New to game 3D art and have a few questions

Vallar

Hi everyone, 

First off, I apologize if this is not the right place, but it felt it fits and the other sub forums didn't quite fit very well as this one.

So recently I decided to refresh my knowledge of 3D art -- 10 years ago I used to do ArchViz in college and dabbled a bit in games as well on the side. Long story short, I lost interest and I am back again at it using Blender this time (I used to use 3DS Max and Zbrush) and exclusively for games, I have no interest in ArchViz. 

After a few days of following tutorials and creating a few simple models I am having a hard time wrapping my head around certain aspects of the workflow. The questions might be Blender specific (not sure) so hopefully some of you are familiar with it.

1. I am currently working on a building (my own design) and the way I started was with a low poly, went into sculpting mode and set the typology (using DynoTopo) to 20 + Flood Fill. Then started sculpting the house. My aim is to create a low poly model. Now is this a proper workflow for such things? Start with a low poly, copy model, add topology, sculpt? Or must I start from the high poly and then create the low poly?
2. Personally I suck at anything 2D (textures, drawing, painting, etc...) so I am trying to avoid anything of the sort as much as possible. Is there a workflow I could adapt that caters to people like me? Will I be able to create different art styles using the proposed workflow?
3. One of the things I hated back then was how I had to do something in 3DS Max, jump into Zbrush, do some stuff. Go back to Max, then jump into another program to do something else then back to Max and so on. I ended up using like 3-4 programs just to get 1 model done and it was tiring. Is this still the case or can I do everything I want withing Blender?
4. Using the DynoTopo feature in Blender and then adding a Decimate modifier then looking at the mesh, it messes up the typology drastically. Areas that I haven't sculpted even or touched with a brush just got messed up. Is this normal? Is there an alternative way that makes sculpting details and decimating doesn't destroy the work I have done in low poly stage completely?
5. Any recommended tutorial series I could follow that starts low poly, sculpts details, then starts adding textures without hand painting them, decimates and then exports to engine? I followed some but they are always sculpting from the get go or hand painting or turns out it isn't even for games.

Thanks a lot in advance. 

Eric Chadwick

You can avoid a lot of the painting work. But honestly it's a skill worth digging into, for any and every artist. 

It will suck at first, but anything worth having takes some blood and sweat to acquire.

For your building I recommend modularity, tiled textures, trim sheets, and texture blending.

Some solid techniques here
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments

Also for the blending see
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/MultiTexture

Searching a bit, there are many examples to check out.
https://polycount.com/discussion/202453/quiet-tuscan-street-wip

Also, if you're interested in motivation, how to learn, etc. see 

• Motivation is Bull
• Why you're not getting any replies

Good luck! 

Vallar

Thanks a lot for your reply @Eric Chadwick

Regarding painting, I guess I should bite the bullet and learn it. Though I vaguely remember a method back around Zbrush 4 or so where I had sculpted the detail I wanted on the model in Zbrush and then just used a paint brush to paint. So I didn't have to deal with details in 2D. Perhaps I should do that at least, maybe... 

As for the building -- thanks for the resources. The building is designed to be a low poly stylized building with little to no modularity in it to stand out as the game is a city builder of sorts.

Eric Chadwick

City builder, all the more reason to use modularity. A big scene requires a lot of reuse to keep it small in memory, and high performance.

Vallar

Eric Chadwick said:

City builder, all the more reason to use modularity. A big scene requires a lot of reuse to keep it small in memory, and high performance.

I think I misunderstood what you were referring to with modularity. The game is a bit similar to Islanders and Kingdoms and Castles so I wasn't sure how it could be modular and still recognizable but reading a couple of more articles, I see what it means. Thanks for the resources!