High Poly to Low poly Workflow questions
Hey guys,
I'll go straight to the point: 3D Generalist artist trying his luck in the gaming industry with a long buried project I left when I started in the VFX industry. Phew!
I searched the site for tutorials on how to optimize high poly models and turn them into low poly for baking purposes but couldn't find enough info. I am wondering if I used the proper terms (english not being my first language could be it). Anyways, I have this thing I re-created from screenshots from before the game was released, it's a weapon from The Order 1866. Even though I have more questions, the one pertaining to this forum is essentially what do you guys use? MooTools cruncher I remember used to be popular aeons ago? Do you guys use that or go by hand?
I mostly built the rifle in 3DSMax using OpenSubDiv + ZB (for the flower pattern I used AI) and I am recycling the unsmoothed meshes and plan to use Topogun or Wrapit to create low-res pieces. Thing is, it's a lot of pieces and I rather ask before I commit to it. In general, would 15k for such a weapon make sense? Am I off mark? I plan on using Marmoset to display the end result but if UE4 might be better please let me know, I am out of touch with what's cool in games tools. I just bought Quixel and I hope it's gonna be good enough to paint this thing. I remember Quack! said Substance Painter was the bomb. Is it still hot? Also, how long does poly reduction for such an asset should take (average)?
free photo hosting
Feel free to give me some input. Note the wooden crappy texture is a quick slap for you guys to see.
Thank you in advance for your time!
I'll go straight to the point: 3D Generalist artist trying his luck in the gaming industry with a long buried project I left when I started in the VFX industry. Phew!
I searched the site for tutorials on how to optimize high poly models and turn them into low poly for baking purposes but couldn't find enough info. I am wondering if I used the proper terms (english not being my first language could be it). Anyways, I have this thing I re-created from screenshots from before the game was released, it's a weapon from The Order 1866. Even though I have more questions, the one pertaining to this forum is essentially what do you guys use? MooTools cruncher I remember used to be popular aeons ago? Do you guys use that or go by hand?
I mostly built the rifle in 3DSMax using OpenSubDiv + ZB (for the flower pattern I used AI) and I am recycling the unsmoothed meshes and plan to use Topogun or Wrapit to create low-res pieces. Thing is, it's a lot of pieces and I rather ask before I commit to it. In general, would 15k for such a weapon make sense? Am I off mark? I plan on using Marmoset to display the end result but if UE4 might be better please let me know, I am out of touch with what's cool in games tools. I just bought Quixel and I hope it's gonna be good enough to paint this thing. I remember Quack! said Substance Painter was the bomb. Is it still hot? Also, how long does poly reduction for such an asset should take (average)?
free photo hosting
Feel free to give me some input. Note the wooden crappy texture is a quick slap for you guys to see.
Thank you in advance for your time!
Replies
In a first person shooter on XB1, PS4 or PC you could have a 30-70k weapon no problem.
For third person you would probably have a very high res model like above(for cinematics), but in game it may be much less as all those details would be lost due to screen resolution.
Painter is nice and aligns itself well with modern tools, but has a penchant for being a bit slow when using large textures and many materials.
I prefer doing 90% of my work in Substance Designer. I use Photoshop to edit photos.
As for time taken to create the low, that depends. I always model to a 'medium' poly form, which is very close to the detail level of the low poly I need. I duplicate this medium poly and then I move onto make 1 the high. When done with the high, I move back to the medium, add/subtract/modify any shapes I riffed on the high and then move on. This proves to be the fastest for me. I personally feel zbrush is a great way to slow down a workflow of most hard surface work.
I started optimizing and I was aiming at way lower, dang. I'll come back with an update.
Thx again!
15K should be enough for an asset like this, when it comes to something like a first person weapon the most important thing is that it doesn't look overly jagged/lowpoly or flat, so you want to model all the major forms in there. I wouldn't stress to get this up to 30-70k or whatever just because, but I wouldn't optimize it below 15K or stress about if if it ends up in the 20-25K range either.
In a lot of pieces of this rifle, the 1st subD level is quite acceptable. I'll take it from there and see what I end up with.
Regarding Ipads I have the one that came before the 1st Air (they call it the New Ipad, first one with the thunderbolt? connector). I remember apple had WebGL off on Safari and nothing could be done about it so I gave up on Sketchfab and all that. Haven't checked since. Looks like it could be worth trying again, yay!
Cheers guys!