HARD SURFACE WORKFLOW - Modeling a Portable Generator

McGergs

This is an environment prop that I am working on as a personal project.  The purpose is to use this for future staging in an environment scene.  My goal is to demonstrate a step-by-step process breakdown for modeling assets.  The end result is to achieve a photo realistic look with a game model.  This model is textured using a PBR Metal Rough texture pipeline with the intention to bring into Unreal Engine.  As you scroll through the gallery, I  break down my production pipeline of this model and provide renders of the model in different lighting scenarios.

Software Used

• High res modeled in Maya 2018
• Low res modeled in Maya 2018
• Supporting map textures were baked in Marmoset Toolbag 3.6
• Textured in Substance Painter 2018.3.2 (2048x2048)
  
• Final renders in Marmoset Toolbag 3.6
• Light test scenes rendered in Substance Painter's Iray plugin
  

McGergs

MY WORKFLOW

Below are the production workflow steps beginning with gathering reference images, then moving into the high poly to low poly modeling workflow, followed by baking supporting maps and finishing with texturing and rendering.

1. GATHERING REFERENCE

2. HIGH POLY USING CREASE SETS

3. SETTING UP COLOR ID's

4. FLOATERS WITH CUSTOM COLOR ID's

5. HIGH POLY FLOATERS

6. LOW POLY, SUBDIVIDE AND CONFORM

7. LOW POLY, INTERSECT WHEN NEEDED

8. LOW POLY FINAL, LEFT SIDE

9. LOW POLY RIGHT SIDE & UV FINAL

10. SETTING UP BAKING GROUPS

McGergs

BAKING AND TEXTURING WORKFLOW

Below are the steps involved in the baking process in Marmoset Toolbag and then moving my supporting maps and geo into Substance Painter for the final textures.

11. BAKING SETUP IN MARMOSET TOOLBAG

12. ADJUST AVERAGE/EXPLICIT NORMALS

13. FINAL NORMAL BAKE, LEFT

14. FINAL NORMAL BAKE, RIGHT

15. FINAL AO BAKE WITH WIRE, RIGHT

16. FINAL AO BAKE WITH WIRE, LEFT

17. TETURING IN SUBSTANCE PAINTER

18. PBR COMBINED TEXTURES (2048x2048)

19. PBR SEPERATE TEXTURES  (2048x2048)

20. PBR SPLIT RENDER

21. FULL TEST RENDER IN IRAY

Up next will be the test renders in different HDRI light probe environments to test the PBR textures and if they hold up nicely.

McGergs

CHECKING THE PBR TEXTURES WITH LIGHTING

When I finished texturing in Substance Painter, I used Iray to render lighting back plates.  This is important to see how the PBR textures hold up in different lighting environments because certain roughness and dielectric material values such as metals can look different in each lighting scenario. To have truly correct PBR, a prop should look correct in any environment lighting.  I ensure that the white and black values are staying within the correct range and that the model is correctly lit in both daylight and low lighting settings.  The renders are also used to see the object in the context of the scene itself and its lighting.  Although blank background studio renders look great in clean studio lighting, using a number of these lighting scenarios with a blank background would not give an accurate representation without a similarly lit background and supporting scene to ground the lighting and color changes.

HDRI Shipyard Buildings by Allegorithmic, Back Left

HDRI Shipyard Buildings  by Allegorithmic, Back Right

HDRI Shipyard Buildings by Allegorithmic, Front Left

HDRI Shipyard Buildings by Allegorithmic, Front Right

HDRI Tomoco Studio by Allegorithmic

HDRI Blue Grotto by Greg Zaal

HDRI Garage by Greg Zaal

HDRI Kiara 3 Morning by Greg Zaal

HDRI Whipple Creek Park by Phillip Modin

HDRI Summer Stage 2 by Sergej Majboroda

HDRI Summer Stage 1 by Sergej Majboroda

HDRI River Rocks by Greg Zaal

HDRI Lot 2 by Greg Zaal

HDRI Cave Wall by Greg Zaal

HDRI Pink Sunsrise by Greg Zaal

From here I move on to some close up detail renders with just the Normal Map applied.

McGergs

CLOSE UP RENDERS OF THE NORMAL DETAILS

These are rendered detail shots of the normal map applied without the base color or roughness values.

This concludes my presentation of the Generator model. I will be moving on to creating an environment scene in UE4 to usr this prop for set dressing. Check back later for more updates. I hope this helped some of you by sharing my process.

jose.fuentes

wow, at first i thought i was looking at a photo.  great work and amazingly detailed breakdown

McGergs

@jose.fuentes Thank you for the kind words. Thinking it is a photo was my goal. I wanted the viewer to do a double take. I plan to do more breakdown on the scene I am putting together as have time. I am hoping to get the same reaction but with a whole set dressed scene.

Taylor Brown

this is impeccable. the weakest thing about this project is the title of the thread! 

Alex_J

holy shit. I mean the generator is looking pretty good but I am left with some questions about your workflow....

this would make a great power point presentation at an interview if you were asked what you general workflow is, but here it's really useful to other artist to learn from. thanks for sharing

McGergs

@Taylor Brown Hah! Thanks for the tip. Noted and I will make it more interesting.

@BIGTIMEMASTER Thanks for the props. My goal was to do both!