Feedback Request

ClayStewart

Hello! This is my first time posting here and I want to say thanks for taking the time to read this. I graduated from college 5 months ago with a game design & development degree and now that my summer job is over I am taking some time to make my portfolio professional quality so that companies can take me seriously. I've got a long ways to go but I am trying to get better at my 3D artwork. My goal is to create at least 10 high quality models, professional level models. I've started with a pumpkin gourd because I'm in the spirit of fall festivities, and I worked on a farm and grabbed a couple so that I could really study them. I model using Maya and Mudbox.
Here's some renders; from top to bottom they are the front, right side, back, top, and a closeup of the stem. My main concerns are these:

1) What more should I do to this model to increase its quality before detailing it in Mudbox? Add more geometry? Any techniques you guys can share that would be helpful?
2) While I want to really specialize in modeling, is it beneficial to texture the object if I am going to show it off on a portfolio? Basically, is it needed or should I focus on just the modeling?

JamesBrisnehan

If you are going to take it into a sculpting software like Mudbox, the most important thing is for your model to have fairly uniform polygons, and if possible, no triangles. You pretty much just want squares of the same size. Any polys that are too stretched, too concave, too N-gon, too banded, too . . . anything can cause issues when sculpting. The details you've modeled into your stem might make sculpting more challenging. I use Mudbox as well, so I know how to deal with some of it's quirks. Once you have finished sculpting your high-res, you can bring one of it's mid level subdivisions back into Maya to retopologize and get the edge flow you want.
Also, I would really recommend texturing and lighting your assets for a couple of reasons. First, a lot of the game art jobs out there are for both modeling and texturing, pretty much for creating fully finished assets. Second, when most people see a portfolio of just grey, default lit models, they think it looks "unfinished" and skip through pretty fast. A really good paint job and good lighting/presentation can bring a model to life, grabbing a viewers attention faster and holding it for longer. Once you have a viewers attention, you can add images of just the model, wire-frame, sculpt etc. to highlight how much you love that part of the process.
It's only on rare occasions when an untextured asset still looks amazing. However I might be biased because texturing is my favorite part. 

Ashervisalis

@JamesBrisnehan Does Mudbox have a dynamesh equivalent? If so, uniform polygons wouldn't be a big issue.

@ClayStewart Would be cool to see you start the process in the sculpting stage, might make your pumpkin look more organic in the end. This is a good base to start your pumpkin sculpting!

JamesBrisnehan

@Ashervisalis Actually, it looks like it does. I was about to say no, but I decided to do a quick search and it turns out Mudbox version 2018.2 onward has dynamic tessellation. So uh, never-mind. I am still on version 2018.1 though. Excuse me while I go update.

ClayStewart

Hey again, I know it's been awhile, but I've been sculpting the pumpkin and have extracted its normal texture to Maya, however it doesn't look good at all in Maya and I'm wondering what is causing this. Does anybody know how to fix this? In the meantime I may try texturing in Mudbox since I can't get a reliable FBX for Substance Painter.

JamesBrisnehan

It could be a few things. Could be UV overlap, or bad bake settings or wrong material settings in Maya or any number of things. First off can we see your normal map and UVs?

ClayStewart

Looking at it in Maya now, it definitely is the fault of the UVs, looks like I'll just have to redo them. It's a little odd how the same UVs look fine in another program like Mudbox though.

Edit: It looks just fine in Substance Painter as well so maybe I'll just begin experimenting with textures!

lluc21

This is probably due to the green channel (Y axis) being inverted. You can try inverting the green channel of the normal map texture in photoshop and see if it works.

JamesBrisnehan

First, those are very inefficient UVs. You could have far fewer UV shells unfolded/relaxed more and taking up a higher percentage of the 0-1 space. The Automatic UV Mapping button is meant only as a starting point.
Second, it's probably not inverted green channel. Maya and Mudbox both use the same type of normal maps, but if you want to transfer to Unreal or Substance you'll want to invert the green channel.
Anyway, your normal map looks fine so it might just be Maya acting weird. I've found that normal maps often look terrible in Maya's preview mode. You might want to try viewing your normal map in Mudbox, Substance, Unreal or another software. It also could be that the material in Maya is set to 'Object Space' normal instead of 'Tangent Space'.