Advice on modelling [3DS Max]

Filip5

Hello guys, as all modellers, I am always looking to improve myslef in art. Curently I have decided to do a model of castle. As complex as building is, I tried to break it down into separate pieces. But parts are too unique, I couldn't break them into modular pieces. I am about halfway trough the modelling process and now I am looking for critics, advices, and support on things that I modelled so far.

I am including a 3Ds max scene, ver. 2021. There are many parts, I plan to do some cleanup once I break them apart. Afterwards I want to bring them into UE4. Long way to go yet.
If you have about 10 minutes, please have a look at the scene and let me know what you think. Any help is appriciated.



Link: https://mega.nz/file/Zbx0DIgJ#9RYnD51NiT6b72oQperzBE-8059VfLyLP2IHj9djSlA

Alex_J

If it for a game? How big will it be? What platform?

On youtube look up Warren Marshall and also polycounts own @PixelMasher for tutorials showing the basics of video game environment art.

Beyond that only very general critiques can be made such as: you have many edges which, if deleted, would not effect the silhouette. So delete them on your final, optimized model.

Filip5

I will have a look at that youtube. What do you mean by many edges ?

Alex_J

An example is this overhang roof. If you deleted those edge loops from the middle, the model would still look the same but be using less geometry.

The fundamental thing to keep in mind is that your model is really nothing but vertices. And a vertex is three numbers (0,0,0) that define a point in 3d space. So, the fewer vertices you use to build the thing overall, the less memory it takes up on your computer.

This doesn't mean you need to go crazy trying to make a triangle look like a square, but it helps you understand how you can model with more efficiency.

However! Don't go through optimizing like this until you are making your final game version of the model. Depending on your workflow, optimizing too early could just bite you in the butt for many reasons. But spend some time on those youtube channels and you'll start to get the idea. Also keep an eye out for any tutorials that are project based. Meaning they are intended for you to follow along, and by the end you will have built a complete model.

In particular I think gun tutorials usually cover a lot of modeling techniques that carry over well to many other types of props. Chamferzone has great tutorials.

Filip5

Hey guys, 
I am planning to do some textures, using substance designer. Hovewer how do I create bended part like this one ?



1. I was wondering, mybe highpoly would do - but in general, I am not good at highpoly modelling, so I would rather avoid that if there are other options.
Secondly, its a part of a big wall, therefore I guess using subtance painter or whatever do do those textures manually doesnt seems very efficient.

Can this be achieved purely by substance designer, or painter ? And if not, whtat should be the best way to do this texture. 

Obscura

Just lead the edges in a way that they form an arch. So you can spit that part in the uvmap and align it horizontally to a tiling brick texture. Basically, add an extra edge loop at the spit.

The cylinderical parts of the castle could be slit up like 1/8 1/4 1/16 etc. You can make a curved wall with a window hole and one without it. The pivot of the piece would be at the center of the original cylinder. So you can duplicate it around. 

I believe this is actually a pretty good exercise in modularity and tiling materials, so I would say keep trying, I'm pretty sure that the rest of the reference can be done in a neat reusable way. Usually there will be some exceptions, but those are usually props or an architectural piece, that, lets say, only appears once in your scene.
Keep in mind that even in pre rendered stills or videos, this approach is still valuable. You can save a bunch of modeling time.

Last but not least, we've seen countless examples of combinations of modular/ modeled environments with mostly tiling textures in games. So if they can do it, and they clearly can, it must be possible. 

It is not efficient in any sense to retexture or remodel the same sort of wall or corner or whatever, so the better you can apply these tricks, the better it is. 

Filip5

Alright, I ve done my basic material. Since this thread seems to go on for a bit from now, the headline is a bit irrelevant, but there is no point making new threads yet.

I quite happy with my first ever mat in substance designer.



I quess I got quite close to whats on the image above. Just a question, when I imported it into UE4, I had no options for tiling. I had like 80 rows of brick on small object. How can I edit it in substande designer so I can also change tiling in ue4.

Ad2, are colliders still a thing ? I mean, UE4 can generate them based on existing geometry, which is a bit of overkill. I am not planning to make a game of this, more like a walktrough maybe.

Obscura

you multiply the uvs by the desired number

Filip5

What if I want to make that feature inside designer ?

