Polygon budgets and software plugins

[Backov]

Hey, it's been almost 6-7 years now since I've worked professionally with artists using 3dsMax, and at the time, the plugins for doing game development were pretty primitive.

So what I basically want to know is - what's out there now? Texturing is fully solved? Polygon budgeting? Automagic polygon reduction on models? LOD?

Essentially, I'm going to be hiring a couple artists in the next few months and have them in-office, and I want to know what kind of tools there are just in case they don't.

Is there a 3d artist here who's worked with the whole gamut and has a good games dev setup they want to share?

[svero]

Well 3ds max is still used far and wide, but there are also lots of other solutions available that are more budget concious. In terms of pro tools softimage xsi has a 500$ version which can do pretty much anything Max can do for 3k. There are also 2k, and 7k versions of softimage for the higher end tools, but I dont think those tools are of much use in normal game development. (things like crowd simulators, realistic hair and cloth, etc...)

Softimage also has a modding tool that was released after valve switched to softimage for half life 2. That's a game centric tool. There are other free and purchasable game specific tools from caligari, and the 3d studio people like GMax and gamespace.

On the lower end you've got Blender which is free. You also have some specialized modeling apps like Wings and Silo which are good.

You should poke around the forum. There are few other discussions of this sort already. I think softimage 5 might be the way to go nowdays though. Price per power/quality I can't see any comparison.

[Laser Lou]

Nowadays, you can use 3d paint tools like DeepPaint 3d or Maxon't BodyPaint to paint textures on models. Unwrapping uv coordinates still takes work. Max 8 has a tool called "Pelt Mapping" which is supposed to simplify the task.

Many artists use zBrush to detail their models. When making 3d games, they often make normal maps from those models, and apply them to a low-poly version of the same model.

[Sysiphus]

Yep, today you have all that solved.

Is not easy, but is solved.

It'd be too long, but workflows I find as good bets :

For statics: Anything. Absolutely anything, and think of OBJ formats a very standard format for static objects (an space ship I call it static, is just I mean all what does not have bones and weights ) .Obj is in export from any 3d tool out there... Maybe sometimes as a free added plugin.

- Max + A format supporting bones and weights:

a) *.b3d (Max pipeline plugin) Works. Can be used also for levels.
b) *.x ( Panda X exporter) . Not so good for levels, but the most used in packages for character animation export.
c) *.md5 . More advanced and powerful than the above. Yet not so standard like x, but a bit more than b3d.

Blender can export as md5, x, md2 , md3. As well as OBJ. Yet though, are third party plugins, not easy to find, and not allways maintained with newer Blender versions...Blender is hard to learn and use and not as powerful as Max in several ways. If you can't buy max nor any software, go with this by all means.

If you can purchase low tools but not big prices, and have artists that can adapt to many different UIs and work and learn fast them all:

-wings, ultimate unwrap, Gimp (but I'd strongly at least recommend purchase Aodbe PS), Silo modeler, Tatoo 3d painter, Gile[s] lightmapper, [XSI (500$) or Blender, for only character animation ] ...Is a pack that works for me greatly, and indeed, I don't use all the tools in a same project.

Softimage XSI (which I have) can export as X. It's enough to go alone with it, but is complex tool. And yet you need some extra tools and help, for games.

If you go the Max route, you're practically setup. (loads of free scripts and plugins for game needs)
I prefer Ultimate Unwrap for uv mapping and wings for modelling, but that's me.

For the textures, I like Deep paint 3d combined with 2d techniques of texturing. But if the uv mapping is done well, there's no need. I just like the added speed and fixing ability of 3d painting.

So, summarizing, Max + free plugins (www.scriptspot.com www,maxplugins.de ) + good guys at uv mapping, and good ones at skinning (2d texturing) and you wont even need 3d painting.

Indeed, I'd recommend that route.

Photoshop is for me the king in 2d, but that's my opinion, again.

Polygon reduction? Well, it depends. For low pol stuff tends to be better using manual ways, but under pressure one uses all available.

If you aim AAA game, prepare to have a lot of more work for your artists than 7 years ago: Not only they'll need a new workflow (normal maps) , but also to model in very hi res polygon count for the hi res model version. It's sinking the smal studios.

