The BRAWL² Tournament Challenge has been announced!
It starts May 12, and ends Oct 17. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
It starts May 12, and ends Oct 17. Let's see what you got!
https://polycount.com/discussion/237047/the-brawl²-tournament
Best Of
Re: Where should I start if I want to become a character artist in the industry?
it depends on what you do, but it sounds like you want to make characters with normal maps and a realistic look, and not stylized or handpainted, like WoW.
This is a highpoly > lowpoly workflow, so you'll want a highpoly sculpt usually made in Zbrush, make a lowpoly by retopologizing the highpoly, UV unwrap the lowpoly, and bake the highpoly details into normal, ambient occlusion, and possibly vertex colour or more types of maps onto the lowpoly using something like substance painter.
It's years of hard work and learning. There is a lot of nuance with each software you use, from their capabilities to their limitations and bugs, as well as traditional art skills like anatomy, silhouette, and colour. Digital Tutors, Eat3D, Gnomon Workshop, and Michael Pavlovich's yt channel are good places to start.
This is a highpoly > lowpoly workflow, so you'll want a highpoly sculpt usually made in Zbrush, make a lowpoly by retopologizing the highpoly, UV unwrap the lowpoly, and bake the highpoly details into normal, ambient occlusion, and possibly vertex colour or more types of maps onto the lowpoly using something like substance painter.
It's years of hard work and learning. There is a lot of nuance with each software you use, from their capabilities to their limitations and bugs, as well as traditional art skills like anatomy, silhouette, and colour. Digital Tutors, Eat3D, Gnomon Workshop, and Michael Pavlovich's yt channel are good places to start.
zetheros
1 ·
Re: Star Wars Outlaws: Character design was the least of this games problems.
I really hope this is the end, because to have the thread devolve into discussions about head shaving then finish with poetry is just perfect.
Happy 2025, polycount
Happy 2025, polycount
Benjammin
2 ·
Re: Blender Mega Thread
That's interesting.. not using a layered painter addon by my myself in blender .. i knew at least about this one https://github.com/joshuaKnauber/layer_painter with initial release from 2021.. of course there are also some newer one like https://github.com/Hirourk/HASPaintLayers or maybe more known https://github.com/ucupumar/ucupaint (at least for me reading this thread on BlenderArtists https://blenderartists.org/t/addon-ucupaint-tool-to-manage-texture-layers-for-eevee-and-cycles/1390056?u=okidoki ).. or
this older one from seven years ago (for blender 2.79 https://github.com/David-DiGioia/blender-paint-layers
)..
( Shamelessly "advertising" for BA because i often link to PolyCount in particular to the HowTheF..DoYouModelThis-thread or the Wiki.. )
this older one from seven years ago (for blender 2.79 https://github.com/David-DiGioia/blender-paint-layers
).. ( Shamelessly "advertising" for BA because i often link to PolyCount in particular to the HowTheF..DoYouModelThis-thread or the Wiki..
)
okidoki
2 ·
Re: Help - Mesh is causing flipped normals across axes in substance (non overlapping UVs), nothing works
Ok now I think I understand what you are talking about.
First off let's be *very* precise. What you are specifically talking about is the look of the top and bottom edges of the embossed details. In other words, this whole thread is about this and only this (which if I am understanding you correctly comes from a 2D to Normals conversion). Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.
Here are the two models you provided :
So, about the behavior of the edges of this emboss : as often with normalmaps, a counter-intuitive aspect is that unlike other types of textures (diffuse, bumps, displacement, anything really), the data is relative to UV *orientation*. If you bake tangent space normals for the same object but with it's UV islands at different angles, you'll get different colors (that is to say, different data) on everything.
It just so happens that this horizontal detail appears seamless on the model from the author of the tutorial, because both sides (main and flipped) happen to be consistent because they are oriented horizontally on the UV layout.
But on yours, since you angled it at roughly 45 degrees, you'd need another RGB value for the other side for to be consistent. So logically, to be fully accurate, a conversion of a 2D detail to a Normal map should take that into account, too - and perhaps some do. And perhaps some realtime rendering engines are able to correct for it (after all, we *can* display models with mirrored UVs just fine). But in general and unless I am mistaken it makes sense to me that any edge detail that is isn't strictly a bevel on a horizontal detail would break across a mirror seam if the color/data isn't perfectly accurate and if the surface directly underneath it isn't perfect neutral.
I am not exactly sure if there is way to this kind of conversion accurately for any angle of detail and UVs. To test things out, a first check would be to do a test bake with the parts from yours and the ref, with tris from across the mirror edge UVed uniquely. It would give you a good feel for what causes the discontinuity.
It would also be interesting to do another bake with a geo floater as opposed to a 2D>Normal conversion and see what happens. And yet another test would cousist of doing more extreme 2D to normals conversions with much bigger embosses/bevels, to maximize the visibility of what happens.
