Hey! I’m a long time 3d addict, but new to ZBrush. Are there any tutorials or training that show techniques of making next-gen game characters or even level detailing?
Thanks.
Ballistic Publishing just released D’Artiste Character Modeling 2. In it there’s a complete breakdown on the processes used by Epic on Gears of War… I so want that book. Other than that just look up Normal Mapping and keep your base meshes poly count reasonable. And Voila! You’ve got a next-gen character Microsoft and Sony approved.
Thanks. What would be a reasonable poly count for say characters, level maps, items, etc?
My workflow to do next gen characters is very classical…
I just do a low res mesh, very similar to my ingame character but without triangles.
I put it in zbrush, sculpt my high res details, texture it, then export the low res and generate my normalmaps in zmapper.
Once finished, I clean my low res, add details, optimise it and thats it.
Textures size are directly linked to your pipeline and technology…
I would say usually for a classic xbox character:
256 (diff) 256 (normal) 128 (spec) for the face,
2x512 (D), 2x512(N) 2x256(S) fpr a 2 pieces body…
for a 10K poly LOD1 of 3 character…
But its very subjective sizes…
Regarding gears of wars, juste keep in mind there (superb) workflow was developped maybe 4/5 years ago, and updated.
Now next gen technologys have evoluted and pepelins might also be linked to the technology and the engine you’re using.
Sebcesoir,
how low is your low poly character and do you keep an eye on topo/polyflow even for a low poly character?