If you ai a shareware game, no need. Indeed, no good as cheap cards can't go with normal maps, yet.

"few months"? Ok, you aim small games.No normal maps.

"Is there a 3d artist here who's worked with the whole gamut and has a good games dev setup they want to share?"

Me, for example. But here there are quite more, I suppose.

I had wrote a long post in other sense about all this, but well, the question was slightly different.

Imho, Max is the safest route (even with all its crashes...)
Of course, if you count on an experienced game artists, and also very experienced in XSI, go for it. That tool is really good and powerful. There are way more than enough exporters, and a lot of addons like sdks, etc, to make plugins and stuff for it.But to put a max artist with zero knowledge of XSI with it, can lead to loose a lot of months of work and money.

Also, I speak of my old 4.0 xsi. Maybe as Svero said, 5.0 is really eaiser or something...XSI Foundation of 500$ is basically like the whole film package, in what you'd care in real time 3d games...It does not include hair rendering, but you don't do that yet even not in AAA games...Oh, and Wings+XSI is a great combination.

Hope I helped here.

[Backov]

Thanks for the responses guys, let me see if I can clear some things up..

I will be hiring one modeller at first who hopefully REALLY knows what they are doing. Then that person will do any additional hires/tool choices. But, since I'm starting without the lead artist, I need to know enough to know if they know what they're talking about (if that makes sense.)

This will be for a game that will have about a year of dev time. Lots and lots of art assets currently planned.

Tool choice isn't such a huge deal, Max is well within the budget, but it has to be for sure the tool they need.

Thanks for the description Sysiphus, that's a helpful post. Biggest problem I've got is it's just been too long since I've been into the nitty gritty of a 3d engine. :)

I definitely need a crash course on the current workflow of 3d assets. :)

[svero]

Just FYI I purchased Softimage Xsi 5 recently so my new workflow is now...

Silo -> Zbrush -> xsi

XSI is proving to be a bit of a bitch to learn, but as I get more familiar with it I'm liking it more and more.

- S

[Sysiphus]

Backov, ask if you need to know some detail.

I know when I am in a hurry(often) I write a bit disordered and a lot of information condensed. So feel free to ask.

@Svero, now you made me really jealous. :)

Heck cannot justify myself more software waste...I can not only do all tasks with purchased ones, but even have it duplicated...
Who knows, if 5.0 update were cheap...

Well, is indeed a bitch to learn. At least it was with 4.0.
Even for an experienced 3d guy.

I only handle an small percentage of the software, only what I needed. It has depth for years. :)

In general, the sensation I get is much better thought and planned than other 3d tools. Heck, Valve used it for some reason. As well as film industry.

There's of a lot of help the pdfs, videos, etc, in the cds. I found quite too basic the book, though. Maybe in 5.0 you'll have a better book.I mean, with more depth. I yet prefer a good nice book reading than pdfs of videos..

I specially liked the detail of a CD linux version. I may be using Windows lately, but like to have the option. Unlike with Max.

Now that I have a 1280 tft I should be learning more xsi than am doing...

edit-- Silo and zbrush...Do you uv map with Zbrush? I prefer Ultimate or Max for that, but the auto modes in zbrush are faster. So you model outside xsi and animate with it. just like I do (wings->Unwrap3d->XSI) There's no need to use other tool than xsi for whole thing, but I prefer to learn fo now only animation with it (and basic interface, of course)

[svero]

Im just comfortable with silo as I've been using it to model for a while and I don't see any immediate advantage to using xsi directly in terms of what it can do for the basic geometry. Xsi seems to have a few general manipulators that I might want to use now and then like bulge and bend and so on that silo doesnt really do so well. Maybe that'll change with the imminent silo 2 release.. not sure exactly what they have in there.

[svero]

As for UV editing I'm thinking of getting one of those unwrappy kind of things. Zbrush is mostly for displacement maps and detail work.

[Sysiphus]

Not to make promotion, as I don't have any kind of income or anything with this...but is my fav one : www.unwrap3d.com

True that I am probably one of his older testers, since the Lithunwrap free tool times...

