Game Art - Project 2: 3D/2D Character and Environment (Porting and Testing)
20/11/2024 - 11/12/2024
Week 9 - Week 12
Ng Jia Ern 0363033
Game
Art
Project 2: 3D/2D Character and Environment (Porting and Testing)
INSTRUCTIONS
Instructions
You are to build your character and props in 3D and to be tested in
Unreal/Unity game engine. Rigging for character can be done in Actor Core
Accurig or in Blender. Textures for both character and props can be created
with substance painter. As for props we will be evaluating the hero assets and
medium sized asset. Each assets will be ported and tested in the game
engine.
Project 2:
FINAL:
REFLECTION
For character modeling, it’s not particularly difficult, just tedious. Since
I worked on anatomy modeling in ZBrush last semester, I’ve become quite
comfortable with the software. I directly modified my previous human model
into a chibi-sized proportion, which saved me a lot of time when building
the body and clothes. However, after modeling, there’s still a long process
ahead: retopology, UV unwrapping, baking maps, texturing, rigging, skinning,
animation, and engine testing. A single semester isn’t enough to finish all
that—there’s just not enough time!
I did my best, but I couldn’t manually retopologize, so I used ZBrush’s
ZRemesher to reduce the poly count, then imported the model into Blender and
applied smooth shading to make it look cleaner. After that, I imported it
into Substance Painter for texturing. The remaining steps I couldn’t
complete due to time constraints—I’ll probably learn them during the
semester break. At least now I know the direction I need to take.
Challenges During ZRemesher
One issue with reducing poly count directly in ZBrush is the loss of detail.
For example, the decorative elements on my character’s hat were part of the
same model and not separated, so the small flower’s texture became difficult
to paint. I ended up skipping it. Similarly, the lace on the skirt didn’t
align well with the skirt itself, so I manually adjusted it in Blender.
Texturing in Substance Painter
While working on textures in Substance Painter, I encountered a problem with
layer organization. I hadn’t named the layers or merged materials of the
same type, which resulted in too many layers and made the texturing process
quite messy. I went back to ZBrush, renamed each material on the model, and
then returned to Substance Painter to continue. Thankfully, Substance
Painter is quite beginner-friendly—I managed to grasp it in just one day.
Here’s some helpful tutorials I found:
How to use Adobe Substance Painter
How to export to Blender and Unreal Engine
How to render and export in SP using IRay
How to create transparent glass material in SP
I realized that Substance Painter makes texturing incredibly efficient and
quick. Compared to Blender or Unreal, where you have to adjust properties
like metallic, roughness, pattern, and alpha layer by layer, in SP, you can
simply apply a similar material, tweak the colors and details slightly, and
you’re good to go. It’s unbelievably convenient. The built-in render presets
in SP are also great—just pick a preset and render. The only downside is
that it’s GPU-intensive (my PC’s fans were going wild during rendering—it
felt like a storm was brewing). Unfortunately, SP doesn’t support turntable
rendering, but it seems that Adobe Substance 3D Stager can handle
animations. I haven’t had the chance to explore that yet, so I’ll leave it
for later when I have more time.
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