Questions about creating game ready assets

Olilink

Hi, I'm a Uni student creating an essay about creating game ready assets. I have done some research regarding this topic, but It's for an essay where it's required, I get someone else's input. These are some questions that I hope some people from industry can answer.

When it comes to creating normal mapped baked objects, is it require for all the objects within an interactive scene or only for specific models like prop/environment assets? 

Do all game asset polygons have to be in quads or are triangles acceptable?

In the industry are you modelling with intent that its going to be game ready in the first place or would you create the model and then another team would work on it to make it lower poly?

Thanks

Benjammin

No offense intended, but you're standing in the game dev library, asking for the answers. Maybe do some reading, then come back with specific questions? 

Which steps are important? All of them.
What should you research? Probably the game art pipeline.
Anything else? Yeah, a few things.... 

Olilink

I've updated my questions. 

AwryChaos

Here is a website that you can go to that will answer a lot of your questions:

http://poopinmymouth.com/

The guy Ben Mathis has a lot of great tutorials that will be of use to you. Learn from him, do as he does.

Also, you might want to check out the PolyCount wiki:

http://wiki.polycount.com/

Your questions are answered there.

I would recommend that you go to your University Library and spend some serious time there. Look through and read every book you can get your hands on.

Eric Chadwick

Olilink said:

When it comes to creating normal mapped baked objects, is it require for all object within a interactive scene or only for specific models like prop/environment assets? 

Do all game assets polygons have to be in quads or are triangles acceptable?

In the industry are you modelling with intent that its going to be game ready in the first place or would you create the model and then another team would work on it to make it lower poly?

Thanks

These are good questions to ask. Don't know what the original questions were.

Normal map baking depends on the asset. "Hero" assets often get a unique bake, while set-decoration assets can share pre-baked "trim" textures.

Quads are only useful during authoring. Ultimately all game models are rendered as triangles. For baked normal maps, it's wise to triangulate before the bake. Search the wiki for details.

Each artist is making game-ready assets. There's no role for someone who only makes highpoly sculpts. Often however a team will have technical artists who help the team learn how to make more efficient assets.

Keep asking questions! Definitely do the research, but do come back with more Qs as you develop them. Asking is good.