Creating A Game Art Environmet
Hi to everyone, my name is Josep and this is my first post here. I just finished my 3D studies and now I'm in that complicated moment which is stay in home alone making a solid portfolio.
During the last year I decided to focus in environment art, and now I'm starting a project from 0 to game ready. The environment is a Tokyo night street.
I want to post all the process here and if someone want to give me feedback will be welcome.
Here there are some pictures of the first steps. A blocking in Max and a greybox in Unreal, the light is a Polygon Academy's preset.
During the last year I decided to focus in environment art, and now I'm starting a project from 0 to game ready. The environment is a Tokyo night street.
I want to post all the process here and if someone want to give me feedback will be welcome.
Here there are some pictures of the first steps. A blocking in Max and a greybox in Unreal, the light is a Polygon Academy's preset.
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Environment Workflow Modeling
For the environment models (buildings), I’m using the Face Weighted Normals technique. I’m going to use the Stairs module to show the pipeline (Image 1). I’m using the Custom Normals Tool for 3ds Max and the Tex Tools scripts.
The first step is studying the model to see where I can apply that technique or when I must use a trim sheet. For this piece, I’m only going to use FWN. When I finally achieve a desirable smooth I proceed to the next step (Image 2).
Now I’m going to unwrap the module. I separate the shells depending on the material I will use for each one (Image 3). Then I change the UV Channel and make another unwrap for the Light Map (Image 4). And after that I send the module to Maya to set the texel density (Image 5).
Finally, I come back to 3dsMax to make the LODs and the collider for my model (Image 6). Then I will export it together as a FBX file..
Pascual thank you too, I will see that script!!
Now, when I started some big props, came up a problem. If I wanted to respect the texel density I needed very big textures. So I decided to use the trim technique.
First of all I need my trim sheet, so I start making it in Substance Designer using the Ultimate Trim Generator tool (https://gumroad.com/l/ByFF) (Image 1). After that I model in 3ds Max the rest of the trims like screws or more complex forms than a rectangle (Image 2). Finally, I blend the two normal textures in Photoshop (Image 3).
Now I’m going to 3ds Max to model my asset. It will be a low poly model (Image 4). Then it’s time to unwrap it and set the texel density (Image 5). But how we are going to use trims, we can scale a little bit our UV shells if it will be necessary to adapt it to our trims. So I put my trim sheet at the back and set the UVs (Image 6).
Here, you can see how it looks the model with our trim. The best thing is that after that model, I can use again the same normal map in other asset.
This technique is so useful to create big assets or environments because with the same trim sheet and some materials, we can texturize everything. If you want to see more about this method you can check the link below, there Morten Olsen explains how they use it that awesome technique to create all the Sunset Overdrive world. https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1022324/The-Ultimate-Trim-Texturing-Techniques