Making a game-ready character with multiple subtools

FrekieOfficial

Hi everyone 

Im starting to make a game with a group of people. I have been assigned to do everything from concept to sculpting to retopologizing characters, and make them nice and ready to be rigged.

So I am working on this character in Zbrush atm, and he needs some armor and stuff, ofc I make new subtools and all that.

But I just started wondering, when I have retopologized all the parts, made UVs and all that, is it okay to send the rigger a character with 8-14 different parts? Or would you recommend doing some kind of merging?


Also, what do you do with meshes that cant be seen? Right now he has a shirt on, but he also have bare skin underneath the shirt, should I just delete his torso? I just feel like stuff right here start to go wrong.

Any links to some tuts that could help or got any advice yourself?

Thansk beforehand! 

pior

"Im starting to make a game with a group of people."
"So I am working on this character in Zbrush atm, and he needs some armor and stuff, ofc I make new subtools and all that." 

Ofc ofc.

I'll cut straight to the chase here : don't do that. As in : do yourself a huge favor and leave Zbrush aside for now. You need to realise that whatever you do in Zbrush (that is to say : fine surface details) will merely represent about 5% of the character you are working on.

There is of course some value in exploring the look and art style of your project through sculpts ; but when it comes to actually putting stuff in the game, and based on your questions, you have much more important things to figure out first.

Here's the plan :

Stop any sculpting you are currently doing, and built some simple gear models technically representative of what the game will be using (mostly in terms of density. You can ignore UVs and textures for now). Start the discussion with the game designer, programmer, rigger and animator about what gear you need and how they are supposed to be combined. Adjust your simple models accordingly. Figure all this out practically with the rigger. Get a full character up and running in the game, with gear working as it should.

Then, and only then, will be a good time to open Zbrush again.

Or ...

Refactor your game design so that it doesn't require any gear swapping.

Axi5

Agree with Pior. A working example, even a basic one, is a far superior start than going straight to the sculpts. Typically for a small team you'll want some game mechanics in place before you start concepting, it'll help everything flow a lot better when everyone is on the same page. The mechanics are rough, but the creativity will flow.

kanga

Frekie said:

...But I just started wondering, when I have retopologized all the parts, made UVs and all that, is it okay to send the rigger a character with 8-14 different parts? Or would you recommend doing some kind of merging?


Also, what do you do with meshes that cant be seen? Right now he has a shirt on, but he also have bare skin underneath the shirt, should I just delete his torso? I just feel like stuff right here start to go wrong.

...

Yeah you received great advice already. You would break up your character depending on the resolution needed and as has been said the functions required ie. are you switching costumes in an interface that requires a naked version of the model? How close will the camera get in game? For general use I'd break the model into three parts: Hair, costume and skin, but that all depends. Unless its function related 14 separate meshes sounds alot.

FrekieOfficial

.

FrekieOfficial

Sorry again, I did not expect an answer like that so I kept it short.

TropicalTommy

pior said:

"Im starting to make a game with a group of people."
"So I am working on this character in Zbrush atm, and he needs some armor and stuff, ofc I make new subtools and all that." 

Ofc ofc.

I'll cut straight to the chase here : don't do that. As in : do yourself a huge favor and leave Zbrush aside for now. You need to realise that whatever you do in Zbrush (that is to say : fine surface details) will merely represent about 5% of the character you are working on.

There is of course some value in exploring the look and art style of your project through sculpts ; but when it comes to actually putting stuff in the game, and based on your questions, you have much more important things to figure out first.

Here's the plan :

Stop any sculpting you are currently doing, and built some simple gear models technically representative of what the game will be using (mostly in terms of density. You can ignore UVs and textures for now). Start the discussion with the game designer, programmer, rigger and animator about what gear you need and how they are supposed to be combined. Adjust your simple models accordingly. Figure all this out practically with the rigger. Get a full character up and running in the game, with gear working as it should.

Then, and only then, will be a good time to open Zbrush again.

Or ...

Refactor your game design so that it doesn't require any gear swapping.

Just joined to post my own issue on this forum but was reading a few threads and saw your post, you are saying leave Zbrush and focus on the armour, what program would you be suggesting he is using to do that?
I looking to start a career in 3D modelling for games and have been using Zbrush to train on but also will be using Maya down the line, wondering what other programs would be the mainstream ones and what you were thinking he is using?

Neox

it can't hurt to know maya or max, but ultimately any modellingsolution will do

blender, modo, maya, max they are all fine with their own set of strengths and weaknesses

FrekieOfficial

Eh, for some reason my answer was deleted. Sorry about that.

We have been working on the project for 6 months, we have made levels, we know the lore and so on. We are at a part, where we need playable characters in the game. We have some dummies in it now to test abilities and such.

The game is going to be something like Smite, Heroes of the storm and league of legends, in the sense of you select are character to play. So there aint going to be any clothing customization, I guess in the long run we make skins and such, but thats just making a new model with the same shape so it fits the same skeleton.

