@Moof Thanks for the detailed breakdown. I really like how
you get time to also animate the object itself. Regarding the pipeline, when
you say
“Bring model into painting program and 'draw' the intended normal
details on the mesh (Panel lines and other details). -> Convert those lines
into normals. ->”)
do you mean
you sketch over the model where you want the lines to go and then go back into
the HP and add all that or that you paint them in using something like
NDO/Substance?
Thanks for answering the specific questions too, really
insightful to hear how Blizzard works.
@FROHAWK Those effects are incredible, so pleasing to watch.
Outside of Cinamatic stuff, did StarCraft use highpoly work for there lowpoly in-game assets? Curious about the breakdown of those~
Most of the hard surface textures were "drawn" in NDO, only rocks, stairs and organic stuff like that was baked Pretty straightforward workflow tbh, model - uv - make normals on ndo - bake cavity/AO - make diffuse/spec/gloss. Towards the end I also created a few master materials to be used with DDO and they turned out to be a nice time saver, though most of the stuff was still painted by hand.
Like what minos said. There aren't any highpoly models for most of this stuff, as it's just not necessary. We just draw the details we want on the final model (I used 3dcoat, some peeps would just do it in photoshop), then covert that using Ndo into panels and details and other stuff ;3.
Narud was a pretty standard process for creation actually. In zbrush I zsphered a base shape from a concept I did, sculpted it till I was satisfied, baked it down and just textured it. Actually I ended up painting in most of the details instead of sculpting them because I wasn't aware how big this thing would be on screen; the sculpt lacked the fidelity I needed. The materials is a compound material with some clever fresnel and multilayered shaders that are animated. I knew what I wanted from my concept, but setting up the actual materials to do what I wanted took a bit of time. The animation has some data driven stuff for the tentacles and the rest is hand animated =D
The Xel Naga sentinel was concepted by me, but I had no idea how it would actually work, so I built model 'pieces' that looked kinda like the concept, and then fit them into the shapes I kinda of wanted them to begin and end with. Going back and forth and kind doing this -animate a little bit, then model a little bit, then animate a little bit - sort of thing, I just sort of see-sawed until I got to where I wanted. It took some time to figure out, but I just didn't try to think about it too much, and just let it become what it wanted to be.
I wonder how exactly the textures are done. To me, some assets leave the impression as if their normal maps were painted in software like 3D Coat rather than having them baked from a highpoly. In fact, I hope it's done that way. If someone could clarify this for me, I'd be glad! Mostly because I'm trying to create some purifier-style armor myself, and parts of the indentions and details give me a hard time getting their proportions and positions right in a highpoly mesh, so I figured painting them on afterwards would be a great solution to speed things up without losing visual quality.
thats such a massive load of awesome work, thank you all for sharing!
Its fantastic that you all get a chance to use your skills even if its just for less important concept work, I would love to be given the opportunity to improve like that
Replies
I'm loving the game and the art in it. Congratulations!
(Also insanely jealous of whoever got to build pylons, talk about iconic!)
@Moof Thanks for the detailed breakdown. I really like how you get time to also animate the object itself. Regarding the pipeline, when you say
“Bring model into painting program and 'draw' the intended normal details on the mesh (Panel lines and other details). ->
Convert those lines into normals. ->”)
do you mean you sketch over the model where you want the lines to go and then go back into the HP and add all that or that you paint them in using something like NDO/Substance?
Thanks for answering the specific questions too, really insightful to hear how Blizzard works.
@FROHAWK Those effects are incredible, so pleasing to watch.
Outside of Cinamatic stuff, did StarCraft use highpoly work for there lowpoly in-game assets? Curious about the breakdown of those~
Pretty straightforward workflow tbh, model - uv - make normals on ndo - bake cavity/AO - make diffuse/spec/gloss. Towards the end I also created a few master materials to be used with DDO and they turned out to be a nice time saver, though most of the stuff was still painted by hand.
Would kill to see the process/breakdown for something like Narud and Xel Naga Sentinel.
awesome stuff Jayne ;D
SUGUS
Like what minos said. There aren't any highpoly models for most of this stuff, as it's just not necessary. We just draw the details we want on the final model (I used 3dcoat, some peeps would just do it in photoshop), then covert that using Ndo into panels and details and other stuff ;3.
LSHERIDAN
Narud was a pretty standard process for creation actually. In zbrush I zsphered a base shape from a concept I did, sculpted it till I was satisfied, baked it down and just textured it. Actually I ended up painting in most of the details instead of sculpting them because I wasn't aware how big this thing would be on screen; the sculpt lacked the fidelity I needed.
The materials is a compound material with some clever fresnel and multilayered shaders that are animated. I knew what I wanted from my concept, but setting up the actual materials to do what I wanted took a bit of time.
The animation has some data driven stuff for the tentacles and the rest is hand animated =D
The Xel Naga sentinel was concepted by me, but I had no idea how it would actually work, so I built model 'pieces' that looked kinda like the concept, and then fit them into the shapes I kinda of wanted them to begin and end with. Going back and forth and kind doing this -animate a little bit, then model a little bit, then animate a little bit - sort of thing, I just sort of see-sawed until I got to where I wanted.
It took some time to figure out, but I just didn't try to think about it too much, and just let it become what it wanted to be.
Hope that helps
Any chance we might see more of the Story screen character models? I know several artists have put them up on their own galleries.
Ulnar Gate:
Aiur Protoss:
Shakuras:
Slayn:
Endion Tileset:
"The Void"
Its fantastic that you all get a chance to use your skills even if its just for less important concept work, I would love to be given the opportunity to improve like that