Modular Character Models, Any Advice?
polycounter lvl 8
Hi, all. I'm going to be working on a project where the plan is for me to make ~60 different modern-day civilian models, at first person specs(ie ~10K tris, diffuse/normal/spec maps), in udk, over the course of several months. It's unfeasible for me to make each one individual, so I'm going to need to use modular assets / textures.
Problem is, I've never done this before. I've made lots of character models in the past, but never modular. Right now my general plan is to make a male basemesh and a female basemesh, each robust enough to support a wide range of body types and facial shapes. Then I would make a variety of types of clothing, which could also support the body types. Then I guess I would make blend shapes for the bodies and the clothing to create 3-4 different body types. So the end result would be a bunch of different clothing which could be put on any body type.
Does anyone have any advice for workflow, or any tips to help me avoid making horrible mistakes? Any advice on how to organize my uvs for texturing, etc?
Problem is, I've never done this before. I've made lots of character models in the past, but never modular. Right now my general plan is to make a male basemesh and a female basemesh, each robust enough to support a wide range of body types and facial shapes. Then I would make a variety of types of clothing, which could also support the body types. Then I guess I would make blend shapes for the bodies and the clothing to create 3-4 different body types. So the end result would be a bunch of different clothing which could be put on any body type.
Does anyone have any advice for workflow, or any tips to help me avoid making horrible mistakes? Any advice on how to organize my uvs for texturing, etc?
Replies
Honestly my first thought would be to define swaps. What are you swapping, what are the options. Then defining your seam edges and create a spline-guide just to remind yourself. Then probably a polycount over divided into a part to part polycount so you know what your maximum is per-part. Then try to see how much mileage you can get per silhouette. One mesh, rigged once, with 10 normal maps, 20 tiles, each tile with a tint option, etc will get you a lot of variation for a lot less work of worrying about a new low poly for each high poly, and so on.
A small look here at how this was accomplished in The Witcher 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNsxwX_sva8&feature=player_embedded#at=332 -skip to around 5.28
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2010/GDC10_ShaderTechniquesL4D2.pdf
Skankerzero's Mutant League
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91509
@Vorge
"Honestly my first thought would be to define swaps. What are you swapping, what are the options. Then defining your seam edges and create a spline-guide just to remind yourself. Then probably a polycount over divided into a part to part polycount so you know what your maximum is per-part."
Sorry, but that was greek to me. When you say defining seam edges with splines, what are you talking about? The seams between interchangeable pieces of geometry? Wouldn't a poly-band be more useful than a spline since then I could snap to verts? "Poly count over divided into a part to part polycount", you're talking about allocating poly resources to different body parts so that I don't accidentally push myself over poly budget? For instance shirt 3K tris, Pants 3K tris, Hands 1K tris?
@Ark
Thanks for the links, I remember spending a long time in Witcher 2 admiring how beautifully all the clothing worked together. That really was a stunning game.
@Snowfly
Great links, I was suprised to see that LFD1 didn't use normal maps for the zombies. The more you know!
@cptSwing
Yeah I read through a lot of what he posted. Unfortunately I think some of it won't apply (for instance swapping out the collars of shirts) since I need to be working with normal maps. I guess that would be possible - but it seems like a workflow nightmare. Regardless, a lot of really good info.