How to make this debris? (One Low Poly obj from hundreds of objs of milion of polys?)

Jonathan85

Hello

How would you make this debris?

https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/008/249/427/large/ben-wilson-manhattan-debris-comps-02.jpg?1511468205

From this guy:
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/596qP

I mean i think i got the basics - it consists from several separate models put together but modeled separately. Some DCC like Max was used, zbrush was used (probably). There might be even some basic plane/ground with displacement (either from a scan or just from diffuse texture extracted displacement map in Bitmap2Material from allegorithmic). I got the basics (how to make it) i believe.

But this is an real time in game low poly asset. The original hipoly version HAD to be several milions in polygons i believe. He putted dozens (even hundred (?)) objects together, and the smallest stones are probably sculpted to scanned ot displaced using displacement/height map gotten from Bitamp2Material program (or alike). But HOW did he managed to get the low poly version of this asset...?

I refuse to believe he made the retopo by hand.
I also refuse to believe he managed to "attach" or "merge" or "bolean union" all these objects (each one having milion of polys) together into one object with dozens or hundred of milions of polygons (because no HW could handle that...?) and then auto-retopo it in zbrush.

So HOW to make ("retopo") all these DOZENS/Hundereds of  objects, each made of milions of polygons (probabl)  into ONE (1) LOW POLY model (?!).

How is this done... ? My small brain cannot figure anything out :-)...

Alex_J

looks like a scan. Probably decimated then auto-unwrapped. Take a look at quixel megascans (you can use them for free if you make unreal account) and you will see examples of this.

don't try to think of some clever way to do things first. think of the dumbest simplest way. 90% of the time there is your answer.

Noors

No this isnt a scan, and the HP is on his arstation. Well he could have decimated the primary blocks in zbrush, dynamesh everything, whatever. He didn't have to retopo everything. He's maybe using an heightmap with a tesselation shader. It's hard to tell with one view and no wire.

sacboi

Via a GDC panel in 2018:

Debris and Rubble Pipeline in 'Wolfenstein 2' with Substance Designer by Ben Wilson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBGDo7Y28FE

Kanni3d

It's just displacement/tesselation on a plane, there's no retopo needed.. The displacement is either baked from a HP, or generated from Designer.

Jonathan85

Thanks for the links, ill check it out, it should be in the long 1 hour video.

Kanni3d: I dont think this is just one plane with displacement/height map. It would had to be vector displacement map and i dont think it is... (its for a game and im not sure vector displacement can make such pretty natural looking meshes)

So did anybody watch the video? How did he retopo it...?

I guess he could decimated the biggest parts down, bring it all to 3ds max (or other DCC app), there he would get dozens or hundred objects but with managable polycount and then he could start the retopo by hand...?

Zenith

@Jonathan85 I watched it, he described the workflow very clearly tho he admits that preparing lowpoly meshes was quite challenging. You can go to the 52:30 minute of the video where there's basically the answer for your question. He decimated everything in ZBrush

sacboi

@Jonathan85 rather than speculate further upon the debri/rubble workflow you had initially queried, I would suggest viewing the video in it's entirety for yourself which was the main reason why I'd set aside time posting it here in the first place. Although certain aspects of the pipeline deal with advanced concepts however self learning regardless of subject matter does not preclude ones own effort acquiring knowledge, forum etiquette notwithstanding.