It depends on a lot of things. Like style, art direction, platform, environment or character, etc. If you would give info at least about it would be environment or character art and in what style then we could give better answer. Writing with thinking about every possible situations would result in like a page long answer.
If you're looking at a low budget then pick up blender and gimp. All the techniques you learn there will be transferable to other programs (Albeit the buttons do change)
(And then sculptris for learning basic sculpting before saving to get zbrush :P)
If you have some money, definitely worth grabbing PS, but no one really has a ton to drop on maya or 3dsmax when they're just starting out. So if you're a student it might be worth starting out with a student license on one of those as well. I believe zbrush also has a student license?
Sounds like you want to do stylized Blizzard type art. I think the best software to learn is Maya, Zbrush, xnormal, and Photoshop. You could also use 3dsmax instead of maya or Mudbox instead of zbrush. There are various other programs you can use but learn these first. Pick something you want to model and model in Maya. Try to keep it simple and just capture the major silhouette of the object you are trying to model. Don't model in a lot of detail as you can do all this in zbrush. Once your basic model is done, bring it into zbrush and sculpt all the details into it. For example, bricks , dirt, mudd, whatever the object consists of. Once the sculpt is done, UV the low poly mesh and bake from high to low using something like xnormal. Baking can also be done in zbrush. After you bake out your normal map and maybe an ambient occlusion map, bring them into photoshop to clean them and start you texturing. You can view your model in maya or a game engine as you texture. That's basically it! I know it's a lot if you really have never done this but there are tons of resources here on PC, the net in general, and youtube to help with each step so do a lot of research! If you have issues, post on here and people will help you out. Good luck!
ThankU for the fast replies, thanks slosh i saved ur text. As per ur suggestion i plan to start with maya @ Zbrush bcoz i kno bit of maya and learning Zbrush. i collected some fantasy weapon from internet and i started with it. i wil update my working progress soon.
Thanks JOHN
So. Those fantasy weapons are a pretty good choice for starting, because usually they aren't too complex. Do this:
Method/Style 1 - Highpoly->lowpoly->baking normal and other maps
1. Make basemesh in your modeling software (Maya in your case) - Model the forms, separate the parts that should be separated. Like if it would be from 2 parts then your should be from 2 parts too. From my experience, its good if you are thinking about the lowpoly too yet in this state of the workflow. If you make this mesh good, then later it will be good for being the lowpoly after removing a few edges from it. If you want 4 segments on a bended part later on your lowpoly, then put 4 segments there on this model too. But for getting good results after the subdivision in Zbrush, you need to place control loops on your mesh that can hold the angular parts angularly. When its done, export it to Zb.
2. Detail your model out in Zbrush. Add the smaller details here, like scratches, crevices, other damages. After the highpoly looks enough detailed, you have two options here. First is exporting the highpoly back to your modeling program, and going to continue with making the lowpoly. The second is to polypaint the diffuse map on your highpoly and then exporting it (you would bake it to the lowpoly later)
3. Go back to your modeling program, open your basemesh, and make it enough lowpoly (remove every unnecessary edge, that doesn't change the silhouette too much) It needs to be "lowpoly" but you don't have to go insane. I think nowadays (depending on the studio/client/platform/game type/style, of course) a few thousands of triangles is totally ok for a this kind of object. Not 8.000 for a little knife, but I think almost everything not too tawdry can be done from less than 2-3-4000. After its enough lowpoly, you can make its uv map.
4. Import both high and lowpoly to the program which you want to use for baking, and bake your maps (normals, and the polypaint as a diffuse map if you made it)
5. Paint the remained maps. If you already made the diffuse with polypainting, then here you just need to paint the specular (and maybe glossiness) map. Depending on the target engine's shading method, there can be metalness instead of specular, but I would say ignore it at this point. First you should learn other things.
6. Import your model and textures to a game engine. Probably UDK, or Unity would be the best choice for beginners because they are relatively user friendly, even if there can be a lot of issues with the imported content. Marmoset Toolbag is also a cool program, but its not a game engine, just a real time "renderer" , but it could be also a good choice, if you don't want to do anything other than viewing your final asset in a something that has very similar options to what an actual game engine would have.
Method/Style 2 - Lowpoly->Painting
1. Make your lowpoly model, the rules are the same, make it enough (but not too) lowpoly, and then make uv map for it.
2. Paint just a diffuse texture for your asset. Paint the surface's shadows/shadowing and specular highlights and material definition too into the diffuse texture (because you don't have normal and specular map)
3. Import the model and the texture into an engine.
This is the faster method, the older WoW models made this way for example(I think a few artists there still uses this), and there are still a lot of other games that applies this. The biggest visual difference between this, and the previous method is that you get shade maps with method 1 so the surface (normal map/specular) of your asset will react to the light sources. With method 2, you paint the lighting information (detail's shadows, specular highlights) into the diffuse texture, so only the mesh's normals will react to the lighting. Darksiders and Dota for example applies method 1 and, and WoW/Lol applies method 2, but nowadays the artists there can choose between 1 and 2, but at the end they still bake everything into the diffuse map. Both's result can look good if your model/textures are quality.
