Software for retopologising, texturing, baking, rendering a handpainted scene?

AnyaElvidge

Hi Polycount

I'm thinking about software and stoof for my handpainted personal project, and a couple of/a million questions came to mind...


What is good software for baking normals? I've always done it in Max, and it's seemed fine to me, so why do people choose other software?

Also, I'm leaning towards 3D Coat for retopologising Zbrush sculpts, and painting textures onto the mesh (that I would finalise in Photoshop)... what do you guys think about 3D Coat?

Was also looking into Zbrush polypaint and Substance Painter for the painty bit. I like this workflow, but it's very WoW-y which isn't my plan; http://blog.bitgem3d.com/…/331…/3d-hand-painting-workflow-01

Also, what to render my final scene in??

Also, I'm so overwhelmed by all this software. Halp me.

Going for something like this, only less amazing; http://aliceandthetextures.blogspot.co.uk/

Eric Chadwick

I would start with deciding on the rendering part, and work backwards from there. Toolbag is great for rendering. Unreal is also really nice, and shows you can handle a game engine, which is pretty important for showing you're capable as a game artist.

All the rest is pretty subjective. Knald gives great bake results and is extremely fast since it's a GPU baker, apparently (I haven't had the chance to use it yet). Xnormal, Substance, Maya, Max, etc. all do great as well.

Like many people, the best way is to get your feet dirty, see which works best for you. That's part of the beauty of learning new software, you learn the best when you just get in there and tackle it, rather than someone else deciding for you.

FourtyNights

I'm a Blender user, but my personal choices for baking are:

* xNormal -> normal, vertex/polypaint color maps, and simple AO tool (extremely easy software to use)

* Substance Designer -> ambient occlusion, curvature, thickness maps (for character's translucency of the skin)

Occasionally I might bake AO in Blender too, but it depends.

There are two best ways to render the real-time game assed:

Marmoset Toolbag 2 or Unreal Engine 4, especially since physically based shading is the new standard. Well, Unity 5 would be alright too, I guess.

AnyaElvidge

FourtyNights wrote: »

I'm a Blender user, but my personal choices for baking are:

* xNormal -> normal, vertex/polypaint color maps, and simple AO tool (extremely easy software to use)

* Substance Designer -> ambient occlusion, curvature, thickness maps (for character's translucency of the skin)

Occasionally I might bake AO in Blender too, but it depends.

There are two best ways to render the real-time game assed:

Marmoset Toolbag 2 or Unreal Engine 4, especially since physically based shading is the new standard. Well, Unity 5 would be alright too, I guess.

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

I would start with deciding on the rendering part, and work backwards from there. Toolbag is great for rendering. Unreal is also really nice, and shows you can handle a game engine, which is pretty important for showing you're capable as a game artist.

All the rest is pretty subjective. Knald gives great bake results and is extremely fast since it's a GPU baker, apparently (I haven't had the chance to use it yet). Xnormal, Substance, Maya, Max, etc. all do great as well.

Like many people, the best way is to get your feet dirty, see which works best for you. That's part of the beauty of learning new software, you learn the best when you just get in there and tackle it, rather than someone else deciding for you.

UE4 I have experience in, and was thinking of using... would there be a way of creating a plain background for a render in UE4? I've always made big environments in it, rather than tiny scenes.

Max is what I've always used for baking and I've been fine with... thought maybe there was a reason for using other programs, but seems that Max might be the one to stick with if I decide to learn new programs.

So far it seems like 3D Coat is going to be the big new one, for a bit of texture painting (just getting the basic colours and stuff down, removing seams etc), and for retopologising sculpts too.

I was considering Substance Designer/Painter but I don't think it suits the stylised stuff I'm going for.

Thanks for the advice guys!

Eric Chadwick

Very easy to create a plain background, just delete everything else. Or you can add a plane with a gradient on it, if you like that.

The trick with using Max is getting a proper synch between the normal map baker (Max's Render To Texture) and the renderer (in this case, UE4). I haven't played with UE4 yet, but Handplane is a good way to get to UE3, and might work with UE4.

Substance can certainly do stylized. It's all up to the artist.

AnyaElvidge

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Very easy to create a plain background, just delete everything else. Or you can add a plane with a gradient on it, if you like that.

The trick with using Max is getting a proper synch between the normal map baker (Max's Render To Texture) and the renderer (in this case, UE4). I haven't played with UE4 yet, but Handplane is a good way to get to UE3, and might work with UE4.

Substance can certainly do stylized. It's all up to the artist.

So would I start in a totally empty scene, rather than one with a skybox? sorry pretty new to all this.

Ok, I've never learned/heard anything about this before... could you explain further? Checked out the Handplane site, but I don't really understand the principle. Have I been baking wrong all this time? :P

Eric Chadwick

Let me know if this doesn't answer the question.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal_map#Tangent_Basis

AnyaElvidge

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Let me know if this doesn't answer the question.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal_map#Tangent_Basis

Well, this looks terrifying. I'll look into it more closely when I start coming up to baking... it's like a whole new dimension to 3D art I never knew about! Also got to learn Topogun and 3D Coat, so there's a lot to do!

Thankyou for the link.

Eric Chadwick

Lol, that's gotta be the quote of the year.

How about the videos on the Handplane website?
http://www.handplane3d.com/videos.html

Cube Republic

Try krita if you like painting. You can paint seamlessly too!