Too small to sculpt?

Frawmus

Where do you draw the line on whether or not an object is too small to sculpt on and would receive no benefit from having the high poly bake to the low poly? Could it be that it is always recommended to create a high poly sculpt for anything that would utilize a normal map?

IE A Mug, In skyrim you see reflective mugs that look dented and worn. I'm guessing this isn't just replicated with a texture? As where I would think to not sculpt that out and bake down because I'd feel I was wasting time on something that could just be baked with a texture. Pros = Better normal maps/shadow maps for sculpted vs textured?

I suppose I just need help in figuring out a rule of thumb for myself in sculpting high poly of simple objects VS. not.

Moosebish

You have to find a balance between time and beauty. As artists, we'd love to just sculpt everything and make every little object in a game beautiful. But you don't always have the luxury of spending 3 weeks sculpting a mug..

Likewise, don't go wasting time either.. You could go through the process of sculpting in detail, but if you could just as easily make a normal map without it, then you're wasting time. Time is money.

So in the case of Skyrim, that is a gorgeous game made by a successful company with quite a bit of money. So its very possible that an artist did sculpt it, but not necessarily.

McGreed

Always check how close you normally get to the object in a game and how important that object is. If you never need to look closer or have any reason for looking at the objects closely, you don't need to go all out. A pebble on the beach is not as important the gem.

Also, in relation to Skyrim, the game encourage to collect and use the items you gather to setup your home, and when you are in your inventory, you can view the items blown up in the view, so there it is important that it at least got some details.

However, if the object you are modelling is never shown closely, there isn't really any reason to waste time sculpting it, imo. Lot of times in a game production, speed is more important and sculpting everything is just waste of time.

An example is racing games. The cars and their attachments are always pretty and using lot of polygons, because you are focusing a lot on those, however the environment you are driving through, doesn't need that kind of details, first of all most of it is only seen in a blur, as you blast past.

redhonour

If you aren't under time or budget constraints, why not go all out? Especially if you hope to secure work with your awesome art.

sargentcrunch

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rogelio

sargentcrunch wrote: »

For the game I am working on now, I have found the answer to your question. I used to wonder this myself, but you need to realize, not everything needs a normal map, Crytek states in the Documentation that you should only use normal maps where completely necessary, a lot of times you can get away with just a good diffuse and good specular. I think normal maps really matter on big objects (IE Characters, weapons, vehicles). Something like a mug in Skyrim wouldn't of been sculpted, it probably only has a diffuse and specular, probably very low resolution textures as well, simply because they know that the average player won't spend much time looking at it, artists on the other hand.....haha

This is kind of old information I think in the next gen we will basically use normal maps for everything especially if you are working with PBR to get a correct physically based response it would be jarring to see a diffuse only map.

edit: I will amend this by saying yes some stuff could be just diffuse like metals and very smooth materials... very few cases where you do not need a normal but you will need masks for your BRDF settings.

sargentcrunch

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