Difference between concept modeling and production-ready modeling?

ambelamba

 See, I stepped back from learning modeling for a while because of my semi-full time job (retail) and a class I was taking for a semester (Dynamic Sketching). Now I am ready to jump into self-teaching again. My tool of choice are Modo and Zbrush, as before.

 My original goal was to become a concept artist, mostly for props and vehicles. (Ironically I happen to be a pretty descent figure drawing artist...) So I want to use Modo and Zbrush for my concept works. And I noticed something: There seem to be some distinct difference between modeling for concept design and modeling for productions such as games and animations. But I am not sure about the key differences between two approaches. 

 See, I do want to concentrate on design aspect of modeling. But I also want to make the models 'technically' sound, which means the models should have mostly quads with few or no nGons. The topology and UV must be sound. Am I asking myself too much things? 

 I've been shying away from actually following the tutorials, and I recently realized that I was stupid. To make the skills and approaches understandable I need to make models following the tutorials, so that I can nail down the basics of modeling. Please enlighten me.

Kevin Albers

Yes, you are asking too much of things. The main difference between concept modeling and production modeling are technical constraints.  For concept modeling you can focus entirely on the look/visual design. You should not care about things such as 'lots of quads' or polycount or good UV layouts (in fact, it's probably best to not use UVs and textures unless needed).  For production modeling, you need to focus a bunch on that kind of stuff.

So, don't try to make a model that is simultaneously a production and a concept model. A much better approach is to make concept models, and if you are eventually going to make a productio model of the same thing, do that in a seperate step.

Some specifics, in case your 'concept models' are supposed to end up in an engine while they are still concept models-  use decimation master or remesher for topology, so you can have a reasonable polycount almost instantly. Use auto UV mapping in zbrush if you need UVs. That way, you can have something in UE4/Unity super quick, to see if it's going to look cool.

pior

"To make the skills and approaches understandable I need to make models following the tutorials"

You actually don't need to do that, at all. So-called tutorials might cause you to develop bad habits - like "But I also want to make the models 'technically' sound, which means the models should have mostly quads with few or no nGons" ... which happens to be 100% false.

What you need to do to learn good game modeling practice is to look at actual production models from games similar to what you want to do. Artstation, Polycount and Facepunch are good places to find this information.

Good luck !