How do I efficiently retopologize a character like this?
polycounter lvl 9
I'm given a task to create a stylized character in the vein of the image below and one of the requirements is to make a game-ready topology. What puzzles me is what is a good way to do that - should I merge all subtools (body, accessories etc.) in one, export and retopo this way or I should do it individually for each subtool?
Speaking of unwrapping, I have to do it all in one UV space, which I cannot comprehend how given that it should also include the weapon.
While retopo and unwrapping is not totally alien to me, game-ready production is, so I really need some guidance with this. :)
Replies
Well, you gave yourself the answer already. You need to have it all at one texture. Have a look for trim sheet, or texture atlas as it was called in the old days ...
There is nothing unusual about doing a retopo pass and bake on a character sculpt and its weapon ; as a matter of fact this is pretty much one of the most common things a character artist working in games could be asked to do.
The way you mention that the concept of unwrapping the weapon on the same sheet as the character is alien to you tells me that you are fundamentally misunderstanding what unwrapping is ... and that you are misjudging your own skills in relation to this task.
From there I would say that rather than attempting to gather some specific technical advice on how to perform the task, you will be better off posting some examples of the ingame/lowpoly work you've done already, so that people can get a feel of your technical skillset. Once that is done, then the conversation can actually start.
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TLDR : if you are confused by the concept of a two models sharing the same texture sheet, then you are simply not in a position to tackle this task at this time ... and the interactions with your clients are likely going to be tedious at best or heated at worst. Therefore you need to show us what you can actually do with some practical examples of your past ingame modeling work, so that we can point you in the right direction.
Retopo will be needed. Ask them what the triangle count should be, and texture size, and which texture types are desired (PBR? Albedo, rough, metal, normal, occlusion, others?)
Is it going to be animated? This heavily influences the topology. We have some examples and tips:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Limb_Topology
Retopo considerations: the leather straps are going to stay in place during animations, so there are two approaches
1) no backsides. Straps welded to the body, so the chest would need connecting edges.
2) backsides. Straps are not welded to body. However the body should still have edges corresponding to the strap backs, so they can be weighted the same to the bones to prevent sliding/penetration.
2 is quicker, but wastes unseen polygons. I've seen it both ways.
Nose ring won't be a complete circle, part inside the nose is never seen so get rid of it. Ring is likely to swing up and down during animations so keep it a separate mesh from nose.
You'd be surprised how common "bad" UVs are in animated movies. Bad just by game standards, an artist in that field will find a lot of our principles very alien.
@Neox Absolutely ! That's why I think it's probably best to cut straight to the chase by asking the OP to post examples of past work, as this would allow anyone interested in helping to give appropriate advice (rather than giving a bunch of high level and potentially abstract advice that he may not be equipped to leverage anyways).
As a client I've been on the receiving end of enthusiastic freelancers who claim that "they can do it, no problem" only to realize later than they had no idea of what was being discussed and it is always very frustrating. Although to be fair in such cases the blame is partly on the client too ...
generally speaking, it would be most efficient to pack accessory mesh specific to a character into its texture. position handheld elements, like weapons, on the 0,0,0 world coordinates. this is where the object will be snapped to the hand by the rigger, so center a weapon's grip here and face it forward with the character.
1 object with 1 material = 1 draw call. 1 object with 4 mats = 4 draw calls.
2 objects with a shared material (1) = 2 draw calls. 2 objects with independent materials (2) = 2 draw calls.
these decisions are multiplicative, as shaders, lights, shadows etc all add on top of that. in essence, the lower the draw calls, the better the performance.
were the weapon mesh used by many different characters, thrown or shot away from the character with a script, or used a special, more expensive, material shader to achieve an effect, it would make sense to confine it to its own texture, so it's not referencing a much larger texture that's dragging unused pixels along with it.
Well, while all the above is of course absolutely true ... such considerations about drawcalls are bound to fly miles above the head of someone confused by the mere idea of putting multiple items on a single texture, to begin with :) And it's also pretty clear that the client here just want a plain a simple moba-style character + weapon done and ready for ingame use without much fuss, with the weapon taking the usual space of about 1/8 to 1/4 of the texture space.
To be clear, I am not bashing on the OP here - I just firmly believe that the best way to help someone is to first get a good feel of what they actually know.
i'm privy to the fact that you're not only a master game artist but a very smart and cool person. ;)
heart emojis, heart emojis !
Not a char artist, But the character seems to be mirrored. Meaning it would benefit your texture space only to work with the half of all of the elements (and the sword being 1/4). Ignore that the weapons and cloth (alphas) are on seperate texture.
Thanks for the input! I should have specified that this is a student project and not a client task. It would have been very irresponsible to take on a job that I wouldn't have been able to do, which is why some of you may have got irritated.
Still, I'd kindly ask for a tad bit of patience. The reason why I didn't post my model is because it's still in the works. That's why I posted the reference image above for some guidance in the matter as I'm figuring out what I'm given to work with.
that would have been a good bit of info, yeah!
but if all this is so alien to you, why isnt your school teachning you what they would like to see?
If restrictions are this loose/up to you, you could choose an existing game and make the character according to the games specs. I think Dota 2 is a game with many available resources (I think the character from wirrexx post is from the game). This way you can also check how the character holds up next to existing heroes.
it's worth keeping in mind that mirroring on characters, although it fantastically juices more from a texture, too much will impede texture variants.
for characters that utilize a component system that swap out chunks of geo, like in Dota 2, it makes sense to atlas out regions like this especially considering its goal of integrating mod user content.