Do videogame characters have legs under the pants?
Im creating my first videogame character and this question just popped in my head, do game ready characters have legs under the pants? or torso under the shirt? hands under gloves? to my logic they shouldn't as it would save up on polycount budget, but not sure at all, so once im done with zbrush, should i cut the legs out of my character before retopology? Or what would be the proper workflow?
thanks!
Replies
Depends. Some do, some don't. There are games where you can change the clothing :)
But usually you don't model a hand under a glove or a leg under a trouser. But the glove and the trouser.
Characers with multiple modular outfits usually reveal skin, sometimes all the way to underwear (or even to detailed nudity like in Cyberpunk 2077, for example). It's also a good practise to study full body human anatomy by sculpting it completely, even if you're making a fully clothed character at the end. It ensures that your character is anatomically correct and proportionally precise, where clothing will sit correctly on top of the body. Especially important if you're simulating fabric in Marvelous Designer.
If the character is never going to change the outfit, you can leave non-visible body parts out of the retopology process.
Also, even if you retopo the whole nude body for a character with multiple outfits, it's still a good idea to cut the mesh from underneath the body, depending on the outfit. If leaving them under clothing, it may lead to unwanted clipping issues when rigged.
right, it's more efficient to remove nonvisible geometry for a final result.
construct your characters' basemesh loops in such a way that you may define generalized regions to occlude when swapping in and out new components, use an averaged neckline, shoulder, elbow, wrist, etc. characters built for a component system out the gate, you should retain a copy of the entire naked basemesh in your source. just incase down the road your long-sleeved character is given a tattered midriff tank top for your dlc summer special.
a common pitfall is building in articles onto a basemesh like shoes or gloves or a watch and it not having any feet or hands or patches of skin to reveal when it's removed for a variant. it's a bit of a gamble, if you're certain your Mario will always be depicted in the same outfit, then go for it. but, if someone on the team gets a crazy idea to have him throw his hat for some reason, you'll need to have a full head of hair to show under it. not a huge upset when it happens but that's the jist of being as efficient and prepared as possible.
Generally no, you probably won't find it common to be leaving an entire bare base body mesh (or extensive parts of it) under a set of clothing in game.
If there is a base body for the project, there will likely be some sort of partitioning of the bare body mesh and sections of it are hidden/unattached from the character in run time when certain clothing is attached to the character, or sections of the base body are added into the clothing item.
The points above about actualy modelling the whole bare character before clothing is imo kind of essential for best results, so you will probably end up with a fairly well developed full body sculpt before you dress the character properly. If you are doing a character that doesn't ever need all the skin visible and has one non changing outfit, maybe just sort out the parts of bare skin mesh you need and just UV and texture that for the game model though.
"to my logic they shouldn't as it would save up on polycount budget"
Your logic is flawed, as the reason to not have them has nothing to do with polygon budget. The main reason for not having body parts under clothes is because of the massive clipping that would happen between the two during ingame animations.
Go ahead and close zbrush for a second, open Max/Maya/Blender and model and lowpoly arm with a lowpoly sleeve on top, then bind that to a skeleton and move things around. You'll see the issue instantly.