Tools Used
Before I will start showing you the workflow I used for Varga I will summarize the tools I used for this project.
First let me summarize the specs of the pc I worked on because most of the limitations I encountered on the way were hardware dependent:
- athlon xp 2500+ @2400 ( but overclocking won't do much good on this old machine :) )
- 1GB of RAM
- video GeForce 6600GT
You can probably guess that this is no high-end machine and i was way limited to the number of polygons i could use at the same time (in mudbox i could go as high as 2mil triangles but it will move too slow), in maya I had a lot of crashes when trying to import obj files bigger than 1.5 mil tris (not enough ram) and I tried to break down the model into pieces (head, torso, hips, legs , arms etc) so i can achieve enough polygons to sculpt the details i wanted without crashes or unmanageable scenes (usually the polycount per piece will not exceed 1mil tris).
Regarding the software used ,I am mainly a maya user so lot of the work was done in maya (modeling , uvs , texture baking , rendering).
For high rez sculpting i used mudbox (build a low cage inside maya and export it to mudbox for further detailing). After the sculpting part is done I will export one of the higher level as an obj file (usually a 100-300k tris mesh worked fine at this stage , no need to export the highes level) and import it in topogun along with a low poly cage (if i already have one , or build a new one from zero within topogun)and rebuild the topology to better match the details i have added to the high rez mesh.After this process was done I will import back into maya the low and high versions and compute the normal maps with transfer maps tool.
The normal maps were further tweaked within photoshop; some were done completely in photoshop (check the maps for Peril- the bow later on).
After all this chit-chat let me show you some wip images in the following paragraph.
Workflow used for Varga
Usually for game characters you will have some specs to follow : limit to the number of triangles , size and numbers of textures used; you will have to conform with the number/size of the textures but if you exceed the polycount by 500 - 1000tris (lets say for 8k budget ) and the character is looking cool ... it's less likely the client will be mad :).
For this competition the limit was 6000 tris and i wouldn't want to exceed that so the first step was to build a low poly cage to allot the polygons between all the assets (the main char, pet, weapon), it doesn't have to be final but to let me see what details I can incorporate into the high version.
4.1 Low Poly Cage
Below is a guick timelapse with the first low poly versions (the triangulated one is the final version though)
After I have modeled a low version of the whole character i had a better idea how to distribute the polygons between the main character the pet and weapon/gear. The next step is to start breaking the model into pieces and cleaning them up. For sculpting its better to have clean topology, mostly quad faces, try to aviod triangles and situations when more than 4 polygons will meet at one point (add extra tesselation to get rid of all the irregularities in the mesh ... this way you will have more predictable results when subdividing and sculpting), you can move triangles and points where more than 4 quads will connect in the areas that are less important/visible. Also you should aim for a topology that will have mostly square quads (avoid polygons that are more than double in one direction than in the other .... add extra tesselations to fix this ... remember this will be for high rez so the polycount won't matter).
Below are some pieces ready to be imported into mudbox and detailed further.
4.2 Detailing in Mudbox
The next step is to import the cages into mudbox and add as much detail as you or your machine can ... one will break eventually:).
This is the most fun part for me in the whole workflow ... I will show you some time lapse images with the progress for some pieces.
boot (little below 1mil tris for the highest level)
hips (1.6 mil tris for the highest level)
leg (around 500k tris for the highest level)
arm (around 600k tris for the highest level)
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