AAA Game Studios and Character Workflows
Hi
Hopefully this is the right place for this... But does anyone have any links, or know of any sources, of character artist's workflows for studios like Rockstar, Naughty Dog, id Software, Santa Monica Studios etc. Or companies of that ilk? It's specifically for character art, so the sculpting/modelling, texturing etc.
I've done a bit of Google searching but haven't really found anything solid enough. There are some ZBrush summits from Naughty Dog where they discuss certain things and is shown via a PowerPoint presentation. I read an interview with Jason Martin from id, but the entire workflow wasn't discussed in great detail/length. I have reached out to Jason via ArtStation, but he rarely responds due to being busy, so I can't always ask an artist directly. I was wondering if anyone knows of any character creation breakdowns - where they discuss their workflow in detail, and possibly step-by-step - from these studios or similar ones?
Thanks
Replies
"due to being busy"
thats why you will not find super in depth from start to finish guides
With a little effort you can at least find models from many of the recent games put out by the major AAA studios.
With a little reverse engineering you can surmise at least the big workflow questions. Did they bake from normal maps? what sort of textures/shader were they using? clothes look like made from a simulation like marvelous designer? etc.
Workflow is totally dependent on about 1 million factors which will change from project to project and from studio to studio. As long as you understand the basics of 3d and can produce competent art, adapting to a different workflow is just a matter of following instructions.
@Alex_J Very true, of course. It's just, my supervisor who's currently overseeing my game art project has suggested I research the workflows that favourite studios use if I want to cater my skills to them. At the moment, I'm making a replica of Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2. When I tried to find out who the modeller was through the modeller who made Dutch van der Linde, it was hush-hush due to NDAs etc. I never heard back from them regarding their workflows at Rockstar either. When my supervisor suggested it, I did think along the lines as you've stated - surely knowing the general workflows of making game art/3D is sufficient...? And obviously, you learn of new and efficient tricks/techniques for achieveing things as you go.
Regarding finding models - I've actually been doing just that. And Arthur is one I managed to get a hold of and I've been using for reference. :)