First off let's be *very* precise. What you are specifically talking about is the look of the top and bottom edges of the embossed details. In other words, this whole thread is about this and only this (which if I am understanding you correctly comes from a 2D to Normals conversion). Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.
Here are the two models you provided :
So, about the behavior of the edges of this emboss : as often with normalmaps, a counter-intuitive aspect is that unlike other types of textures (diffuse, bumps, displacement, anything really), the data is relative to UV *orientation*. If you bake tangent space normals for the same object but with it's UV islands at different angles, you'll get different colors (that is to say, different data) on everything.
It just so happens that this horizontal detail appears seamless on the model from the author of the tutorial, because both sides (main and flipped) happen to be consistent because they are oriented horizontally on the UV layout.
But on yours, since you angled it at roughly 45 degrees, you'd need another RGB value for the other side for to be consistent. So logically, to be fully accurate, a conversion of a 2D detail to a Normal map should take that into account, too - and perhaps some do. And perhaps some realtime rendering engines are able to correct for it (after all, we *can* display models with mirrored UVs just fine). But in general and unless I am mistaken it makes sense to me that any edge detail that is isn't strictly a bevel on a horizontal detail would break across a mirror seam if the color/data isn't perfectly accurate and if the surface directly underneath it isn't perfect neutral.
I am not exactly sure if there is way to this kind of conversion accurately for any angle of detail and UVs. To test things out, a first check would be to do a test bake with the parts from yours and the ref, with tris from across the mirror edge UVed uniquely. It would give you a good feel for what causes the discontinuity.
It would also be interesting to do another bake with a geo floater as opposed to a 2D>Normal conversion and see what happens. And yet another test would cousist of doing more extreme 2D to normals conversions with much bigger embosses/bevels, to maximize the visibility of what happens.
pior
2 ·
Re: Help - Mesh is causing flipped normals across axes in substance (non overlapping UVs), nothing works
Hello, you're welcome !
What an interesting series of tests. At the very least the cause is identified now, and it is definitely true that there is a wide range of setups from "best possible" to "worst possible" with these things. That said it seems to me that some pipelines should be able to display some of these bad test cases without discontinuity since all the needed data is provided after all. For instance some could come from Tangents information not being passed properly to the final renderer (#7,8,9,10) ; and there could be an issue with the 2D>Normal conversion itself (#4,5,6) or the way it is blended with the pixels of the underlying surface.
The fine points of the math involved here are beyond my skill grade as I am in a similar position to you as a user, i.e. having to find the sweet spot of best practices to produce assets that are as robust as possible. But there are people around here with a very firm grasp on the actual math behind it all and they'll be able to pinpoint what can and can't be done. Tagging @Eric Chadwick and @EarthQuake.
Beyond this one specific asset to fix up I do think it is worth diving a little bit deeper into the topic to find a more universal and robust solution. There is tremendous value in being able to produce solid assets with their finer tertiary details converted from 2D, or even skipping baking altogether like it is done with some environment assets.
pior
2 ·
Re: Help - Mesh is causing flipped normals across axes in substance (non overlapping UVs), nothing works
@pior You were spot on, it is the UVs. I also did a test for the same as you suggested, and it did show exact results
Overlapping/Offset and angled UVs are the worst possible combination that you could deal with, and this is my case. I will redo the UVs
Thanks a lot for figuring it out!
Overlapping/Offset and angled UVs are the worst possible combination that you could deal with, and this is my case. I will redo the UVs
Thanks a lot for figuring it out!
Infinitycg
1 ·
Re: The Bi-Monthly Environment Art Challenge | January - February (94)
Hey everyone!
I'm Charles, a recent graduate from Sydney. Can't wait to see everyone's work on this challenge!
Started the block out so far with a focus to get the proportions and shapes right. Also spicing things up and doing this project in Blender over Maya since I just want to get comfortable with such a versatile (also free) tool. Been making a lot of environments recently and want to take a step back and focus on a prop for a bit with an emphasis on texturing and modelling.
I'm Charles, a recent graduate from Sydney. Can't wait to see everyone's work on this challenge!
Started the block out so far with a focus to get the proportions and shapes right. Also spicing things up and doing this project in Blender over Maya since I just want to get comfortable with such a versatile (also free) tool. Been making a lot of environments recently and want to take a step back and focus on a prop for a bit with an emphasis on texturing and modelling.
Hymil
8 ·
Re: Show your 3D Prints!
Only just started 3D printing but I hope you guys like what I've done so far
I made a shop but will be adding some free stuff in the future:
https://www.myminifactory.com/users/WanderingShack
I made a shop but will be adding some free stuff in the future:
https://www.myminifactory.com/users/WanderingShack
PatchsStitch
4 ·
Re: UV trickery
This is so they can remove the geometry from the handle in an early lod and not affect lighting.
As far as I'm concerned this is completely normal behaviour
As far as I'm concerned this is completely normal behaviour
poopipe
1 ·