So first, decide about you want normalmapping or not, and then apply method 1 or 2.
There are many good tutorials on the internet everywhere. With using proper keywords, you can find good tutorials on youtube too. Eat3d/3d motive dvds are really good, and they have a few free videos too. And polycount has a Wiki section (you can find it on the top) which contains a lot of informations about almost everything that a game artist would need.
Also it has a search field so here you can use the proper keywords again, and you can look around between the threads.
Good luck!
It would be good for using as the lowpoly, and the detail level is good for using as basemesh too, but maintaining quads would help to get cleaner result in ZBrush.
Replies
i want to do learn environment with painted fantasy style and i dont have idea about platform and artdirection
thanks
JOHN
(And then sculptris for learning basic sculpting before saving to get zbrush :P)
If you have some money, definitely worth grabbing PS, but no one really has a ton to drop on maya or 3dsmax when they're just starting out. So if you're a student it might be worth starting out with a student license on one of those as well. I believe zbrush also has a student license?
Thanks
JOHN
Method/Style 1 - Highpoly->lowpoly->baking normal and other maps
1. Make basemesh in your modeling software (Maya in your case) - Model the forms, separate the parts that should be separated. Like if it would be from 2 parts then your should be from 2 parts too. From my experience, its good if you are thinking about the lowpoly too yet in this state of the workflow. If you make this mesh good, then later it will be good for being the lowpoly after removing a few edges from it. If you want 4 segments on a bended part later on your lowpoly, then put 4 segments there on this model too. But for getting good results after the subdivision in Zbrush, you need to place control loops on your mesh that can hold the angular parts angularly. When its done, export it to Zb.
2. Detail your model out in Zbrush. Add the smaller details here, like scratches, crevices, other damages. After the highpoly looks enough detailed, you have two options here. First is exporting the highpoly back to your modeling program, and going to continue with making the lowpoly. The second is to polypaint the diffuse map on your highpoly and then exporting it (you would bake it to the lowpoly later)
3. Go back to your modeling program, open your basemesh, and make it enough lowpoly (remove every unnecessary edge, that doesn't change the silhouette too much) It needs to be "lowpoly" but you don't have to go insane. I think nowadays (depending on the studio/client/platform/game type/style, of course) a few thousands of triangles is totally ok for a this kind of object. Not 8.000 for a little knife, but I think almost everything not too tawdry can be done from less than 2-3-4000. After its enough lowpoly, you can make its uv map.
4. Import both high and lowpoly to the program which you want to use for baking, and bake your maps (normals, and the polypaint as a diffuse map if you made it)
5. Paint the remained maps. If you already made the diffuse with polypainting, then here you just need to paint the specular (and maybe glossiness) map. Depending on the target engine's shading method, there can be metalness instead of specular, but I would say ignore it at this point. First you should learn other things.
6. Import your model and textures to a game engine. Probably UDK, or Unity would be the best choice for beginners because they are relatively user friendly, even if there can be a lot of issues with the imported content. Marmoset Toolbag is also a cool program, but its not a game engine, just a real time "renderer" , but it could be also a good choice, if you don't want to do anything other than viewing your final asset in a something that has very similar options to what an actual game engine would have.
Method/Style 2 - Lowpoly->Painting
1. Make your lowpoly model, the rules are the same, make it enough (but not too) lowpoly, and then make uv map for it.
2. Paint just a diffuse texture for your asset. Paint the surface's shadows/shadowing and specular highlights and material definition too into the diffuse texture (because you don't have normal and specular map)
3. Import the model and the texture into an engine.
This is the faster method, the older WoW models made this way for example(I think a few artists there still uses this), and there are still a lot of other games that applies this. The biggest visual difference between this, and the previous method is that you get shade maps with method 1 so the surface (normal map/specular) of your asset will react to the light sources. With method 2, you paint the lighting information (detail's shadows, specular highlights) into the diffuse texture, so only the mesh's normals will react to the lighting. Darksiders and Dota for example applies method 1 and, and WoW/Lol applies method 2, but nowadays the artists there can choose between 1 and 2, but at the end they still bake everything into the diffuse map. Both's result can look good if your model/textures are quality.
So first, decide about you want normalmapping or not, and then apply method 1 or 2.
There are many good tutorials on the internet everywhere. With using proper keywords, you can find good tutorials on youtube too. Eat3d/3d motive dvds are really good, and they have a few free videos too. And polycount has a Wiki section (you can find it on the top) which contains a lot of informations about almost everything that a game artist would need.
Also it has a search field so here you can use the proper keywords again, and you can look around between the threads.
Good luck!
thanks
JOHN
started Base model and i move basemesh to Zbrush
Let me know the tri count for this asset
Thanks
JOHN