Is this the full content-creation pipeline?
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Hi, I''m about to embark on a long gamedev journey, so I was just wondering if you would help me sort out the tools:
Animation and rigging – Maya
Animation and rigging – Maya
Texture creation – Photoshop
3D modeling/sculpting/texturing/painting – 3D Coat
Terrain generation – World Machine
Assets - Megascans, Unreal marketplace
The game would be in Unreal Engine 4, and Maya is the first choice because I have academic licence for it(will later upgrade to commercial).
The game would be in Unreal Engine 4, and Maya is the first choice because I have academic licence for it(will later upgrade to commercial).
Replies
Your software choices make sense if that's what works for you. If you really want to handle a "content creation pipeline" though I think you should also be spending time on the actual art direction if you haven't already, as well as making prototype artwork to see how the actual game itself is going to be built. Find an art direction that both fits the scale of your team as well as lending itself to the actual game design.
Are the level designers using bsp, is it going to utilize some sort of modular system for its assets, what will the main materials be, do the characters require anything special beyond normal humanoids like characters in a RARE platformer, if its a shooter can the bodyparts explode like in fallout, ragdoll to the ground, or transition between ragdoll and death animations? If there are vehicles how will they be rigged? Do you require tank treads or just wheels, are environments static or semi/destructible, how large/open/small/tight will the environments mostly be? Is it mostly interiors where you can cram details all over because alot will be culled as soon as you turn the corner into another room, or is it something largely outdoors like in SQUAD where you have to constantly worry about having too many draw calls.
Is this game for a niche market? Is it something low-poly stylized with minimal textures focusing on a fun minimalistic approach like Astroneer? Is it a noisy, low saturated or limited palette game? Is it high-contrast lighting or a very low contrast leading to a soft pastel feeling? Is it mostly diffuse coloring with strong specular rimlights? Is it a completely dry diffuse look? Is it utlizing normals/roughness/metallic that abide to physically-based rendering? How detailed does the art style need to be, and think about how that might affect development times for a game in turnaround.
If its a multiplayer game are you making it so players are easily identifiable and stand out from their environment? Or are you making players actually hard to see with camos that actually blend in with the environment's colors like in Arma? Do you make it so the enemies wear "fake" camo such as on the human grunts in Half-life 2 where they are designed to look like they're wearing tactical camo, but the camo itself actually was designed to make them more noticeable on small CRT monitors?
Is it a first person game where the weapons are "floating guns with hands," or utilizing the actual player model? Is it a blend of the player model with first person modifications, such as showing the legs but replacing the arms. If its a third person game, are you accounting for all the different types of animation blends and transitions to make sure it always looks decent when moving/switching weapons/taking cover/etc? Is it a top-down game where you might be better off using an art style that is easily readable from a distance?
Is this your first game where you should really just be concerned with knowing how to import models and hook up materials to make it look good in Unreal Engine 4?
But yeah, since it's your game you make the rules on what software you use, unless you're working for a company that has a specific content creation pipeline. Blizzard used to use photoshop for all of their texture work, and then sometime down the line they switched (not sure if completely or just a few people/assets) to sculpting in zbrush and using that in their work as well. Some games don't even require textures. Some games require alot of textures. Some aren't in 3D, some are in 3D.
Excluding all that crap I just wrote if you're just worried about software:
Your list is fine, there's also alternatives.
Sculpting : zBrush, maybe mudbox and then 3DCoat, in that order.
Thanks for the content-rich feedback.
Yes, I've been thinking about every single aspect you've mentioned, and then some.
I would add to my list Houdini for FX and procedurals but that would be down the line. I've heard very good things about Houdini, but it is for specific kinds of content.
The only thing I'm not sure about is the extent of physics implementation. Maya has some very good solutions for this by default, but ripping models apart like you can see in Killing Floor 2 is another matter. I think they did that with Nvidia Works or something like that.
And I've checked the features of 3d Coat directly with the company; it can do everything Zbrush and Substance painter can for 3 times less the cost, and creating 3D models from scratch, although Maya has plenty of 3D modeling tools by default.
Just Maya + 3D Coat would cover about 80% of the project's needs.
And 3D modeling.
3d Coat is amazing!