Beth's Attempts at Game Art - Year 3: Final Major Project

As usual, once I had the layout of my 3D environment somewhat planned out, I just started modelling in 3Ds Max. What I tend to do in order to make that process more efficient is first, I export the block out and put it in Unreal Engine in order to make sure that the sizing is correct. Then, I tend to model the low poly using the block out, and the high poly (if necessary) using the low poly.

Sometimes.. unfortunate things will happen.

But that's okay. It's Max. We've all been a little mean when we've had a bad day, Max has also had a bad day.

On a good day though, Max does tend to do what I want them to do. In my previous projects, I used a lot of topology that was quite unnecessary, and that's something that the ProOptimizer modifier has helped me stop doing because it tends to connect edges in an efficient way without leaving ngons. I only learned how to use it recently and it has been in a lot of help because you can manually select the amount of edges you want to have, therefore if you don't want any triangles, you can just make it connect edges and have four sided surfaces.

Vertex Paint

Another thing that I've started doing a lot more efficiently in my Final Major Project is creating modular assets. Before, I used to model pretty much everything separately, which often times took too long because I would constantly have to go back and forth from 3Ds Max to Unreal Engine, because the size would become incorrect as soon as I would change something - however, with modular assets, I just have to model one and then build it in Engine.

The only thing that you sometimes have to do differently when it comes to modular kits is using Vertex Paint. Vertex Paint is one way of assigning different materials to one object so that when you start texturing it, you will both be able to use different materials for each asset (if they're unwrapped on the same UV) AND make sure that all of your assets have been unwrapped on the same unwrap sheet.

Technically, you can also use another method in 3Ds Max for that which is just assigning different materials - however, the reason I don't do it this way is because it sometimes creates an issue in which when I unwrap my assets and open them in Substance Painter in order to texture them, they would all appear on multiple UVs because I've assigned them different materials.

Modular Assets

Here's an example..

Making walls and panels like that, I've realised, are much easier and way more efficient when they're done as a part of a modular kit. The reason for that is because often times, when your 3D environment is still at a very early stage, things will be resized and changed quite often, therefore building walls using modular assets allows you to do that without having to go back to 3Ds Max in order to change the size of the entire wall every single time (I've made some mistakes from the past.. but we learn). In addition to that, it's also a lot easier to texture modular assets because the of the topology and the texel density, and.. generally, smaller assets will have better resolution, unless you want to use 4k texture sheets which is okay if the assets are massive, but using too many isn't always ideal - I do want my game to run at least 60fps.