Jacob Wheat's Art Blog

Art Creation For Games

This month, I had ACG. This class focused on the pipeline for getting props from block out stages all the way into unreal engine. There are a few stages to this, which we experienced during our projects this month. 

First, take your reference into Maya and block it out. Get the basic shapes and the general silhouette of the prop.  

Here is an example from my final project blockout

After creating this, you want to use 3 mode in Maya to match the silhouette of the prop. This means you add holding edges everywhere, evenly. This way when you import it to Zbrush, it will sculpt fine and be good for the bake out. If the holding edges are not there or too soft, your bake will look really bad and miss details.

Here is an example from my final project mid-res

After creating this, you want to bring your model into Zbrush and sculpt on the details. Add big scratches you see, or dents. Bolts can be modeled here too. For this prop, I would have modeled on the bolts instead of doing it for a normal map in Zbrush. This way if a player walked up to the prop, it wouldn't look like it's flat from the other angle. 

Here is an example from my final project sculpt

 Now, you will want to create an ingame prop. Take your mid-res, delete the holding edges you added until the silhouette changes, add bevels, and if you made any huge changes in Zbrush, add them into the prop. I didn't have any huge dents or scratches, so I didn't have a need to do it. When you are done, your in-game will look like this. 

 Here is an example from my final project in-game mesh

For this next part, you will need to UV your in game mesh. There are a lot of ways to do this, and I had to pass over a lot of hurdles to make it *alright*. UVing was not my strongpoint, but this class helped a lot. With more practice, I will start UVing really well. 

Here is an example from my final project UVs

 *Note* 

There is a lot of wasted space here. I was too focused on making the textures even for every piece. In the future, I would need to give the bigger, more noticeable pieces more room, and leave the other pieces like the handle or key fairly small. 

For the next part, this will cover PBR texturing. We imported the basic mesh into Substance Painter, baked textures from the high-res sculpt, and began painting. 

Here is an example from my final project textures.

After this, you export the textures and import the in-game model into Unreal Engine. You will create a new material, and hook up all the textures then import it onto the mesh. Your prop is ready! 

 Here is an example from my final project material

 

 

The final render shot