3D Workflow for SoloDev

JaronMaster

Hello everyone!

I'm a solo game dev, creating a 3D indie game. And I would really appreciate some insights on the best 3D workflow possible to model realistic characters/ props/ vehicles, using Unreal Engine 4 & PBR materials.

I can only rely on Maya LT & Substance Painter/ Designer because of my low budget . I can't therefore include ZBrush/ 3D Coat, although I'm aware of the Sculptris alternative from Pixologic, but I'm not sure how can I really use it in my workflow, especially for retopology.

How can I then model High Poly Meshes? Will that be an obstacle for me to avoid digital sculpting (& High Poly models at all)? Or should I use Maya to create each High Poly Models? 

Thank you very much in advance for your answers!

Neox

well go for a hardsurface look, something scifi or dieselpunk or steampunk will work for sure. you can model all of it, just avoid fabrics. i meqn you could model it for sure but might be very expensive in terms of time. all damage could be done with substance painter, so you avoid sculpting on this.

Aabel

This guy does just fine without Zbrush. Low and high poly appealing characters: https://twitter.com/sakuramochiJP/media If you scroll down far enough he posts some images of his process. There's even some great cloth in there.

Mink

Use blender. Use bevels. There's all sorts of things you can do with high poly meshes that don't require zbrush.

sacboi

Your app pipeline is fine for making a Mech game...just a thought.

Alex_J

To add a little variety to what's already been mentioned, I made the medieval characters on my artstation (sorry, not a plug or anything, I just don't have my main PC right now so can't upload images) using MOSTLY block-modeling in Maya LT, a little Marvelous Designer, and zbrush was only used for face sculpting. 

However, that could have all been done with just Maya LT and painter easily enough. The faces are just minor variations from a scanned base mesh, you could do that with maya's sculpting tools, don't need a lot of subdivisions. I would recommend MD if you want realistic clothing at all. Its very easy to learn, and if you buy one month subscription that is enough time to learn and output yourself a handful of clothing types. Just something worth checking out.

JaronMaster

Thank you all for your answers!

Aabel said:

This guy does just fine without Zbrush. Low and high poly appealing characters: https://twitter.com/sakuramochiJP/media If you scroll down far enough he posts some images of his process. There's even some great cloth in there.

He's really doing an amazing job, I saw some 3D clothes from him and it looks pretty well, almost as good as if it was done with ZBrush. I guess the process is more time consuming than with Zbrush, but it's really good for a temporary solution, at least until I'll be able to buy a Zbrush license.

Neox said:

well go for a hardsurface look, something scifi or dieselpunk or steampunk will work for sure. you can model all of it, just avoid fabrics. i meqn you could model it for sure but might be very expensive in terms of time. all damage could be done with substance painter, so you avoid sculpting on this.

The settings of my world are definitely not towards Steampunk or Dieselpunk, although it could be steampunk during the night. But I was more looking to a solution without constraining my virtual worlds

About Blender, I don't think I'll give it a try, although it looks pretty good!

Anyway, I will really consider getting a Zbrush license, if it'll be too hard to replace it! Thanks again!