Props from a noob to game art
polycounter lvl 14
I am going to post a few basic props on this thread to get some feedback as to whether or not I'm on the right track. I'm a freelance animator in advertising who wants to be in games as an environment artist. I've been trying to figure this game art thing in free time for a while now between work and a second degree. I just put together a new PC which can run Mudbox so I'm finally making a push to get this portfolio of game assets going. This is my start. I'm using 3ds Max 2009 (for these), Maya 2011 (for others), mudbox 2012, UDK, Photoshop.
1. I'm wondering how to best display the objects (background and scene-wise). I've seen single color and grad backgrounds done. Is that a comp in Photoshop or from the editor?
2. Am I right in assuming I should be simply doing a "PrtScn" of the in game look for the final image (that's what I did above)?
3. I'm really struggling with this whole low-poly count thing. Could I have gone higher with those plants? I'm thinking PS3/360. Should I just model things how I know and worry about the count later because it's really just slowing me down worrying about it?
4. Anything else I'm crucially missing let me know. I know these aren't "good"...I'm just getting my feet wet.
Replies
The top one is just a couple of boxes. Thank you.
Here's a wall. The mesh is a plane only. The textures were done at 1024 x 1024 at 1024 resolution. I used the Nvidia filter to generate the normal map from the height map. Was it right to set up the unwrap as I did (keep in mind the plane is twice as long as it is tall)? All thoughts are welcome.
Also for games most of the time you would just have a square texture 512x512 or 1024x1024 and so on for the bricks. and the pattern you have there could be used as a decal. doing this you get so many more options for your materials and this way the pattern wont show up every time that Material is applied. and as for the UVs just make them tile twice you don't get any stretching Good job tho man.
Still, it always matters because you want the best shape possible out of your budget.
So if your budget is 250 for the plants that's fine, but don't waste tris. Either come in under budget or use them to make it look better.
Same if it's 20,000 tris.
The box has definitely got some waste. I can't post a pic now, but each corner of the box has an extra vert from extruding that you don't need. Just drag it over to another one and collapse them. Those tris could go into making the vines bend more (more round)
Also, the tex doesn't line up well, I can see the line between pieces where it misses the corner. And those lines really aren't convincing as splits in material, they look like a line painted on. If you're using a normal map that's where that detail should mainly be. (with maybe a tiny grunge shadow painted on)
And the grain goes horizontal across the horizontal AND vertical pieces.
And as was stated, lots of wasted space on the uv's of plant and box. You could probably get them both on one of the sheets.
Starting with a sphere would give you a better shaped eyeball, looks like you used a cube.
Just keep at it, practice makes perfect (at least that's what I've been told, doesn't seem to be working for me
To lower tri counts, just look at your model and see what verts are necessary to maintain the overall shape. In the box you've got a bunch of edges that aren't doing anything, so collapse em. You've got N-gons in there as well, faces with more than 4 sides which isn't a good modelling practice. Stick to tris and quads.
As far as uv's go, you've got plenty of wasted space on this one. Try planar mapping the sides of the box so that the inner face there fills that hole. Also, you can get away with having some overlapping uvs, where different sides of the box share the same uv space, just don't go overboard with it. Also make sure that the uv's actually reflect the object it matches, since right now you've got some bad stretching on the side.
If you are creating a box, look at a ton of different boxes for reference. See how they are constructed, what materials, where things fit together. Even if you don't recreate something exactly, let it influence the decisions you make.
Keep at it and keep practicing.
First of all, thanks. I know you guys are busy and have other things to do with your time so I appreciate it.
Second I finally finished Yu-Gi-oh's Millennium Puzzle. The challenge was just the texture (both unwrapping and painting). The eye was modeled in Maya and baked with X-Normal as a normal map. I also used X-Normal for an AO and convexity pass (though the convexity wasn't used). The puzzle lines were down in Photoshop with the Nvidia filter. Again 1024x1024 at 1024 res.
1) What Do you think about the unwrap? I'm curious as to whether it's going to be ripped for not using the space better with the four corner pieces. My thinking was they needed to match up in size relatively with the rest of the puzzle. I didn't want them looking much higher res than everything else. Thoughts?
2) Are photo textures frowned upon by game artists? In my research that seemed to be the case but now I hearing advice to use them (In other words I've been reading to paint everything). Most of my best texturing work has been basically cgtextures.com and Mental Ray architectural and Pro Materials so this is all about mapping for me.
2) It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. You can do anything from scratch, you can paint something, but more often than not it tends to be a mix of photomanipulation, custom brushes, etc. It depends on the person. Photosourcing isn't frowned upon, except when its done poorly (has lighting information in it, isn't leveled out well, random noise, etc.)
Hope this helps
But one thing I did notice is that the puzzle in itself doesn't have a lot of unique decals, you could easily have some uv's share space. the 3 sides of the pyramid that don't have the symbol could share the same space, the corners could as well. Since this is a necklace that would be worn on the main character, it would likely not have it's own texture and be placed on the characters uv, so reusing the uv's would be a good practice for this item.
Photo textures are not frowned on at all. Photo-realistic textures usually require.. photos heh. You can even use them in creative ways such as grunging up a texture when you use the layer styles in photoshop.
You could also split the four triangles off and flip flop them tho save a lot of space too. It would give you a few more seams, but they are on sharp edges that are hard to see around anyway.
You'd never be able to see more than two sides at once, and none of them are strikingly different. Maybe the grime is different, a player won't notice. So you can overlap the uv's for alternating sides.
The ring is pretty small, it just doesn't need that much space. I cut probably 40% of the space out of your uv.
