Maya Tutorials: Game Props Modeling

Fox Renderfarm, a leading cloud rendering service provider and render farm in the CG industry, will share with you the game props model produced by Maya. In this Maya tutorial, we will introduce how to create a game-style 3D model based on conceptual design drawings, from ZBrush carving to high poly and low poly UV texture production.

The following is a brief description of the process of making 3D models of games. I hope that you can have some understanding of the models used in games.

Concept

Before making a model, there are usually some conceptual drawings as reference for making. In this case, you can directly put the reference drawing in the production software Maya as a reference.

Modeling

Before importing into ZBrush for sculpting, you can first do some preparation work in Maya. If the model is relatively simple, such as stone, tree trunk, floor tiles, etc., they are relatively simple. You can use ZBrush to sculpt High Poly directly without making a Low Poly model. If the model is more complex, such as a biological model (animal or the like), you can make a Low Poly export OBJ file in Maya and sculpt it in ZBrush.

ZBrush

Import the low poly model into ZBrush for sculpting. From Blocking, make sure that the scale is appropriate. The most important thing is that the model does not deviate from the conceptual diagram. It is necessary to determine the overall ratio first, and then it is the part of some accessories, and finally the detail part. This process only uses the basic brush.

Retopo

The number of model faces sculpted by ZBrush is very high, which may be as high as hundreds of thousands of faces, or even millions. Such models cannot be used in-game engines. Therefore, the high poly model sculpted by ZBrush needs to be topologically a low poly before it can be used in the game engine. The topology process uses a topology software TopoGun, TopoGun can help the model Resurfacing and Maps baking, and the details of the model will not be lost. If you are making a single static map, then the model does not need to rig bones, it is not necessary to make low-poly and Normal map.

UVS

After the topology is completed, it is the job of the UV. Normal maps can be baked after the UV is split. The UV can be organized using some plug-ins included in Maya, or can be produced using other software. You just need to expand them and adjust as needed. Try to be as reasonable as possible.

Schematic diagram of UV deployment and placement

Normal map

Before bringing the model to Substance Painter, you need to bake the details of high poly onto the developed UV to make the texture. Baking and texture can be made using Substance Painter or Toolbag, especially Substance Painter has many tools and functions, which is very suitable for realistic and cartoon-like texture production.

These textures represent different information such as Normal map, Specula, Hight, and Gloss. The higher the accuracy of the texture, the better the final display effect of the model.

Import the baked texture into the most commonly used Substance Painter software to create PBR textures. Some parts can be adjusted using some preset textures, and then output different textures according to different needs.