General Game Pipeline Questions and Possible Career Change
Good Day All,
I'm a long time lurker - first time poster however. I'm currently 27 years old, and professionally work as a database architect/developer within both the pure and applied science realms. My wife recently finished her Ph.D and is starting her residency soon - moving forward, I'll have the ability to start looking at doing something differently if I wish.
I've had a lot of interest in hard-surface modeling over the past few years, I've dabbled around here and there - but have never really given it serious thought until now.
Currently, I've been learning on a student version of Autodesk Maya. Below are a few of questions I had regarding pipeline questions when it comes to game assets.
1) When designing a model for a game engine, is it a requirement to make a complex model all-in-one.
To explain, let's say I'm modeling a coiled, eye-top stove. For things like the knobs, eye tops themselves, etc. Can I make these attachments as separate meshes and just "stick" them into the model - or is it best to cut out holes in the base model for where these attachments would go, and then reseam the model around the attachments? Basically, is it OK to have rogue faces/edges in a model as long as they can't be seen?
2) When exporting models as game assets, I've seen - based on examples here - that most will make the edges on their models only triangles, is this a requirement?
3) Are there any suggestions for applications that I should include in my modeling pipeline, or does Maya have the ability to do everything that I need?
Thank you in advance for your help/suggestions! I understand that possibly making a career change from a database architect to a 3D Modeler would be quite the hit on the paycheck - but I've loved dabbling over the years in it and it's quite exciting!
I'm a long time lurker - first time poster however. I'm currently 27 years old, and professionally work as a database architect/developer within both the pure and applied science realms. My wife recently finished her Ph.D and is starting her residency soon - moving forward, I'll have the ability to start looking at doing something differently if I wish.
I've had a lot of interest in hard-surface modeling over the past few years, I've dabbled around here and there - but have never really given it serious thought until now.
Currently, I've been learning on a student version of Autodesk Maya. Below are a few of questions I had regarding pipeline questions when it comes to game assets.
1) When designing a model for a game engine, is it a requirement to make a complex model all-in-one.
To explain, let's say I'm modeling a coiled, eye-top stove. For things like the knobs, eye tops themselves, etc. Can I make these attachments as separate meshes and just "stick" them into the model - or is it best to cut out holes in the base model for where these attachments would go, and then reseam the model around the attachments? Basically, is it OK to have rogue faces/edges in a model as long as they can't be seen?
2) When exporting models as game assets, I've seen - based on examples here - that most will make the edges on their models only triangles, is this a requirement?
3) Are there any suggestions for applications that I should include in my modeling pipeline, or does Maya have the ability to do everything that I need?
Thank you in advance for your help/suggestions! I understand that possibly making a career change from a database architect to a 3D Modeler would be quite the hit on the paycheck - but I've loved dabbling over the years in it and it's quite exciting!
Replies
1) It depends, neither are inherently right/wrong. If pieces need to deform (move, animate) they will be separate pieces (like the trigger of a gun). If not it's usually better to merge but it really depends on what you're doing. Relevant reading here. Also this depends on whether you're talking about the lowpoly or highpoly. For the highpoly you usually model pieces as they are in real-life, so separate pieces are expected. But you might already know this.
2) Yes but it's not something you do manually. It will be done on export, you do not "work" with triangles.
3) Depends on what you want to do. If you want to create an entire static prop, say a brick wall, you will likely want to model the highpoly and lowpoly mesh and unwrap its uv coords (maya), maybe sculpt some details (zbrush), bake a normal map (maya? or xNormal) and then texture it (photoshop/substance painter/something else). If you follow a tutorial relevant to what you want to do you should get a pretty solid idea of what the pipeline involves. You'll pick most of that stuff up along the way.