I am so sorry I didnt specify this, I didnt expect to get answers like that so I kept it short. 

pior

The same advice still applies : no sculpting until a rough version of the character is up and running ingame. Anything else is a waste of time and resources.

[Deleted User]

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FrekieOfficial

Sigh... Ill ask somewhere else.

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FrekieOfficial

TeriyakiStyle said:

FrekieOfficial said:

Sigh... Ill ask somewhere else.

How do you mean?  You're going to ask around until you get the answer you want?  You might want to check the CV of  the guys in this thread willing to talk to you if you're looking for an informed answer... (rhymes with Pior)

Maybe just download the Dota models and study them.  Parts are fine but you should just assume they arrived at all those base/parts Combos after extensive testing.

Right now you want to: sculpt final - go to in game final - fix - resculpt - Retopo - fix - resculpt - retopo ........etc

Advice:  Test on proxy - Sculpt final - final mesh 

But hey maybe reddit or Facebook knows GL

Dude, you are all talking to me as if I have never done any of this before. I am very well aware that I shouldn't go and make all final stuff right from the beginning, I have worked with 3D for 3 years so far. I just didn't feel like posting my whole CV and life story to get an answer to my question (Sorry I guess), so I kept it short.

I just wanted to ask a specific question about this, and I said Im asking somewhere else not because "Until Im getting the answer I want" (Btw, rude) but so I could get an answer to my question.

I have downloaded overwatch characters to see how they were made, but they were actually the reason I started to wonder about this. So I dont think downloading Dota characters will do any different (well, maybe I haven't done it)

So if you want to keep telling me how to do the whole pipeline, then save your fingers from typing, I can't use that, I know it. But thanks for your advice and wanting to help, Im sure you have great CV's and know a lot, so sorry for wasting your time. Hence why, Im asking somewhere else then.

pior

So ... what's this "specific question" ?

FrekieOfficial

Okay, when we have done all of what you have suggested and we start to do the final sculpt of the character. Lets say the character is going to have cloths and armor on. Then as I normaly would, would mark an area, like the hands, and then extrude to make gloves. In the end, the model is going to have lets say 12 sub tools. Which is fine in Zbrush.

But as to why Im writing here, is because I have doubts if its fine to give the rigger a model with 12 parts (when it has been retopped , UV'et and mapped.) Or if I should first do what I can to "weld" most of the parts together? Would you also recommend deleting his hands inside the gloves, since we are never going to see his hands anyway (And also, would you delete the hands while sculpting, or wait till you have made the retopped model?) 

Okay, lets say you are going to make a human male, with a trench coat, pants, a chest plate, boots and gloves. What would you do? Remove his whole body since its covered in cloth (except neck and head) and weld or merge all the parts together? I would myself delete the insides to reduce the amount of faces. But Im curious as to what you others do. I have tried looking at tutorials, I even have a plural sight account, but its mostly just monsters that end up being 1 mesh anyway(2 with eyes), or others just skip that part.

Jesus this became long, apologies. What would you recommend? What do you do?
If you have any links to guides or video tutorials I will happily see them. 


Sorry for seeming rude, I was just a bit annoyed.

pior

The way you structure your Zbrush file and subtools should have no influence on the way your lowpoly mesh in built. Therefore you need to forget about these 12 subtools altogether, and think about the game model itself.

You will never find a (well built, professionally crafted) game character with hands and thin gloves built as two separate, floaty, interpenetrating parts. Therefore there is no reason for you to do that either (the fingers would all clip with the gloves on top of them, and cross sections would not match). You rigger will tell you many detailled horror stories as to why this setup would be problematic - ask him about it, he'll tell you !

Aabel

FrekieOfficial said:

 

But I just started wondering, when I have retopologized all the parts, made UVs and all that, is it okay to send the rigger a character with 8-14 different parts? Or would you recommend doing some kind of merging?


Also, what do you do with meshes that cant be seen? Right now he has a shirt on, but he also have bare skin underneath the shirt, should I just delete his torso? I just feel like stuff right here start to go wrong.

Any links to some tuts that could help or got any advice yourself?

Thansk beforehand! 

 For the first question ask the rigger what they want.

Second question if it can't be seen it should be removed to free up resources for things that can be seen.

FrekieOfficial

Yea I can imagine it will be horrific, as to why I said I would have deleted the hands

Alright, thanks for your help everybody, sorry for the misunderstanding, ill try out some stuff now.

cryrid

FrekieOfficial said:

Okay, lets say you are going to make a human male, with a trench coat, pants, a chest plate, boots and gloves. What would you do? Remove his whole body since its covered in cloth (except neck and head) and weld or merge all the parts together? I would myself delete the insides to reduce the amount of faces. But Im curious as to what you others do.

Here's a look at a game using zone-culling to help with cases like this
https://youtu.be/NGzDI2wUqf0?t=32m51s

(Skip to 32:50 if the link doesn't do it automatically)

kanga

cryrid said:

FrekieOfficial said:...
Here's a look at a game using zone-culling to help with cases like this
https://youtu.be/NGzDI2wUqf0?t=32m51s

(Skip to 32:50 if the link doesn't do it automatically)

Nice vid!