Fusion 360 in a Game Art Pipeline?
polycounter lvl 5
Hi all!
I had never really given Fusion 360 any thought given that it's a CAD program. I first heard about the program in my earlier days of learning the basic high-poly/low-poly workflow when I stumbled on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS8SBxkXF7c
The 3D artist who worked on the 'Razor' said he used Modo and Fusion to make the ship. Modo I got, but Fusion???
Since this program is used by one artist at Cloud Imperium, a huge company, am I correct in assuming that other artist there would use it in their work as well?
I also read this article on 80.lv by Gregor Kopka:
https://80.lv/articles/building-guns-for-doom/
He worked on the weapons for Doom, and in his article he says he leaned on Fusion quite a bit during his production process.
I only just got to sit down and really try my hand at the program today, and I must say it feels sort of like it's too good to be true...
It's incredibly simple to use, and it's also easy to get really complex shapes very quickly. And I mean STUPID quickly. 3DS Max will even optimize the exported .iges file when I import it for retopology (a CAD file format to my understanding).
Does anyone else use this in a modern game production environment? What are some drawbacks/benefits of Fusion rather than sticking with standard poly-modelling tools? Does anyone see this tool/similar tools being integrated into the game industry in the near future? Is it worth learning the program and maybe doing some portfolio projects with it?
Thanks for any answers!
I had never really given Fusion 360 any thought given that it's a CAD program. I first heard about the program in my earlier days of learning the basic high-poly/low-poly workflow when I stumbled on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS8SBxkXF7cThe 3D artist who worked on the 'Razor' said he used Modo and Fusion to make the ship. Modo I got, but Fusion???
Since this program is used by one artist at Cloud Imperium, a huge company, am I correct in assuming that other artist there would use it in their work as well?
I also read this article on 80.lv by Gregor Kopka:
https://80.lv/articles/building-guns-for-doom/
He worked on the weapons for Doom, and in his article he says he leaned on Fusion quite a bit during his production process.
I only just got to sit down and really try my hand at the program today, and I must say it feels sort of like it's too good to be true...
It's incredibly simple to use, and it's also easy to get really complex shapes very quickly. And I mean STUPID quickly. 3DS Max will even optimize the exported .iges file when I import it for retopology (a CAD file format to my understanding).
Does anyone else use this in a modern game production environment? What are some drawbacks/benefits of Fusion rather than sticking with standard poly-modelling tools? Does anyone see this tool/similar tools being integrated into the game industry in the near future? Is it worth learning the program and maybe doing some portfolio projects with it?
Thanks for any answers!
Replies
It's great to create CAD-like parts VERY carefully and tediously - like the things one would need daily in a CNC machine shop, or individual components of an assembly (model kit masters, and so on). It's also a fun tool for folks allowed to semi-improvise designs with loose constraints, basically letting the tool drive the design process.
But when it comes to the typical requirements of game art hardsurface models (accurate execution, high amount of surface details, tight delivery deadlines, need to easily edit models after the fact, and so on), the Fusion honeymoon phase ends very quickly. People love fantasizing about this software, but just like any CAD environment it is nowhere near as fluid and responsive as it first seems.
Oh and, their online licensing system sucks. Last time I checked they were still forcing down updates on startup with no way to opt out, which is a no-no in any serious IT environment.
In short : it's a very cool piece of software but it is not as stable and powerful as it seems, especially for game art. But if you get into it with lowered expectations you might find some interesting uses for it.
try to model such stuff without Fusion...
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/E5dZq
That's one of the issues with popular youtube 3d content and some portfolio pieces : they reflect a distorted image of the realities of production imho.
and wolfenstein is done with modo (fusion) and not fusion 360...
Can you do something much faster with a new piece of software and meet the requirements of the pipeline? (And how much $$ it costs too)
I have found that there are areas where Fusion is really great and areas where I tend to avoid it. It really depends on your pipeline and where the time savings are.
Good luck!
So I'm gathering that there is some conflict on this issue...
@pior you say that Fusion doesn't really support,I could just be misunderstanding, but isn't the Fusion workflow based on doing just that? From what I've experienced, the program can be very, very non-destructive if used correctly, and it's easy to go back and change/adjust shapes.
You also say that,
I haven't seen a Fusion tutorial that didn't rely heavily on drawings/photos, be it a CAD or a game art tutorial. For example:
Modeled from real world reference
Modeled from a concept sketch
I do get the forced updates thing though, and that's a bummer
I have a relative who works in IT and it's a total pain for his team to keep up with counter-patches for software updates developers push out.
@beefaroni I actually just started a new project today with Fusion, and I'm quite excited about it! I just wanted to see how widely used this software actually is in the industry given the lack of that info anywhere else I've looked. I have to manage my free time as a student wisely when learning new software. It's often easier to get warned early on than to try something new and hit a brick wall that you've all known about for a while
I could attempt to write in full detail what I mean by "intuitive placement of points and curves in 3d space" (which is unrelated to the modeling paradigm being destructive or non-destructive), but that wouldn't get you any closer to knowing if this tool will work for for you and for the specific models you need to create
It's also worth noting that different users have different levels of tolerance to certain workflows and UXs. Something that one might find unacceptable (because of a process being too slow or too convoluted compared to another program of choice) could be totally fine for someone coming from a different background.
In short, there are just too many factors at play. Simply use the program for its strengths, and try to not get too distracted by "what you hear people say" and by flashy promotional videos.
