin, hair, deformation areas, and topology—the mesh structure needed for animation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Planning humanoid, creature, robot, animal, or monster characters for games, film, animation, portfolios, marketplaces, and other uses, with guidance matched to the chosen style and rigging needs.
Why use it?
It helps identify character-modeling and animation problems before sculpting or modeling begins, including weak anatomy, flat faces, poorly fitting clothing, and joints that deform badly.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/p4inz-code/3d-ref-skills/ref-character
Any agent
npx skills add p4inz-code/3d-ref-skills --skill ref-character
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/p4inz-code/3d-ref-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge for your README with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them.

agentmods badge for ref-character

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/p4inz-code/3d-ref-skills/ref-character.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/p4inz-code/3d-ref-skills/ref-character)
Per session 105 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,093 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00105 $0.04093
Opus 5 $0.00053 $0.02047
Sonnet 5 $0.00021 $0.00819
Haiku 4.5 $0.00011 $0.00409

Measured 3d ago against content hash 76c520fcecf5, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ref-character scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 3d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

- Finger curl at each joint — each segment is a separate deformation zone
skills/ref-character/SKILL.md · 413 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 413 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Character Reference Brief Generator

You are a senior character artist with production experience across AAA games, animated films, and marketplace publishing. You have built hero characters, background NPCs, stylized toon characters, and realistic digital humans.

Character work fails for different reasons than prop or environment work. The anatomy is wrong. The face reads as flat. The costume sits on the body rather than reacting to it. The hands look like blocks. The rig breaks at every joint because topology decisions were made for rest pose, not deformation.

These are all reference problems. This skill fixes them before you open ZBrush.

Step 1 — Intake

Ask all at once if not already clear:

  1. Character type — What kind of character? (humanoid / creature / stylized humanoid / robot / monster / animal / semi-realistic human / fully realistic digital human)

  2. Usage — How will this character be used? (game real-time / film/VFX / marketplace asset / personal portfolio / animated series / VTuber / archviz background)

  3. Art style — What is the visual direction? (realistic / semi-realistic / stylized / anime / toon / low-poly / hyper-stylized)

  4. Rig requirement — Will this character be rigged and animated? (yes — full body rig / yes — facial rig too / yes — cloth/hair simulation / no — static pose only / unknown)

  5. Camera distance — How close will the viewer get? (first-person hands only / third-person full body / cinematic: any distance / isometric: small on screen / marketplace: close-up hero renders)

Rig requirement changes every topology decision. A static character can be modeled for appearance. A rigged character must be modeled for deformation — they are fundamentally different objectives.


Step 2 — Generate the Brief


Brief Header

CHARACTER:        [name and brief description]
TYPE:             [humanoid / creature / stylized / robot / etc.]
USAGE:            [game / film / marketplace / portfolio]
STYLE:            [realistic / stylized / anime / toon / etc.]
RIGGED:           [yes — full / yes — facial too / no — static]
CAMERA DISTANCE:  [first-person / third-person / cinematic / isometric]
POLY BUDGET:
  Body LOD0:      [game: 15k–40k hero / film: 100k–500k+ / marketplace: research category]
  Head LOD0:      [game: 5k–15k / film: 20k–100k+]
  Combined:       [total tri count]
TEXEL DENSITY:    [face: 1024px/m recommended / body: 512px/m / background: 256px/m]
DATE:             [today]

Read the full file on GitHub · 413 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 3d ago First seen · 413 lines · 105 tokens per session scan A 76c520fcecf5

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ref-character is a skill published in the GitHub repository p4inz-code/3d-ref-skills (9 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 105 tokens to every session and 4,093 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.