One day I'll write a book on how to uv map with it. ;)

Wings3d has AutoUv, but i prefer that above cheap tool for that task.

It also depends on the type of things you tend to uvmap. Some one doing all time space ships may tend to map in a certain way, different to someone specialized in organics. With that thing you can map them all, though..


For max users there may be an interesting thing (I don't think I'll ever convince my boss, though we use max) , but I should use that in production tasks to see if it's really as good as it seems... :

http://www.mankua.com/texlay.htm

Also, from Righthemisphere, I tried Deep Uv Demo, but did not convince me as much as my tool.

[Laser Lou]

I've tried using XSI for texturing, but I haven't gotten very far in it yet. I can do basic unwrapping, but not skin a whole character. I'm really more of a programmer, so maybe it should be hard for me :) . The other unwrapping programs seem easier to learn, but I bought XSI so that I wouldn't have to switch between too many other programs.


I just found the XSI wiki today. Some of its articles seem quite helpful.

http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/index.php/Main_Page

[Sysiphus]

For what I saw, XSI has a powerful UV mapper. I guess it depends on what vices each has... ;)

[Backov]

Thanks a lot for the insights guys. After checking things out, Softimage XSI seems like a real winner. What's the practical difference between the 3 packages - plugins? Is the base package any good, or am I going to have to spring for the $2k one?

[Jim Buck]

If you still might be looking for 3dsmax, check out here (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=4978). :)

[Laser Lou]

In short, XSI Foundation is a good package, but those looking for a professional edge in their art or animations should probably consider Essentials or Advanced. Of course, you can start with Foundation, and move up to when needed.

Here is a comparison of the different models:
http://www.softimage.com/products/Xsi/v5/comparison/default.asp

[Backov]

Thanks that's helpful. Looks like Essentials is the one to get.

Now finding an artist who can use it, that may be challenging. Is it easy for an experienced modeller to pick up?

[Laser Lou]

I can't really say how long it would take an artist to learn XSI.

Many experienced artist use XSI or have used it before. If you post a job opening at the XSIBase website ( http://www.xsibase.com/ ), I think you'd get many replies.

[Sysiphus]

what?

Apart from hair rendering? (but that's actually for hi res 3d, not real time 3d) all what is removed is advanced rigs,(some advanced cloth stuff, probably some other features more related to very high end rendering(movies stuff)) on what is important for real time 3d, and well, I have Foundation 4 and hadn't found any limit do my stuff, all the opposite quite an arsenal of tools and features, plus the better skeleton/animation system out there for characters....

Even for prerendered stuff, it can do mostly all. Indeed, hair rendering is not included in the default package of most 3d softwares out there...

I think it'd take quite some time to learn xsi to any artist. But if very experienced 3d artist in several other package (my case, hehe) is not so big problem.

[Sysiphus]

Native 64-bit well, power for render, if u have that processor..yup, I don't care bout this one...

Polygon Reduction ...yeah...well..in real time 3d, few ppl do trust in this algorythms...I haev anyway some external reducers, like vizup, that does the task in teh very rare case I don't build stuff in a way I don't need a poly reduction in this way.

That Gator thing looks like a way to share attributes between characters, well, may be very handy in games, but well, coming from Blender,(I have animated with Max, and do so at work, I mean at home, where I have animated with cfx, anim8or, blender...) I guess I am more than setup with XSI F. features...

Hair and advanced cloth, is no need for my real time 3d needs, even more for shareware 3d games were target customers have cheap 3d cards...


rigid body dynamics...yup, that'd be handy, but again, I have faked stuff roughly animating with bones and standard animation...even did so with cloth, directly animating bones.


stuff related to rendering like 'aditional' batch rendering ...for rt 3d games, unimportant, imho.

compositing stuff is something not so needed in rt games, besides there's enough tools to make a full workflow, quite professional , out of free tools. I use that in my game job (and get cumpliments for it...)

again, the customization of models maybe cool (the creation) but what i do need is bone chains and several basic animation features. That alone surpasses Blender capabilities, for the way it is done and the internals.


I'd agree Essentials and Advanced is better (of course) ...but...to me Foundation is such a gift. And capable of all usual game tasks.