Modular workflow discussion
Hi guys i am new here as a user but have been visiting the forums on many occasions to check out the inspiring work you all have and useful links that help each other in accomplishing a project.
I am writing a dissertation on modular workflow for university and would like to kindly ask any of you reading some questions which will be used as part of my research for the dissertation.
My topic is the efficiency of modular workflow when creating game environments (interior/exterior buildings) and how it competes against the non modular fashion. This is where you guys come in
Since there are many artists on here, could any of you who have used modular techniques to create environments for games, architectural visualization etc. mention the following:
1. Why you chose this approach over any other pipeline
2. a quick overview in the steps taken to accomplish the final scene eg. concept, modelling pieces, tiling and then texturing etc.
3. How efficient this pipeline was in general
4. Did you face any difficulties and how did you overcome them
5. If you had the chance to re-create the same scene, would you choose the modular fashion or a different pipeline
Could you please take the time to answer these questions as they will be a very important aspect of my research and will also be of use to me/other users in the long run when i choose to tackle my own environment.
Thank you all for reading and much appreciated for those who reply.
I am writing a dissertation on modular workflow for university and would like to kindly ask any of you reading some questions which will be used as part of my research for the dissertation.
My topic is the efficiency of modular workflow when creating game environments (interior/exterior buildings) and how it competes against the non modular fashion. This is where you guys come in
Since there are many artists on here, could any of you who have used modular techniques to create environments for games, architectural visualization etc. mention the following:
1. Why you chose this approach over any other pipeline
2. a quick overview in the steps taken to accomplish the final scene eg. concept, modelling pieces, tiling and then texturing etc.
3. How efficient this pipeline was in general
4. Did you face any difficulties and how did you overcome them
5. If you had the chance to re-create the same scene, would you choose the modular fashion or a different pipeline
Could you please take the time to answer these questions as they will be a very important aspect of my research and will also be of use to me/other users in the long run when i choose to tackle my own environment.
Thank you all for reading and much appreciated for those who reply.
Replies
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentModularity
My professor did say, create a questionnaire that will get some direct answers from certain people that have used the pipeline im discussing, so ive created a thread a to get the various people who have used it to answer some quick questions that can back up my statement and be an important part of research for my dissertation.
http://www.3dmotive.com/awesome-white-paper-on-modularity-in-games/
Hey Ott, i know you from 3DMotive and have seen almost all of your videos, they are really well made and the modular workflow is something that actually got me started into this subject, thanks alot to you guys. I have seen this dissertation and followed the progress of it a while back when the author was looking for links here on polycount forums, its very well written and goes into detail on so many aspects within this pipeline alone, thanks alot for the share
if you have the time to quickly comment and answer some of the questions in the OP within a specific project that utilizes the modular workflow, id greatly appreciate it coming from a professional like yourself
I could waste weeks building unique city blocks and hallways or I could create a few dozen pieces and then mix and match them to create new unique structures.
Often when you create one piece it can be turned into a bunch of other things with a few simple tricks.
75% of it is planning.
If its done carefully and thoughtfully then it gives you a good sense of how much work you have to do and how long it will take. People tend to jump with a ton of passion and no planning and they flounder around and get lost then give up. Planning defeats that.
I find inspiration in local spaces just getting out walking around and admiring things. Abandon buildings or sites dedicated to urban exploring, or history sites like shorpy, or arch/vis sites, existing concept art for games ect...
Blocking things in.
I block things in inside of max and import pieces to whatever engine to test the scale and get it right. To figuring out how I'm going to use textures and what meshes I'm going to repeat and where. Keeping a consistent textel density is key at this stage and I have a few customized checker patterns that help with this. Most engines also have tools to check textel density but this should be worked out now rather than later.
In the block out phase the pieces have enough detail to define the overall shape and make sure the pieces will more or less tile well. They snap to the grid and I'm careful with where the pivot points are, I also set up custom grid helper objects for later. This enables you to work vertically or at an angle while still working on a grid, while in the pers viewport. I'm also thinking about how the UV layout will work, is there horizontal tiling trim, do I have stairs how much can I stack and overlap before the viewer will catch wind of the repeating details.
Plan for down res.
I create textures at 2x the size because its always easier to go down than it is to go up. This means you have to be mindful of the potential effects of down resing textures later, what it will do to thin lines, text, noisy pieces or small details. This is also important when working with Mip Maps.
Plan out file names.
Once I have the file names set up and dummy texture sheets assigned I take the blocking meshes and lay it out in an editor normally Source or UDK and do some quick lighting. That way its just a matter of replacing the pieces with "finished" art.
I normally unwrap as I go and try to make good use of tiling meshes. Splines and the automatic unwrap they generate are often super handy. I could point you to a few posts if you want to look them over, but I'm short on time and long on this post. I do the unwrapping at the same time because often what drives how the mesh is created is how the UV's are going to be laid out and where the seams are going to be. It also helps to have something unwrapped already when creating alternate pieces like corners, bends or just a slightly different piece with a few simple edits.
Once the pieces are unwrapped I block in the major color groups in the textures, nothing special just quick dumps of color with broad strokes. This will serve as a good base to refine the lighting, do some rough work on some of the materials so there is less time tweaking later. At this point I also focus a bit on effects like fog, DOF ect. Then its just a matter of refining and finishing things, tweaking and polishing.
It wouldn't be the same for everything I create, the process is largely dictated by the environment, the engine, the scope of the game and how much time I have. I normally document my process and sometimes record what I'm doing just to go over it in replay to see if there is anything I'm doing over and over again that could be automated.
Maxscript is great, I think any artist in the industry needs to learn at least a small bit of whatever scripting language their app of choice uses. It can save a lot of time and allow you to speed things up. I wrote up a news post on maxscript a while back it might be worth checking out.
Probably the same way if I was faced with the same choices. Even if I was to do an entire scene 100% unique I would probably use modular chunks in the planing and layout phase... If the game changed such as a new area was added and we wanted to recycle some of the modules but change them because the area is going to transition to a new section of the game, (rich to poor neighborhood, tech/industrial to rural) then that might have effected how I originally carved up the pieces and might effect future work but normally those are requirements put on things after the fact. Modules aren't always the same, sometimes a module can be a building, or sometimes its as small as a piece of trim.
If the engine had some kind of advancement I might choose to do something different. Terrain might be done in the engine instead of in the 3D app.
Thanks again
Edit: yeah i had seen your script a while back and was amazed at how it creates city blocks, parks and roads in a matter of seconds, it seems very robust too with the ability to change textures, high/Low poly, tall/short buildings and the list goes on! Really good job on that and i can use that script in the research as a means to describe the scale of modularity that spans across smaller pieces like corridors and walls, to bigger environments that consist of building presets and assets, so double thanks to that Mark
You create user grids by going > Create tab (little sun/starburst) > Helpers (tape measure icon) > Grid. You can only have one grid object active at time.
To activate a grid object select it and right click > upper left quad menu "active grid". Use the same method to switch it back to the home grid or activate another grid object. I'm pretty sure there is a keyboard shortcut for switching back and forth, if not I scripted one (because that's how mine works) and I can probably pass it along to you.
It can help when repositioning them to set the transform gizmo to local.