Game Characters, and how to present them
polycounter lvl 6
Hi there!
I have a rather dumb question but somehow it also seems pretty important.
When i will create a game character model this would be my steps:
1. sculpt highmesh
2. retopo for lowmesh
3. bake & texturing
4. pose
Now the "4." is where i was wondering about....
I think a good way to present a gamecharacter is to display it in Marmoset Toolbag because the you can inspect the model (rotate & switch between normals, albedo, retopology etc...)
BUT to present the model i do have to pose the character....
Does this mean i have also have to rigg the character?
Is it really necessary also to add "rigging" onto my learning-list just to pose it?
Or should i just load my lowmesh into zbrush, and pose it with transposetool and export it out for toollbag?
What would you do? How do you accomplish this as a non-rigging artist?
I have a rather dumb question but somehow it also seems pretty important.
When i will create a game character model this would be my steps:
1. sculpt highmesh
2. retopo for lowmesh
3. bake & texturing
4. pose
Now the "4." is where i was wondering about....
I think a good way to present a gamecharacter is to display it in Marmoset Toolbag because the you can inspect the model (rotate & switch between normals, albedo, retopology etc...)
BUT to present the model i do have to pose the character....
Does this mean i have also have to rigg the character?
Is it really necessary also to add "rigging" onto my learning-list just to pose it?
Or should i just load my lowmesh into zbrush, and pose it with transposetool and export it out for toollbag?
What would you do? How do you accomplish this as a non-rigging artist?
Replies
A good set of references would have a number of poses for a character you've chosen, so you could reproduce that without making a rig.
Of course if you learn to rig, it can prove useful, but if a studio finds your better at modeling and have a team of riggers, you're likely not going to be doing any rigging.
However it is important to retopo your low correctly for rigging and animation.
In a AAA company I doubt you'd be posing and presenting characters when it comes to submitting an assignment.
You'd likely work on a part of the character in a team among others.
The pose is just a bonus i think, it maybe visualize the character better.
So you think the Zbrush-method is sufficient? This is good to hear
Most cases you don't need to build a rig in maya/max.
There is also an advantage to rigging - A basic rig (without facial setup) is done in 1-2 days. Skinning can be kept to the basics as well. With that you can then try a couple of poses or make adjustments later on. In my experience that is a lot cleaner then doing it all in ZBrush and therefore also faster. But at the end of the day it really depends on what you are most comfortable with.
Just to get back to rigging. In small teams you might be doing it as 3D/character artist, but in that case it won't be complicated. I think people are usually 'scared' by the technical side and try to avoid it, while in truth it is quite simple to learn and gives you some proper understanding of what you are exporting, how animations will affect your mesh, how to separate your mesh to make it modular... As I said a basic rig that an animator will have fun using can be done in 1-2 days and doesn't require any complex skills in Maya. In my personal opinion it is something that people should learn to also be able to work better in a team and understand what others are talking about. You can also learn all of this from a character artist perspective, but it might make sense to try it out make experiences from other disciplines as well.
I'd look into learning how to do basic rigging and skinning.