Obscura

not efficient. You would need to export  different textures for different tilings. You'd also loose resolution because at the end of the day, it gets baked to a texture (even dynamic substances are baked down internally and not computed every frame - why would it be). But by tiling using a shader, which is computed every frame and not stored into a texture, on a given area, you essentially get double resolution by doubling the tiling.

Obscura

And yes colliders are still a thing. They can be auto-made if the input mesh isn't one huge mesh. Which is, again very inefficient for a whole bunch of reasons. It basically kills a lot of optims that would happen under the hood. Namely, culling features and lods.

Filip5

Allright, at this point, I am pretty pissed off. These arches are bullshit to unwrap. For past 5 hours I ve been playing around with it with no result. So how do I actually Unwrap them ?

Obscura

That is now what I meant. I meant to straighten the arch uvs and use a simple brick texture. That arch topo is funky though. You won't be able to unwrap it straight if its like that.

Filip5

Alright, I did unwrap it straight and it also fuckin failed. This arch just pisses me off.

Obscura

Please check out this tutorial. It shows exactly what you want to do. See how he has a straight texture and curved surfaces:
http://www.thiagoklafke.com/modularenvironments.html

Filip5

So I replaced the door texture. I am at the point that this thing doesnt need to be so exact, because I did some mistakes in scale. Anyway, still gonna do dthis, seems an interesting way to learn a thing or two.

I begun with base textures, but I've stumbled across this. The hole in wall serves for the window. When I placed window in it, after building lights, these strange shadows appeared. Any clue what might cause it ? Also, I dont get any lighting errors.

Obscura

Yes. Building the lighting means it gets baked into lightmap textures. Which has a resolution.  Your lightmap resolution is too low on this piece. There is a view mode to inspect the lightmap resolution on the meshes. You can check out the related Unreal Engine doc. Also check out the link from my previous post. It would make your arch working as expected.

Eric Chadwick

Many more resources here for guidance on how to make efficient game meshes, arches that tile, etc.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments

Obscura

I remember there was an example on the wiki with some circular floor piece and hand painted brick texture on it showing how its done but I couldn't find it now.

Eric Chadwick

Maybe it was this one?
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/OrbCrasher

Obscura

No it was a hand painted texture with horizontally aligned bricks. The mesh was thin a circle. And some more circles inside it. Saw it a long time ago last time, so its possible that it isn't available anymore.

Eric Chadwick

There's also these slides from Kevin Johnstone's PPTX file (on that wiki page):

 

Filip5

Thanks for reply guys. I ended up separating my  mesh and gate into two parts. I know about this "bend after applying textures" techiique, but I dont think I can use it here. I am applying textures to alredy created object. Altough, I managed to get the shape bended, might post a picture later, but it was looking quite bad. It seems there is not a proper wayaround without a highpoly.

Eric Chadwick

Ah it was probably this one from http://www.thiagoklafke.com/modularenvironments.html which you posted earlier?

Eric Chadwick

The trick @Filip5 is to design your model ahead of time with modular pieces, and use tiling textures. This is a valuable game art modeling skill to learn and develop. You'll be able to generate large complex structures with it, including all the parts of the castle you're showing in the OP.

Filip5

Here are the images:


The bricks looks kinda odd. Not to mention the connecting part. Its just maybe me, but when I tried to do the arch in subbstance painter to do the seams manually, exported resolution even at 4k, was a bit blurry. Therefore I decided to go with concrete from substannce designer.

Obscura

The connection is indeed weird, but thats because it has weird topology so you can't lay the uvs out nicely. I pointed this out earlier. If you take a look at any of the examples we posted, its clearly possible to align those lines nicely, you just need edges to align to. Why would you put em in Painter though? That defeats the purpose of tiling textures.

Filip5

So I ve been adding few thing on and on, with the very little time i have for this At this state, I would like to point out few things. I have a mixed feelings about this. I was imaging the whole thing too lokk a bit better, altough I am just layering the base materials. Furthermore, I have been unable to synchronize designer and painter and materials from it looks a bit different.



Overally, there are some priceless moments, but there is also this feeling that this thing is not the same anymore as original, which was my intent at the beginning. I finally managed not to get blurry SP textures. I ve also stumbled on few materials that I am unable to recreate in sd, so I just had to find replacement for them. This is pretty much what it looks like so far.