How important are HP models to you in a portfolio?
polycounter lvl 13
Ok
so this is an odd question I guess. To start with the obvious answer is very important, they are of course a necessary part of production now.
BUT
Is it not the end result and speed that's the most important thing to a studio?
HP models are really only good for other artists to sit in a circle around. (though I guess it's other artists that are going to view your portfolio.)
I guess the reason I ask is that I feel I can do HP modelling alright enough, it's not like I'm trying to avoid it, it's just certain workflows work better for me and are more time efficient.
For example, breaking down an asset in to modular chunks and baking seperately to a tex page and then arranging all that in a model. It's counter-productive to re-assemble a complete HP model from that (although immediately possible) but presenting a batch of smaller, HP elements is not as attractive as one whole with a nice render.
but then
who cares if the end product profits from that workflow and is done quicker, with much more scope for re-use in different assets?
It's a tough one for me. Sorry about the stream of consciousness.
Thoughts?
And a final disclaimer is I completely acknowledge the need for a good HP before any troll faces get up inside this piece and throw around unneeded statements.
so this is an odd question I guess. To start with the obvious answer is very important, they are of course a necessary part of production now.
BUT
Is it not the end result and speed that's the most important thing to a studio?
HP models are really only good for other artists to sit in a circle around. (though I guess it's other artists that are going to view your portfolio.)
I guess the reason I ask is that I feel I can do HP modelling alright enough, it's not like I'm trying to avoid it, it's just certain workflows work better for me and are more time efficient.
For example, breaking down an asset in to modular chunks and baking seperately to a tex page and then arranging all that in a model. It's counter-productive to re-assemble a complete HP model from that (although immediately possible) but presenting a batch of smaller, HP elements is not as attractive as one whole with a nice render.
but then
who cares if the end product profits from that workflow and is done quicker, with much more scope for re-use in different assets?
It's a tough one for me. Sorry about the stream of consciousness.
Thoughts?
And a final disclaimer is I completely acknowledge the need for a good HP before any troll faces get up inside this piece and throw around unneeded statements.
Replies
worth noting that this is geared towards environments and props. Characters are a different beast imo and a good, complete, high detail source mesh is probably the best thing to do.
Now, if you want to know weather it is important to even create highpoly models in the first place, YES. Any noob can throw a crazybumped normal map on a simple mesh and call it done, but to set yourself out from the crowd you need to show not just that you can do highpolys and bakes, but that you can do the exceptionally well. There may be times in production that you can get away with just converting a bump to normals on really unimportant assets or in a serious time crunch, but for something like your portfolio you should never do this(unless its a simple tiling enviro texture, which would be counter productive to make a HP for).
I'm a softimage user. I hate exploding my meshes! I think is a very time consuming task having to explode a mesh and going to the process of assembling the different maps that were baked out. So I avoid that hassle by using max and its material id capabilities. Again this is an example of showcasing the different skills that make you suitable for any job.
The other thing is I worked at a movie studio for 2 years. Were assests were crated in matter of hours. The only thing that mattered was the end result. Well......the end result was always good. But if I had been giving the amount of time given with a game piece things would have looked tons better. In my last months there, I requested 1 week instead of 2 days for avarage modeling time. Dude almost had a heartattack....lol....
Again the high poly is about showing skills and discipline.
that's not the question.
I guess your right about the presentation, that's all it is really. I'm more wondering about production assets, not so much portfolio based stuff
its a reasonable question. Just throwing it open for discussion, as I was only wondering.
Edit:
thanks Raul, thats the kind of input I was after. That's what I'm talking about. It can be faster to build the chunks and bake them to cut out alot of work, get more variations done faster and produce high quality work with flexibility. Can't see why that would be a bad thing.
If you've got a fast render setup(a couple minutes) doing a quick render of your stuff before handing it off to the AD for approval can be a good idea. Really, you can do pretty great presentation of a HP model in realtime, so doing long renders is just a waste of time.
When you're talking modular environment stuff, building modular, creating variations in the lowpoly(without new high) variations in the texturing process, leaving sections entirely to textures(like a flat concrete wall, no need for HP here). These are all very good things to do.
When you're dealing with more unique thing like weapons, items, vehicles etc, its a lot harder to use the same tricks, generally you'll be able to mirror or instance a few parts, but the concepts usually dictate unique construction here.
So I'm curious to see how studios that use high poly modeling in the production workflow incorporate it. You look at a game like ut3 where everything is HP and their workflow is built around it. Then you look at a game like Just Cause 2, which looks great, but everything has hard edges and nothing was made with HP. The types of games aren't comparable, which explains the differences in workflow, but where the line is drawn is interesting to examine.
Really? I must be misreading the thread title.
Thats an interesting point for me. Personally i allways render with GI on. I have a 1 click setup that gives me a material, HDRI and lights with no effort what so ever. To think its putting people off my work is pretty mind bending. I allways figured it would be positive as it often helps define the form nicely and makes the small details punchier. I have to say the public relations side of the internet is hella confusing
Would it be safe to say you mean, nice lighting trying to make up for a crap model.
HP model does not necessarily have to be a complete models. no one is stopping you from showing those modular chunks of high poly. it would be like a construction image that shows how you made the normal map.
with some good presentation you could actually illustrate how you combined all the different modular high poly chunks to get the final normal map you have. this would work more to your advantage since it would show you are working smart.
No, thats not what i mean, i mean doing a 2 hour render to show off a model you've spent 2 hours working on! There are much better render solutions out there these days, so maybe this is less. If you've got a fancy render setup that takes a few minutes, thats can be a really cool thing, but spending hours rendering for wip models is just silly.
gotcha, guess thats common sense. cheers.