How much time would you take?

underfox

Well I'm trying to gauge my capacities and see if the time I'm taking to model / texture something is taking too long.

so, I know it depends from a person to another, but if you had to do this


and this ( just the trailer )

open and closed version

How much time would you take from modeling with 3.5k tri limit, to normal baking / texturing creating the collision box and importing into the engine?

I started 2 days ago and now I'm on the third day and I should be done with it tomorrow.

Am I taking too long?

sprunghunt

I would probably take about 1.5-2 days to do this.

but 2-4 days is ok if the end result is good. If you don't have a lot of experience making something like this then the only way you'll get faster is through repetition.

Something to note is I have a huge library of premade bolts, screws and other mechanical bits as well as a big library of photoshop and zbrush brushes. I know how all these things will work together to make something so it speeds things up a bit.

Sardu

For me it depends on how high-poly you want it. You say you have an upper limit but didn't say if you had a lower limit. For me 4hrs - 2 days depending on that.

underfox

I am making it with a decent amount of details but I keep having this weird idea that I should stop and actualy start getting the final texture touches.

Sardu

underfox wrote: »

I am making it with a decent amount of details but I keep having this weird idea that I should stop and actualy start getting the final texture touches.

You can get a lot of the smaller details just using normal maps off of your texture.

underfox

that's exactly what I am doing and Why I think I should stop with it and start getting the materials right etc... But it's stronger than me, I see that I can add a nice detailing touche and I can't stop myself from diong it :P

underfox

I'm sorry perna but could you explain me what you mean by efficiency if it is not speed?

Is it efficiency in the way of beeing fast because of " knowing exactly how to do it without the wasting time "?

kary

That is a good argument. You can look at most of life through an 80/20 lens and it'd serve you well.

Another thing to keep in mind is that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. It holds laughably / painfully true with art. If you have to make something in three days it will tend to get done in three days. Most people have no probably filling a week and a half building the same thing.

underfox

perna wrote: »

(...)

Then there's focus, which ties into the last point, because the less focused you are, the more you procrastinate, because you don't have a clear idea about what to do next, so you end up subconsciously delaying yourself. The absolute majority of 3D artists suffer from this - They tend to "randomly tweak bits until it looks good" rather than have a strict plan about which steps to perform in what order.
(...)

This is me right there!!! After reading this I justrecognized my self and it is true that I constantly add detail because I'm not yet thinking on " how will I start making the diffuse / specular " and so I stay on my normal for a while longer.

It's cool to have a fixed objective on what need to be improved

Thank you very much perna, great information right there.

m4dcow

underfox wrote: »

This is me right there!!! After reading this I justrecognized my self and it is true that I constantly add detail because I'm not yet thinking on " how will I start making the diffuse / specular " and so I stay on my normal for a while longer.

It's cool to have a fixed objective on what need to be improved

Thank you very much perna, great information right there.

I hear a bunch of people call this "spinning wheels", because while your are doing a bunch of work, you aren't getting anywhere. This also happens when you haven't planned something out well enough.

lukepham101

Good one Perna, you said it quite well! To further emphasize what he said, essentially it's this:

1) Don't worry about speed right now, it's about being able to make a good model first and foremost. A employer won't care if you've produced a trailer with 4 wheels in 30 minutes if it looks shit, they'll just tell you to do it again thus everyone's time and effort being wasted. Take your time and do it well first.

2) Once you're done with that, you can think about being more efficient to speed up the workflow. Examples like, "Hey, I sure do model a lot of screws and bolts, how about if I make a library of all these?". Hot keys, making keyboard shortcuts, utilizing scripts, creating texture libraries and stuff will speed things up a lot. You really just learn over time with experience anyway, you'll get faster once you've produced over 50 models or so haha.

Good luck man!

NAIMA

I would measure in work time hours , not days , unless you work consecutively for 24 hours.

WarrenM

lukepham hit on something important. You need to pay attention to your work habits. Keep an eye on what you do all day - if something takes 3 clicks and you do it constantly, maybe that's something you should hot key or put into a script or something. Automate your workflow and you will inherently get faster. Don't be satisfied with being a click monkey.

PeterK

Ya, so, here you go:

"Get your ego out of my art", an article I wrote about efficiency years ago. I refer to those meaningless details people waste their time on as "Unseen art", have a read.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PeterKojesta/20101101/6332/Get_your_ego_out_of_my_art.php

underfox

PeterK wrote: »

Ya, so, here you go:

"Get your ego out of my art", an article I wrote about efficiency years ago. I refer to those meaningless details people waste their time on as "Unseen art", have a read.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PeterKojesta/20101101/6332/Get_your_ego_out_of_my_art.php

excelente . really informative. thanks for sharing.