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Video Game Texturing

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#1

I’m Hooked on Game Texturing,

Is there a complete step by step turorial for texturing a low polygonal video game model that is made up of triangles? As some people know, triangles are manditory in order to get those nice rounded organic formations when dealing with lower resolution models. I’d like to do a complete step by step tutorial for all those people who are interested in video game modeling in order to support ZBrush here in Seattle if not anywhere else.

When it comes to 3D art, video games are where the business is here in Seattle with Microsoft, Giant Pixol, Zombie Entertainment, and Beep Entertainment to name a few companies. ZBrush is a spectacular but tedious program to learn and quite frankly I don’t think enough people in the games industry know about Zbrush. As I mentioned a while back, AUV tile mapping doesn’t work too well with a mesh that has triangles in it and so ease of use is thrown out the window when dealing with complex textures on simple triangular models that need to be animated. I’ve never seen a complete tutorial concerning texture mapping a model for a video game character. I’m not knocking film or an illustration that requires high resolution modeling, I’m just trying to open up another market to ZBrush and improve the vision of what a low res model can look like.

Ken Brilliant made a tutorial concerning a continuous texture on an alien in Texture Master using UV Mapper. I’d like to do the same but show an even easier technique I’ve discovered for myself. Only my tutorial will include Discontinuous texturing such as painting armor and other hard edged shapes that wrap around the character that are made up of triangles. So far I’ve only seen tutorials that show nice but limited bump and spot texturing done on characters that are made up of quads using UV mapper pro. I’d like to take Ken brilliant’s tutorial further and direct it to a long term video game texturing technique extravaganza.

The UV mapping will of course not be done within ZBrush but starting with Lightwave, the UV mapping will not require any disassembly of the model whatsoever but will require:

  1. Grouping different model segments and giving them each the appropriate mapping axis.

2)unwelding and welding the points of the model in order to set up the UV map at the touch of very few buttons.

  1. Adjusting the UV coordinates to eliminate texture distortion using a checker pattern texture

  2. Importing and exporting the model and setting up texture master and other settings within ZBrush to prepare the artist to start painting the model.

I will soon learn and discover the steps required to do the same in 3DS Max and Maya. Based on my limited experience with texturing in Max and Maya I’m pretty sure they can do the same thing as Lightwave.

If any one already has a tutorial like this or is interested in my idea to support the video game end of ZBrush let me know. The model shown below is a triangle mesh of 3,500 polys

Thanks,
A devoted ZBrush Fan


#2

Hi Epiginosis,

i would be happy to see such a tutorial from you. It sounds very interesting already :+1: :+1:

#3

Well,

Here’s the final render in Lightwave with a bump and specular map, just need to put some eyeballs in her head.

#4

Here’s my latest Max creation using Texture Master in Zbrush. It was a blast!

#5

Hi Epig
Cool Texturing Game
Look at this :slight_smile:
Olivier Lediscot said a little (page down)about his method :slight_smile: (but it’s for a particular Game)
Pilou
Ps And I don’t know absolutly nothing about the texturing game :rolleyes:

#6

héhéhé !!! nice little man :smiley:

he look’s like an french comic “Patrick Timsitt” :+1: :+1:

I’m curious to see your workflow between max and Zbrush… for texturing your LP model

#7

Hillarious :slight_smile:

nice, funny mesh and the texture fits nicely too.
Some wires, pose tests and of course the tutorial would be nice.

wonder in what game this sherrif will cross my path :wink:

#8

Nice work guys.

I can’t get my head around why people want to model in Lightwave. You can get extremely low-res meshes in ZBrush if you set the sub-division low (about 16x16), use QUICK EDIT WITH POLYFRAME on and just push and pull the points to the desired shape. When you’ve got your shape, turn quick editing off and you get a nice smooth object. Texture it with texture master and you’ve got a superbly low poly count with exceptionally detailed texture mapping.

Surely that’s better? Better than exporting, importing messing around with botchy frames etc…

#9

ha ha, that cop rules, nice job!

#10

Jay S., I’m not a game modeler, but the issue is cutting out as many polygons as possible. For an irregular organic shape, triangles should give you extra smoothness for the same number of polygons. Plus, for DirectX games at least, the models have to have all of their polygons converted to triangles at some point before rendering begins anyway. The base DirectX code does not function with quads. Therefore, some games may require that the game models be composed of triangles only. Other games may do this conversion at the beginning of a level when the models are loaded into memory, so they can use quads, triangles or a mix in their game models.

Ironically, for simple boxes and cylinders, triangles actually add an additional polygon edge for no gain in smoothness. Even the sides of a box have to be split into triangles for use with DirectX-based programs.

#11

Thats what i was thinking, but im having issues with the “painting”. any way, would you be willing to make a tutorial of this process?

#12

I would like to find more interesting games for children. What do you think about this game https://www.topspeed.com/car-games/madalin-stunt-cars-2/ I’m afraid the kids will play bad games.