The best way to see pixel density is by using a checkerboard pattern, then you can make sure the checkers on each piece are pretty even.
Using photos for textures is just fine if you are doing photo realistic props. But don't just copy paste them. Use them as a base, work them in. Layer them with AO, etc... Make sure they make sense, don't just slap some rusty metal on anything. Use rust how it would actually be found.
Very rarely would you find a texture that just fits on an object as is... unless they are your pics and you are modelling the item you photographed.
==haha, ninja'ed
Here's the latest thing I've been working on. The top image is a screenshot from Mudbox...and it looks like it's staying there. I've posted questions on a couple forums about the major normal mapping issues I've had. This is a very familiar place for me. I've struggled with normal maps for so long and it always comes down to them.
I was surprised to recently hear advice from others to overlap my UVs. I wasn't doing that before because I was under the impression that it ruined the normal map baking process (both what I heard and experienced). I overlapped them here and again suffered because of it. The middle image shows the center of the sword not extracting the normal from Mudbox right at all. I removed the underside uv from under it and it worked (that's the fix in the bottom image). Some of the uvs were flipped which also helped some spots out (like the orange swirly line in bottom image). So..
1. What do you think of the prop overall?
2. Is there a way to overlap UVs and still extract a normal?
3. What about the UV layout this time? I tried cutting it up to fill space better but now I have these hard edges dividing the sections (light blue circles on bottom image). How do I fix that?
And the weird normal issues you are getting (light blue circles) is because you split the uv's there. UV's are just as import in the baking process as smoothing groups.
You should always try to keep as few uv islands as possible. And since this object is thin and long you should try uving it on a different resolution, like 2048x1024, or something like that.
How are you doing your smoothing groups? And can you post wireframes?
What I would do is try to find Racer445's tutorial. It looks like some sci-fi vacuum cleaner. It has a lot of good information about normal maps, uv's, and smoothing groups. All of which are very important to consider when baking.
-edit-
Also, read this. http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap
And this. http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/provost/byf2.html
The hilt is pretty interesting, but it doesn't seem to make much sense overall. Why would the part sticking up past the blade on the top on the flat side? The hand gaurd is looking really thin and flimsy. The transition from blade to hilt could use some work.
2.
As 16-bit said, when you overlap uvs, but need to bake the object, move the overlapping islands out of the 0-1 uv space. If you move it exactly 1 over, it will look the same and bake fine.
3.
The layout is looking better, and those hard edges might be from your smoothing groups.
Keep on practicing. Whatever prop you are making, gather a boatload of reference images that inspire you. Even if you don't make a concept before starting to work, look at the references to help inspire you and make informed decisions about your object.
It's a gunblade based on the following concept art (used with permission):
http://scottmichaelh.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d26vcy5
I like the idea of taking known items and redesigning them to look a bit unique so this one fit in well for me. Also I hate my concepting abilities so if I can find one the better off I'll be.
I can't believe I never found that normal map tutorial before. I've searched the internet pretty hard looking for normal map stuff and read pretty much ever single post on game-artist.net that has the words in it. Thanks...will read them for sure.
Also I'm just selecting all the polygons and either hitting soft edges or clear smoothing groups, then smoothing group 1. If there's something specifically looking odd then I'll assign it to 2 (like the circles on the front of the gun barrel for example). If I'm hearing correctly I need to assign new smoothing groups to each uv piece (at least unique groups to the neighboring pieces)...which would mean destroying the look of the gunblade as it is now and forcing to separate the uvs in a way that can justify the smoothing group change...which sounds almost impossible off the top of my head.
Well...I think it looks like crap...but I'm REAL happy to see it in the UDK. I gave up and came back to it multiple times. I re-unwrapped this thing so many times, re-painted and tested the normal countless times, etc. The point is it's a miracle to me and I'm definitely not spending anymore time on it. I do still value the feedback.
BTW, that wiki on normals is the most exhaustive reference by far that I've ever found.
Thanks
Here's just the normal
I would go back to the crate and work more on those textures. Also if it's for games remember you can stack UV's and get more resolution out of your textures, right now the unwrap seems inefficient.
good luck!
This is the "scene" I've been working on. Do you have any issues or recommendations as to how to set up the models and unwrap? I'm thinking:
1) The "wall" in front is one object that would be repeated and flipped for the other side.
2) One tall and one short "fence piece" that would be repeated several times in UDK, also there is a dividing rectangular piece.
3) The big wall in back I'm not sure about. Should I repeat some of these elements or make it one big object with the door included? Should I overlap some UVs? There is a symmetry modifier still on it. Should I make the left half only and repeat? I'm afraid the color map would look odd that way.
4) Ground/floor one object.
5) The stairs would probably go with the door
6) Thank you
Inspiration:
I am at a loss. I've lost count of how many times I've gotten to this point and never got through because I can't figure it out. I don't know how to unwrap this right. I used "flatten by smoothing group" to separate the small details around the windows but then when I put it into Mudbox I got huge errors in the mesh (shown). I checked the unwrap under a microscope and couldn't find a single thing wrong (though obviously something has to be). I'm trying to unwrap it again and struggling to figure out how. The wall itself (shown) is simple enough but the details around the windows that you can't see from the front view...I know there has to be some advice someone has because I'm fresh out of ideas. Most texture painting tutorials are still Photoshop based so how could you possibly paint it well if you separate it into hundreds of little pieces? Also how do you deal with extruded squares going toward or away from you because if you don't separate them in the unwrap the you will have stretching around the corners...but then how to you get the paint to continue along it well?