Hi All... Care to answer a few easy questions?

azmodii · May 2012

Hi everyone!

I'm new here at Polycount so I'd best introduce myself before we go too far

My name is Joel and I am from Brisbane in Australia. I have been working in IT for about 10 years and successfully run my own IT retail store (www.1upcomputers.com.au). Not so long ago, after a massive night drinking with some friends - a friend brought up an interesting proposal. Long story short, 10 of my friends and I have started working on an indy first person shooter. I am currently studying game design at Griffith Uni, and have little to no practical skills when it comes to modelling. In the last 3 weeks, by watching whatever tutorials I have managed to stumble upon I have picked up the basic proficiencies required as far as I can tell.

Now as far as research goes, there is a bucket of information out there on the web. I understand most of the concepts, but haven't managed to really tie them all together into a coherent knot. So here comes my questions

1. Based on whitepapers, googling, research and also reading a fair bit here at polycount I can presume that the following are critical starting points

Concept - From story to gameplay, right down to the basic stuff such as play styles etc
Art - Concept art, low poly placeholders, basic rigid structures etc
Design - Polishing most of the above

That is where my first question comes in. We have decided that CE3 (CryEngine 3) will be our engine of choice, 1 for simplicity and 2 for stunning visuals. I have concluded from the information that I have read that less tri's means better performance and that anything that can be done as a normal (Surfaces, patterns, basic indent/extrusions) - should be done as a normal, and that anything requiring more detail should be hard modeled and textured. But there are still a few questions that I either cant find the answer for, or they have been so generalised that they are impossible to apply in my situation.

What limits does CE3 Have? For example, when modeling an entire environment, what constraints should be imposed to ensure CE3 runs smoothly and at a playable FPS?

Secondly, and this gets more down into the modeling side of things, when modeling a mesh I have found that people suggest quads as the best form for this purpose. I assume thats because it can be divided into 2 tri's? I just want to confirm the basis behind the idea, as opposed to just doing it because I'm told to.

And one final question - And I must say thankyou if you are still reading my mammoth post :P your attention is appreciated

What toolset/Workflow would you suggest?

I have managed to figure that;

3DS Max - Modeling
ZBrush - Fine features/Sculpting
xNormal/NDO2 - Normals/Spec/AO
Photoshop CS5 w/DDS Plugin

Are there any other programs that perhaps excel in certain areas, or plugins that can save a great deal of time?

Again, thanks to all that actually read that mammoth post and I look forward to posting work on here as talented as what I currently see (Which blows my MIND!)

Lennyagony · May 2012

Your on the right track with much of this azmodii, although some of your questions fall into a grey area of case by case soft rules.

For example,

"Concept - From story to gameplay, right down to the basic stuff such as play styles etc
Art - Concept art, low poly placeholders, basic rigid structures etc
Design - Polishing most of the above"

Your use of Design in the above list, depending on the studio or in some cases, game engine, design can completely cross over to an art role or be another department entirely. You often see this with level "design" on some first person shooters, where the level layout and art placement are handled by the same person.

Alternately design is often as I mention, another department with some designers focusing on gameplay scripting and being pretty removed from art.

To shuffel your list around

Art - Concept art, greybox, first pass art based on greyboxes/concept, artwork polish etc

Design - Story, Gameplay, playstyles etc, level layout(greybox)

The level layout needs solid design/art communication. Often you see a design blockout followed by a more detailed art greybox pass. This allows more accurate testing of gameplay and less lost time if you need to make large changes before committing to complete art passes.

"What limits does CE3 Have? For example, when modeling an entire environment, what constraints should be imposed to ensure CE3 runs smoothly and at a playable FPS? "

Your best bet is to open a pre existing level with the editor, look over some of the assets and derive your own conclusions based on what you observe. The reason I say this is, its just too broad a question. Maybe you could get a ballpark figure for a character.

"Secondly, and this gets more down into the modeling side of things, when modeling a mesh I have found that people suggest quads as the best form for this purpose. I assume thats because it can be divided into 2 tri's? I just want to confirm the basis behind the idea, as opposed to just doing it because I'm told to. "

Quads are easier to work with, and subdivide in a much more controllable way. Many modelling tools are designed to work on a quad mesh (ring and loop selection for example) and your mesh will need to be quads if you want to do any kind of sculpting in zbrush or mudbox. In a nutshell its easier to work with quads, tri's are always present and just hidden for ease of use, all meshes are tri's in game.

"3DS Max - Modeling
ZBrush - Fine features/Sculpting
xNormal/NDO2 - Normals/Spec/AO
Photoshop CS5 w/DDS Plugin"

This is a pretty solid list, although you will find a bunch of crossover with use, for example.

3DS Max - Modeling/Normals/AO
ZBrush - Fine features/Sculpting/AO/Normals
xNormal/NDO2 - Normals/Spec/AO
Photoshop CS5 w/DDS Plugin Normals/AO/Spec/Gloss/Diffuse

3point shader's also nice for realtime viewport previews.

Chimp · May 2012

Hey Joel,

Welcome to the Polycount forums and to games development in general!
That is a mammoth post indeed but those are the best kind, i'll break it down and answer it bit by bit.

As the above poster mentioned, those critical points vary from team to team. I guess that all I can do is share how we do it at Simian Squared:

1. Concept: The very first stage. First seedlings of design ideas begin to sprout and the artists are trying out visual styles and techniques.

2. Design: Everything from the ground up is designed, from gameplay to menus to art styles to power ups. We write up as much as we possibly can so that we don't get feature creep later.

3. Prototype: We put together a prototype of the key component of the game, we then discuss what works well and what potentially needs further refinement or a complete restart.

4. WIP: Once we have a very good prototype we then commit to it and work through making it, testing it, making more and then testing more. Marketing begins here.

5. Crunch / Polish: Last bricks are put in and things are over-tested for last minute show stopping bugs.

6. Release! It's at this point we break out the drinks and pizza, sometimes we let the programmer out of his cave too. Marketing should be in full swing around this point.

7. Retrospective and future plans: What went well? what could we do better? what do our fans want? can we give them more? etc.

This is just one way of working.

- As for CE3, I don't have much knowledge there.

- Quads subdivide properly and are easier to handle when rigging, uv'ing and don't have smoothing issues half as much.

- As for modelling workflow, my two are usually these:

Characters: zbrush --> 3dcoat retopo --> max cleanup --> xnormal / photoshop to texture

Environments: max --> zbrush --> xnormal / photoshop

It varies though.

Keep it up and let us know how you get on!

azmodii · May 2012

Let me first start by thanking you both for your in depth replies

Its nice to see a forum with members that actually take the time to read a complete post :P

I think you guys have given me all the information I need for now to proceed forward without heading in the wrong direction

Thanks! And I will be posting my WIP's so you guys can take a peek!

Hi All... Care to answer a few easy questions?

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