Hard Surface Sculpting: Max to Mudbox
Hey everbady!
This is probably something I can search for (but don't usually get good results based on the wording), but I'm working on an environment piece that I've blocked out in Max and want to bring into Mudbox to sculpt on. Is there any good tutorials on the most effective way to do this or even on the typical pipeline used to do hard surface sculpts? Perhaps this particular project might work out better if it wasn't done in Mudbox, any opinions you guys have would be very helpful
This is what I'm working on:
This is what it looks like coming into Mudbox:
Obviously it's having issues with my edge loops and smoothing, which I know how to (tediously) fix, but it seems like if I have to fix all those edge loops in Max, I might as well just make the high poly there and what's the purpose of sculpting?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm kinda new to the whole high poly pipeline but definitely want to figure it out.
This is probably something I can search for (but don't usually get good results based on the wording), but I'm working on an environment piece that I've blocked out in Max and want to bring into Mudbox to sculpt on. Is there any good tutorials on the most effective way to do this or even on the typical pipeline used to do hard surface sculpts? Perhaps this particular project might work out better if it wasn't done in Mudbox, any opinions you guys have would be very helpful
This is what I'm working on:
This is what it looks like coming into Mudbox:
Obviously it's having issues with my edge loops and smoothing, which I know how to (tediously) fix, but it seems like if I have to fix all those edge loops in Max, I might as well just make the high poly there and what's the purpose of sculpting?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm kinda new to the whole high poly pipeline but definitely want to figure it out.
Replies
The only experience I have with mudbox and zbrush is pure sculpting, which works on shapes that you don't mind being smooth (like humans forms) but, obviously, doesn't work the same way when you bring in something you want to keep the edges of.
I have done a decent amount of high poly bakes in max, I'm just trying to understand this way of doing it as well.
For an object like this you may want to think about a modular construction approach as oppose to bringing the entire object in mudbox
Thanks for the advice! I'll just go back and do a high poly bake mesh for the basic normal map, then take that into mudbox to add damage and stuff too.
on the left hand side of this image are some mudbox base meshes I made a while ago:
rockwall_cage_normalmap by sprunghunt, on Flickr
Notice how basic the model is? That's what I'd make for your mesh. For environment stuff you rarely need much more than what I've got there.
I would also strongly suggest splitting this up into smaller assets as Nick2730 mentioned. Even if you just combine them together later in max. It's much faster if you only have to make one dome and repeat it.
smoothing
If you want mudbox to respect your smoothing groups you can uncheck the "smooth positions" checkbox in mesh>add subdivision level dialog box in mudbox. I usually do this for environment assets as they're often rectangular.
I think this is pretty much what perna means with 4.
Do you still have the tutorial stuff I wrote up and sent out for all the dev days while at Budcat? A lot of that should help now with this.
As Per said is there a specific reason to sculpt this building? As the whole thing?
Do you have a concept for us?
If I was doing something like this I would break it up into its pieces and start at that point.
It is hard to really say without seeing the concept or piece you are working from.
So yeah I would do probably most of this whole piece right in max though.
Post more and ask away. Tons of guys on here to help out.
That's the blockout with reference.
I'm going to end up doing the high poly just in max, like you guys are suggesting, just because I know how to do that.
I mainly wanted to sculpt this because I don't have any sculpted pieces and I figured I'd try to learn the process of taking an asset from concept to finish and include sculpting in the process. I understand you wouldn't sculpt things like this necessarily, but I figured I'd try, just to learn how. Anyway, I've gained a lot from trying, but am also still very confused. I think I'll just stick to high poly modeling in max. That stuff makes sense.
Looking at your concept I can see some parts that are easily repeatable/reused and how it should be broken apart. Don't think of it as one giant solid piece. Block it out like you got and then seperate each piece into its own and work on them one at a time.
- Do the sculpts for that piece.
- Then the low poly
- Bakes and Textures
Move on to next section and repeat until you are done.
Here is my suggestion really quickly...