Sorry if this is in the wrong section…I have a potential client that wants a fantasy model (including weapons) made @ 1000 polygons for a Unity 3D game. I don’t want to work this low, it seems kind of pointless. Could I use Decimator to work higher and then bring it down?
Any help appreciated.
I am not a part of the gaming industry but the idea is to bake a normal map onto your low poly mesh in order to fake the details of the high poly model. This in combination with other texure maps will give you an effective look to your character in the game environment .
I don’t think using decimation will work because it will destroy the edge loop structure needed to rig and animate a model for a game.
So a basic workflow would be to sculpt and paint your character, retopo if you need to, generate UV’s and then bake a normal map to the low (1K) poly.
The process will vary from project to project.
This is a pretty standard process for creating game characters so you will find heaps of information on the web.
Good luck and I hope you get the job!
Like Trist suggested, Decimation Master would more than likely produce a bad result for something that needs to be animated. It’s mess of triangles could even produce something that’s not ideally optimized for realtime rendering either. You’d be better off keeping the subdivision levels pretty low to begin with, and retopologize manually.
It could depend on the client’s goals, but with a budget of 1000 polys (especially if they mean triangles) and an engine like Unity, there’s a good chance they’re aiming for something that ends up in a mobile application. Depending on other factors, there’s a chance normal maps might not even be utilized. Even still zbrush should be able to handle the modeling, UVing, and projection painting required.
There is a beauty in low poly works that can be far from pointless exercises. Aside from still being required for some systems and game genres, it gets you in the habit of being efficient, really gets you to focus on the major planes and silhouette of the model, and also requires some good painting if it comes down to a color map only.