3D for games - From basics to expert?

mobkon

Hey all -

I've been studying 3D for about a year in my spare time and have put together a portfolio enough to get me an internship which I'm currently at now, but it's not in the game industry. Ultimately I'd love to work in the game industry, but Im finding it hard to find a good simple learning plan/structure on where to start. As of now I can do hard surface/sub-d modeling pretty well (still learning every day) and Im pretty intermediate at UV/texturing and just about everything else in Maya.

I'm just now diving into learning 3D for games and am finding myself a bit overwhelmed. Where should I start? Can anyone sort of list out a good structure of what I should start learning and where I should go from there? What do I need to know to get an entry job at a game studio?

Thanks in advance. Help me ease my brain! :poly122:

skankerzero

well first questions are which do you prefer? Character, environment or both? Organic, hard surface or both?

mobkon

skankerzero wrote: »

well first questions are which do you prefer? Character, environment or both? Organic, hard surface or both?

Environment and hard surface/sub-d. I love creating worlds and would love to be a prop artist and/or environment artist. I also love lighting.

oobersli

post up some work so people can give a better critique of your skills and guide you better.

Lazerus Reborn

Answering Skan's Question look at polycount's Wiki,

When you've decided which section go an pick up a game engine. I recommend UDK or Unity as they have the most documentation, (in my opinion).

Look at basic introduction tutorials into it. It will be overwhelming at first but babysteps and don't be afraid to make mistakes.

icezombie

I have a question hopefully someone will know the answer.....I have Zbrush 4r6 at home I did my homework which was a character sculpted and painted but my school uses 4r3 so when i try to load my ztl (tool) file it wont open at school. My question is this is there a program or a way to convert a tool file from 4r6 to 4r3????????? Thanks in advance,

Icezombie

sprunghunt

icezombie wrote: »

I have a question hopefully someone will know the answer.....I have Zbrush 4r6 at home I did my homework which was a character sculpted and painted but my school uses 4r3 so when i try to load my ztl (tool) file it wont open at school. My question is this is there a program or a way to convert a tool file from 4r6 to 4r3????????? Thanks in advance,

Icezombie

you should just be able to export your ztool to OBJ and then reimport it. If you want the lower subdivs back you can use 'reconstruct subdivs'

mobkon

Hah...was my thread just hijacked? jk

Heres a recent high-res WIP model I did a few days ago of the MKii from Metal Gear Solid. Was modeled in Maya and rendered in Mental Ray ans comped in Photoshop (I know this is not the right way, working on getting it rendered in Marmoset). I plan on adding dirt and some decals soon like the model actually has. I also plan to make a low poly version of this and bake everything out w/ ddo or ndo2 once I can grasp that whole procedure.

Any critiques are extremely welcome.