Environment Noob Here
polycounter lvl 6
Hey everybody I want to try this environment stuff now. I haven't done environments in a long time. I need to know everything up to date about environment modeling, new techniques, and special tuts, thing not to do... etc.
So some questions I want to know about environment modeling...
1. If you're doing a beautiful environment like The Last of Us or any triple A game that looks realistic do you need to have spec and normal for every object? Will that sit weird when it's in game and some objects reflect with light and some look off?
2. When modeling lots of props for example... A bunch of car mechanic tools mixed with street stuff like fire hydrants and bus stop signs... Do you guys attach all of them together and unwrap them in one UV? Or would you model each little prop and unwrap it by itself?
3. How do you go about modeling hills or terrain? Do you do it in a program like 3ds max? or do you use a Game Engine? For making a grass texture for a hill do you create a material in UDK and apply or paint that on the hill?
4. How would you do the ground in this environment specifically the water part
5.Is a using texture atlas (not sure of that's the right term) helpful? Do people still do it? When I say texture atlas I'm talking about a texture textured with maybe four different textures on the UV. Then apply that texture to lets say a box. That box is unwrapped making sure it is under one of the textures.
6. When modeling organic statues like a Michael Angelo style... Is that scilpted then decimated? Not reopo? Same for tree's??
7. So here's my take on modeling environments
- plan ahead. Take a look at the concept see what can be duplicated. And organize things
- box it out. Get the main big parts of the scene
-model the details
-texture everything
-import everything in UDK (optional)
Is that how most you guys do it?
So some questions I want to know about environment modeling...
1. If you're doing a beautiful environment like The Last of Us or any triple A game that looks realistic do you need to have spec and normal for every object? Will that sit weird when it's in game and some objects reflect with light and some look off?
2. When modeling lots of props for example... A bunch of car mechanic tools mixed with street stuff like fire hydrants and bus stop signs... Do you guys attach all of them together and unwrap them in one UV? Or would you model each little prop and unwrap it by itself?
3. How do you go about modeling hills or terrain? Do you do it in a program like 3ds max? or do you use a Game Engine? For making a grass texture for a hill do you create a material in UDK and apply or paint that on the hill?
4. How would you do the ground in this environment specifically the water part
5.Is a using texture atlas (not sure of that's the right term) helpful? Do people still do it? When I say texture atlas I'm talking about a texture textured with maybe four different textures on the UV. Then apply that texture to lets say a box. That box is unwrapped making sure it is under one of the textures.
6. When modeling organic statues like a Michael Angelo style... Is that scilpted then decimated? Not reopo? Same for tree's??
7. So here's my take on modeling environments
- plan ahead. Take a look at the concept see what can be duplicated. And organize things
- box it out. Get the main big parts of the scene
-model the details
-texture everything
-import everything in UDK (optional)
Is that how most you guys do it?
Replies
As for artists, we always use up the capacity of all major production games on art. I assume you're making a portfolio piece? You'll never have to worry about frame rate and as a result, go nuts. Be reasonable about it; employers don't want to see that you can't optimize. But go nuts.
2. I like to put props on a single texture sheet, yes. Especially if they share similar reflective properties and I can sometimes get away with not having a gloss map. Or if I'm making a gun and adding things like optics, flashlights, other tactical gear, I'll have the gun on one sheet and the accessories on the other. That way the accessories are applicable to other firearms as well.
3. With terrain, there are 10 ways to skin a cat. Sometimes I sculpt in engine, sometimes I sculpt in ZBrush and export a height map.
4. Vertex painting
5. Question is unclear
6. Could go either way. Personal preference is sculpting and then retopo. I have mixed results with decimation but if it works, it'll save you a good bit of time.
7. Spend a good amount of time reading some threads on here. It's not uncommon to see artists chronicle their progress and you can follow their workflow.
I can tell by this thread that you're pretty new to this. I think you'd be best off getting a subscription to something like 3DMotive. It's like, $30/ month and I promise that you'll make all the accumulated fees back in the first month of your paycheck. Maybe the second if it takes you a really long time to get a job. At work, my boss and I spend a lot of time following tutorials and testing techniques. We'll spent days learning a technique that will save us time down the road. Build a librarby of tutorials and learn techniques.