what are peoples workflows - 3D environments

Jordanbeeston

Hey everyone, 

wanted to know what people are using most of in their workflows,

also when working on a project, is it best to do all the modelling in one then all the UV'ing and then all the texturing or do you go by each object in the scene (model, uv and texture) and then move on to the next object?

just curious  

BucketOfNuggets

Is there one particular aspect you need help with?

I usually start with a rough block out than start building. I do one object at a time to completion, I don't have any set order in which I tackle them but I generally build all the same type at the same time,  the wall sections etc.

Uving is such a grind, I couldn't imagine saving all the uving for an entire scene to be done at once haha 

Jordanbeeston

no i was just curious to see what were peoples way of doing things and if there is a different workflow i could try that might be faster

yeah i do roughly about the same, although for a current project i tried to bash out all the UV'ing today, about 5 hours straight so far, although metaphorically it feels like eating all the vegetables off a plate first and then saving all the good stuff for later ...atleast i can get on with the texturing now haha

Kevin Albers

If an environment is fairly unique, and/or the project is in preproduction still, I usually start up two different simultaneous efforts. 1- whitebox out the environment, trying to get a good composition and confirming what is needed to fulfill game design etc.   2- make 2-3 small assets to 'final' quality, essentially putting together a little vertical slice of the environment, with nice assets, lighting etc.

Once I'm satisfied with my small group of assets, and I know how I want to build all the remaining assets, then I'll go through and complete the whitebox assets 1 at a time.

Mark Dygert

Block out with simple shapes and just enough modeling to define things, very rough. This way you and push things around and focus on gameplay rough materials and some rough lighting.

Then start refining things. Usually I'll go an object at a time and take it to completion.

NodrawNT

Pretty much like Mark and Kevin but I like to set-up VR to check how everything's coming together when I'm blocking out.

Gaurav Mathur

I go back and forth between environment block-in in UE4 and prop modeling work starting out.  I'm big on getting to a flow state while I work, so I switch things up as I need to in order to get there.

I've been doing a lot without concept art lately, and relying more on photo reference.   Even if I have a concept, I'll spend some time up-front gathering photo reference so that I can feel out the space in my head and find a few key hooks and things that inspire me.

In this context, it's important to work out not just scale and proportion in-game, but also work towards the style and character of a space.  It helps me to take props to 50-75% of geometry completion in Modo for a first pass to UE4.  UVing, collision geometry, and even flat-color material assignments can be a part of this.  Once I get things into UE4, I love walking around the space I've created and feeling it out.  

I generally experience a break in my pipeline between modeling form and texturing surface detail.

A second pass on geometry takes everything the rest of the way through to basic normal map generation before I start texturing in Substance Painter and doing material setups in UE4.


  

musashidan

Definitely grey-boxing a rough scene scale blockout is a must. It's also the time to test game play mechanics and how the player moves through the environment: door widths/jump distance/slope angle/ceiling height/etc.you can also take this time to set up texel density with a test texture which you can use later to author the asset texturing.

Once that's in place and grid/units is set (especially for modular) you can be content in knowing that things should work due to the prototyping. 

Then it's just a case of going through the process of modeling all the assets. One by one, modeling to in engine, uv'd and textured(with custom collision meshes where needed)  If creating modular I would also spend some time on creating variations of finished pieces using procedural modifiers

And lastly, setting up materials in-engine.

Jordanbeeston

Ahh im glad i asked the question!

I know it sounds silly but i never really thought about taking the grey_boxing into UE4 first, but i guess it make sense as if you spend all the time texturing and it turns out not to be the right fit it would be a waste of time. but also because after all i do want to make the art for games! Thanks for the insight  

Do people not find it hard to match objects to the same style, color pallets if your doing it one by one? or do you make an effort to keep going back to the full scene to make sure everything fits together so that theres nothing contrasting too much etc..

musashidan

That's one of the driving factors behind the shift to pbr in games.It helps to ensure consistency. Whole pipelines are now built around Substance Designer, for instance.

Gaurav Mathur

@Jordanbeeston, working for too long without going back to the game engine for me is almost like working blind!  Moreso if you're working on a team with other artists.