best way to show realtime assets?
polycounter lvl 12
hi
just wondering what the best way to show my game artwork. i think the max veiwport with directX shaders kinda sucks. i've been playing with Xnormals 3d viewer which is really great and so simple to use but i think there could be better ways. gona try sticking in unreal 3 but to get really good materials in unreal u need to know waht your doing, eat3d.com look like they have some good tutorials but can't afford.
so what do u guys use when shwoing off your work?
(i heard there was a thread over at game artists about realtime beauty shots but could not find)
thanks
just wondering what the best way to show my game artwork. i think the max veiwport with directX shaders kinda sucks. i've been playing with Xnormals 3d viewer which is really great and so simple to use but i think there could be better ways. gona try sticking in unreal 3 but to get really good materials in unreal u need to know waht your doing, eat3d.com look like they have some good tutorials but can't afford.
so what do u guys use when shwoing off your work?
(i heard there was a thread over at game artists about realtime beauty shots but could not find)
thanks
Replies
I also suggest mixing it with construction shots of a black wire overlay on a textured model, which can also be rendered or sometimes high res viewport grabs work but not always.
Not sure what 3D app you're using otherwise I could give more specific instructions =/
Sometimes I think viewport screengrabs can look even better than rendering...
Putting them in a game engine makes some sense, because that shows potential employers that you understand at least some of the processes needed to get models working in a game.
is this the one?
http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3247
as for unreal engine, managed to get the character in as a static mesh and make a basic material for it, but it does look pretty sweet and has shadows but still needs alot of work.
Xnormal is good but does not do specular maps or opacity but is still a pretty decent 3d viewer
Yes it does... it does specular maps, gloss maps, opacity maps, glow maps, normal maps, diffuse maps...
Posting things with a GI bake like that drives me nuts - I like seeing good lighting setups, but so many folks don't know how to light something properly and just toss a skylight in to make it look good - it hides flaws in the models, doesn't show off normal maps and spec maps properly (which are usually nonexistent or poorly done in art that just has a GI bake anyways).
I'm all for software renders instead of game screencaps or viewport screencaps, but the GI skylight approach that a lot of people do tends to be there to cover up rookie mistakes.
I was worried that wouldn't be a viable way to work with normalmapped assets, but Xnormal has proven me wrong. Minimal hassle, yet a lot of tweakability.
I'm talking about a real mental ray/ Vray render. Using a light tracer skylight totally flattens anything and your right makes it look noobish.. but you don't need a sky light... you just need something that is going to calculate photon bounces and color bleed.
but why? Your showing off game art, so your model should look good as a realtime asset, theres no point in showing it off with fancy render setups, because thats not how your model will look like in a game engine.
For stuff like displaying highpoly source meshes, then sure use whatever nice fancy lighting setup you want, but for the actual in-game asset, I'd usually stay away from those. Whenever I see someone's "game art" portfolio rendered with fancy lighting solutions, I always wonder what they're trying to hide...
if you want to show off assets like they will look most likely in a game engine, why not reduce the textures, filter them in some nasty way, make sure the lighting casts blocky shadows all over the asset, sort your alpha planes the wrong way and if it's a character, please bend it into some unnatural pose that shows of texture-stretching and twisted normals in all their glory. lastly as the icing on the cake desaturate the colors and put some fuzzy bloom all over it and you#re almost hired.
me, personally i use screengrabs from the max-viewport. but i am too impatient to wait for a render anyway.
but i agree, i'm too impatient to wait for a render
thomasp when you screengrab from max do you use directx shaders for the normal maps?
you can easily write a script to screengrab camera moves too, i tried that for making movies with a compositing tool. feasible to create turnaround videos and stuff without the testrender->tweak parameters->testrender-cycle.
i do not like to show things in an engine because of all the import- and material/scene-setup trouble. just wastes my time and if the asset was developed with another technology in mind in the first place, there's the possibility for loads of issues beyond my control.
I think the biggest problem is that mnost people use skylight improperly. It is not supposed to be the main/only light in a scene, it should be used (in my mind) as a really low ambient light that complements the main light.
But i omit the "imo". There is no sense to show realtime game assets with advanced offline rendering. The model has to look good without that.
Personally, i'm searching for a good solution to show them inside a 3D applet like enliven by wiewpoint... http://www.viewpoint.com/technologies/enliven.shtml
As for 3D applets, they are a waste of time unless they are naturally supported by every type of web browser. No one is going to go down load a plug-in, restart their web browser and or computer just to view some 3D models. I HIGHLY suggest that you also include 2D pics along with the 3D viewer because people just won't bother with the 3D unless it works the first time.