Wood kit - Modular Approach
Goodmorning everyone (depending on your timezone)
I am trying to underestand an create a workflow on how to create a wooden kit that can be used for a lot of different types of props.
For example, The Stylized Village Kit from Meshingun Studio: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/stylized-village-by-meshingun-studio
Picture from Artstation (William Tate): https://www.artstation.com/williamtate
I have some possible approaches but don't completely understand how you would implement this.
A) Sculpt different beams (long, mid and short) and use these high poly sculpts as the base for other props. So every prop will have a bake and will have a unique texture. Is this a valid approach to texture every prop and have a unique texture for every prop? Wouldn't this result in a lot of work and draw calls due to loads of textures?
The advantage using this method, is you have a lot of uniqueness.
Using a trim sheet, but if I look to all the wooden beams, they all look unique. Maybe every beams consists of a diffuse trim sheet (color) with a decals (from sculpt) on top of it?
I understand that they first create a "Wood build kit" and after that a "Prop kit" but how would they transform their build kit into the prop kit.
I am little lost how this would work. Thank you for your insight in my process!
Picture from Artstation (William Tate): https://www.artstation.com/williamtate
I am trying to underestand an create a workflow on how to create a wooden kit that can be used for a lot of different types of props.
For example, The Stylized Village Kit from Meshingun Studio: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/stylized-village-by-meshingun-studio
Picture from Artstation (William Tate): https://www.artstation.com/williamtate
I have some possible approaches but don't completely understand how you would implement this.
A) Sculpt different beams (long, mid and short) and use these high poly sculpts as the base for other props. So every prop will have a bake and will have a unique texture. Is this a valid approach to texture every prop and have a unique texture for every prop? Wouldn't this result in a lot of work and draw calls due to loads of textures?
The advantage using this method, is you have a lot of uniqueness.
Using a trim sheet, but if I look to all the wooden beams, they all look unique. Maybe every beams consists of a diffuse trim sheet (color) with a decals (from sculpt) on top of it?I understand that they first create a "Wood build kit" and after that a "Prop kit" but how would they transform their build kit into the prop kit.
I am little lost how this would work. Thank you for your insight in my process!
Picture from Artstation (William Tate): https://www.artstation.com/williamtate
Replies
Generally, if you're expecting to see hundreds of components from a set on screen at once then you need to lean towards minimising geometry cost, if you're making more hero type assets you do better to worry about texture size.
In theory the first set pictured could lod down to under 600 tris in total but you'd need quite a big texture to get decent fidelity
UVs for your lowest Lod determine both your texture size and geometry cost - when you're planning sets like this out it really helps to quickly build the lowest lods and use those to decide on a UV layout before spending time modelling and laying out the top LODs.
Once you know what's unique and what's shared you can make a decent decision on how to construct the assets