05: Games industry workflow
To have knowledge of how the games industry works was vital for this project. Knowing what goes first and last helped me to stay organized as i was able to follow a path. Once i figured a list of the things that i have to do i was able to shuffle in and out, working in different things at the same time or doing research and exploring it without losing sight of the main goal or losing track of where i was.
In the games industry, they use multiple game engines to create their games such as Unreal Engine for games like Fallout and Skyrim. Unity for Assassins Creed and League of Legends. And also, CryEngine for games like Crysis and Homefront.
I focused on Unreal, so my workflow and research were based around it.
Most studios have the same workflow or at least they are similar to each other but having a general understanding is key.
Story
First i came up with the idea of creating a garage environment for the mechanical sword that i made. I know i wanted it to match its postapocalyptic look as it was inspired by such games.
Research
Before i started modelling or drawing anything i had to do research of what i wanted to make and how i wanted it to look. I also searched the location and its function. The time in which it was created was also important as everything has to match and go with the story. I continued to do research as i worked on different aspects.
Reference collection
Through the research i was making i downloaded a lot of images of garages, house garages, and 3d versions posted on Artstation. This would help me down the line to create props.
Concept
Having a concept would make things easier and the process a little faster, as you know exactly what you have to create and how you want it to look.
My drawing skills are not very strong so i didnt draw a concept. Instead, i went on Artstation, Pinterest and google, and looked for concepts and 3d versions.
Block out
As i didnt have a specific concept i used primal polygon shapes like cubes, planes and cylinders to block out the scene. This gave me an idea of how i wanted my garage to look, where to place different assets such as the sword, table, and even where i wanted the doors to be.
Blocking out the scene also meant that i can see where i want my cameras to be and see what the main focus is. I am also able to render still images of the process to create a breakdown at the end, from the same position.
Low polygon modelling
Once i have my block out. I start modelling the assets one at a time. Making sure the edge flow is correct and i have quads and only triangles where is necessary.
High Polygon modelling
When i finish modelling an asset i duplicate it and, i can either import it into Zbrush and add extra details to it or increase the subdivisions in Maya and add extra details. Either way, i should have a higher polygon version of my low poly version.
Optimizing
This is done to reduce the poly count on the low poly model, here you delete and weld edges and vertices together. For example, a plain surface that has multiple quads you can weld them together and go from having 20 vertices to 1. Optimization is done until we have a lower poly version that still sustains good silhouette. This also depends on whether it is done on a hard surface model or organic.
Baking
In Substance painter, you import both optimized low and high and bake the high into the low, so the extra details that you added to the high, get transferred to the low. This way a low polygon asset will look very complex and perform better than a higher version.
Texturing
Texture the asset according to the reference and make changes where necessary. For example, a generator, from the images it might look clean and brand new, but for your scene you need it to look dirty and scratched. Here we use multiple references from different objects and combine them to texture one.
Importing in Unreal Engine
Once we have finished texturing our model the next step is to import it into the engine. The way we look at our model in substance painter is different to the way it looks in Unreal.
Adjusting Textures
Once we set up the textures, they might need adjusting so keeping unreal open in the background we make any adjustments and reimport the textures to see the changes applied.
Laying out assets
When the textures are finished, we just need to position our assets where we want them.
Environment details
When you finish laying out the props, we make final adjustments to the environment. Using decals or other techniques such as vertex painting.
Portfolio Renders
This final step, i do it for specific assets that i would like to showcase in my portfolio, so i export higher resolution textures from substance painter to import with my 3d asset into marmoset tool bag. I like how easy and quick it is to render portfolio images.
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