You can actually easily tell that you will have to jump through quite a few hoops just by reading between the lines of that one video you linked : the artist clearly mentions that he had to use Fusion ... but also Modo ... and also Sketchup, just for that one piece. Such a combo may be fine in some cases ("concept" pieces without tight time constraints and low quality control requirements), but not so appropriate in others. That's all I am trying to get at really.
Anyways, you'll see all that soon enough with practice
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/D31yA
Hard surface ... sharp edges ... metal ... all these terms sound like something perfectly appropriate for Fusion360. But in actual practice there is also : very subtle surface transitions ... facial features .... and overall a certain organic feel.
It may be possible to reproduce such a design in Fusion *if* very accurate blueprints were provided. And it may be possible to reach something close, *if* some improvisation and wiggle room were allowed. But the reality of game art production is such that such source materials are rarely provided, especially when the setting is stylized scifi/fantasy. In other words :
"I haven't seen a Fusion tutorial that didn't rely heavily on drawings/photos [...]"
And that's precisely my point
Overall that's really what I am trying to get at. Yes, Fusion and CAD programs in general are fantastic tools. But since your question is so wide reaching ("is it appropriate for game art as a whole ?") then I simply have to chime in to mention that it is indeed great at certain things ... but not all. Don't let the feature list trick you into thinking that it may be a be-all end-all solution, because it isn't.
I hope this makes sense !
But the truth is, it's basically the same as drawing with Vectors in illustrator. I see the value when you're doing surgically precise objects that vectors might be good at (fonts?), but 99.99999% of the time, I find polygons (pixels) to be easier achieve the results you want.
I don't want to be so dismissive of NURBs, but can someone provide me examples of when its more efficient/effective than using a Boolean method (that allows you to keep your low-poly mostly intact)?
Where CAD packages shine is in creating objects that were (or would be) designed using CAD packages.
This holds true for any modelling paradigm and there are trends that stem from the software available to industrial designers at the time things were designed.
Industrial designers need to model things that Game Artist do not. We don't often have to model inner workings of functional mechanics.
Even if we did, I believe it would be easier with polygons anyways.
Its literally the exact same things as asking concept artists if they prefer drawing with Adobe Photoshop, or drawing with vectors like Illustrator.
I'm sure there's very few instances where using Vectors (or NURBS) might be better, but considering the nature of rasterizing the graphics, (or engines needing to render everything in polygons) I can't name any actual practical uses.
Sorry for sounding obtuse, but can you show me an actual example of something that would be better produced in CAD over polygons??
I call it unlikely that any of us will be working at such a low level as individual polygons, edges, and vertices 10 years from now.
This was the primary reason NURBS was used in film back when I started learning 3D (mid-90s). Computers simply weren't powerful enough to handle working with more than a few hundred polygons on screen at a time.
Projecting surfaces with NURBS stopped being a more elegant solution in film/VFX in the mid 2000's.
With Fusion, its not "tangible". It's working with vector projections and calculated curves. It's a step removed from 3D shapes, and requires a whole other logic and foresight that isn't necessarily faster, and is probably way more limiting. (And has much different challenges resolving base forms).
The boolean workflow (thx for that) is now heavily incorperated into Zbrush' booleans tools, and has its philosophy based in cad modelling, but in practice is a Bajillion times more efficient.
I don't want to sound like a jackass, but I'm confident in saying I see no point in NURBs modelling in games. I really want someone to show me an example of something that NURBS can do more efficiently in a game pipeline.
I guess I meant a Polygon is a tangible representation of a 3D form on a screen. Similar to how a pixel is an accurate representation of a pixel screen.
A NURBS curve, and a 2D vector are not really properly represented on a screen, and need to be converted to Polygons/Pixels to be represented.
Good questions.
the answer to your last question is this
You could build that with subdivided polys, but I'm guessing you'd rather not have to.
My point above was that the media used to create something will in some way define it's form and if you're tasked with reproducing the object, then using the same method will likely lead to less ballache.
It makes no difference to the end result - this is true. The impact comes in terms of whether you're using a tool that lends itself to the process or not - if you can achieve the same result in quarter of the time by switching tools, it means you can make either 4 times as many things or take much longer poop breaks.
AmsterdamHIltonHotel kinda pioneered this method:
http://polycount.com/discussion/168610/3ds-max-zbrush-proboolean-dynamesh-hardsurface-workflow-tutorial/p1
(Which is the methodology behind the Zbrush hardsurface pipeline).
Boolean to your hearts content, and then just dynamesh/polish.
The biggest advantage for using Max, is adjusting boolean operands for a very quick lowpoly:
That being said, CAD modeling will be superior for most mevhankcal models - you're basically working on it in the same system that was used to create it. However there is currently no way to get clean polymeshes out of CAD - whatever you do it'll have to be retopologized. Or you can use it for a normal bake.
Model done by:: Carlos Fuentes
Not sure if maya can do this sort of thing but in Max you can bring in the objects as CAD data and adjust tessellation etc. as much as you want.
in this case its better to let the software make as little tris as possible or?
u dont need quads in this objects?
as little as in as few or as small?
because if as few, why do you think you would need quads in this mesh?
i mean reducing amount of tris. u dont need quads for exporting
but this isnt supposed to be the lowpoly. this gets gaked down onto the lowpoly. so add whatever geometry/triangles you need to get nice and smooth shading.