A question about game asset workflow.

MujtabaYousuf

Hi guys!
so far, this is the best community i have ever seen. As so many people are here helping the newbies like me :P 
And now i have a question again. I have 3ds max and i did some random models(which looks perfect lol). And now i am having problems on what should i do next. Now i have substance designer and painter. What should i do now?
Should i uv unwrap it or should i first make a lowpoly version of that.(and if yes then how do  I convert it into low poly). after that should i Bake the map in 3ds max or substance designer. 
Leave it, I JUST WANT TO KNOW ALL THE WORKFLOWW!!!!!
sorry if i am asking too many questions at a same time but i guess everyone suffers with this stuff.
THANKS!

skyline5gtr

typically you start with high poly, then move to low poly , unwrap , texture , game engine. You have to unwrap the low since that is the game model, the high is only used for bake information 

Ashervisalis

MujtabaYousuf said:

I have 3ds max and i did some random models(which looks perfect lol).

I wanna see these perfect looking models! Can you post some pictures?

poly_bob

It depends on what you modeled to tell you your next step. 

Since you made a high poly, that means you probably are going to have unique UVs. The next step would be to make a low poly. That can be done a few ways. Either duplicate the high poly and reduce it by hand or you can just build it from scratch. Whichever is easier.  This is typically done for hard surface models.

Another way is to use re topology tools. This is typically used for organic models.

Next, it is time to unwrap your UVs. You can auto unwrap and auto pack temporarily since painter can remember all your brush strokes. But it only remembers brush stokes in the 3d view port. Not the 2d view port. But since you are starting out. You should do a proper unwrap now. Just remember you can have the option to change the UVs after texturing in painter if you want.

With unwrapping you have to determine what is the texel density you want and the resolution of your texture. Knowing the texel density helps you make sure every UV has matching amount of pixels so they look like the same quality. You can make everything you unwrap have the same texel density and it will look even. But! maybe you don't want that. There are reasons not to have everything even. It depends how the model will be viewed in the engine.

Once you unwrapped. You can export your low and high as FBX. Oh but before you do that. Assign "Material IDs" to your high. Which means, apply different materials of colors to different parts of your high poly so you will know which parts you want to texture a specific material. For example, bolts I'll assign color A for raw metal. The body of the prop is painted metal so I'll assign this color B. These cables are rubber so that will be coior C. Oh there's plastic parts, that will be color D. etc etc.

(Designer is used for tileable textures. Which is probably not what you are looking for. Typically tileable textures are used for very large models like buildings or large props that would need a higher res then 2k.)

Now you can import your low into painter. Bake the high onto you low inside painter and start texturing. It's best to bake in substance since it is one of the better bakers now.

Lastly, once that is all done, you can place it in a game engine or if you just want to have it as your portfolio. Just use Marmoset toolbag.

Side note, There's a lot of technical things I talked about and didn't talk about that might not be needed if you are not actually using your model for a game. 
All the technical stuff is for performance. If you are just doing purely art. You probably go bananas with the texture res and go 4k for example.  

Also, the wiki up top is very helpful if you need a guide.

MujtabaYousuf

poly_bob said:

It depends on what you modeled to tell you your next step. 

Since you made a high poly, that means you probably are going to have unique UVs. The next step would be to make a low poly. That can be done a few ways. Either duplicate the high poly and reduce it by hand or you can just build it from scratch. Whichever is easier.  This is typically done for hard surface models.

Another way is to use re topology tools. This is typically used for organic models.

Next, it is time to unwrap your UVs. You can auto unwrap and auto pack temporarily since painter can remember all your brush strokes. But it only remembers brush stokes in the 3d view port. Not the 2d view port. But since you are starting out. You should do a proper unwrap now. Just remember you can have the option to change the UVs after texturing in painter if you want.

With unwrapping you have to determine what is the texel density you want and the resolution of your texture. Knowing the texel density helps you make sure every UV has matching amount of pixels so they look like the same quality. You can make everything you unwrap have the same texel density and it will look even. But! maybe you don't want that. There are reasons not to have everything even. It depends how the model will be viewed in the engine.

Once you unwrapped. You can export your low and high as FBX. Oh but before you do that. Assign "Material IDs" to your high. Which means, apply different materials of colors to different parts of your high poly so you will know which parts you want to texture a specific material. For example, bolts I'll assign color A for raw metal. The body of the prop is painted metal so I'll assign this color B. These cables are rubber so that will be coior C. Oh there's plastic parts, that will be color D. etc etc.

(Designer is used for tileable textures. Which is probably not what you are looking for. Typically tileable textures are used for very large models like buildings or large props that would need a higher res then 2k.)

Now you can import your low into painter. Bake the high onto you low inside painter and start texturing. It's best to bake in substance since it is one of the better bakers now.

Lastly, once that is all done, you can place it in a game engine or if you just want to have it as your portfolio. Just use Marmoset toolbag.

Side note, There's a lot of technical things I talked about and didn't talk about that might not be needed if you are not actually using your model for a game. 
All the technical stuff is for performance. If you are just doing purely art. You probably go bananas with the texture res and go 4k for example.  

Also, the wiki up top is very helpful if you need a guide.

Thanks !