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A complete breakdown a fan-art 3D asset I created as personal work over the course of a few weeks earlier this (2014) year. In this PDF I will cover topics such as Zbrush sculpting, highpoly modelling and normal map baking.
Scott Homer 2014 - ScottHomer.co.uk
A complete breakdown a fan-art 3D asset I created as personal work over the course of a few weeks earlier this (2014) year. In this PDF I will cover topics such as Zbrush sculpting, highpoly modelling and normal map baking.
Scott Homer 2014 - ScottHomer.co.uk
A complete breakdown a fan-art 3D asset I created as personal work over the course of a few weeks earlier this (2014) year. In this PDF I will cover topics such as Zbrush sculpting, highpoly modelling and normal map baking.
Scott Homer 2014 - ScottHomer.co.uk
ORNATE SPELL BOOK BREAKDOWN TIPS ON CREATING THE HARRY POTTER INSPIRED BOOK BY SCOTT HOMER - WORK IN PROGRESS - UPDATED 24/10/2014 SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK - SCOTT@SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK CLICK HERE FOR TURNTABLE! SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF FOREWORD.. Dear Reader/3D Artist/Student/Professional/Game Artist, I created this booklet during September/October of 2014, mostly as a teaching aid for some guest lectures/workshops that I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to run at a few Universities around the UK. I have intended on putting something of this nature together for a few years but had never managed to get around to it..Better late than never eh? *As you read this booklet please bare in mind that these techniques *may* not be the right techniques, but they are the ones that I use and should be considered as such. Some bits may seem hacky, but I have always tried to take the shortest route to my desired goal leaving as little mess along the way. The tools that I used to create the Book are irrelevant, even though there is some software specific stuff in here, this should mainly be seen as a booklet full of cross-platform tips and tricks, rather than a guide on how to use any software in particular. If there is anything in here you object to, any mistakes or spelling issues, please contact me at Info@Scotthomer.co.uk and Ill do my best to update and fix any issues as I go along. I decided to release this stuff for free in an effort to help anyone out that was interested in seeing how I put the Book together, anyone that needed some insight into a different approach to making 3D art, and ultimately to say thank you to all of you awesome artists out there. Here goes nothing... Scott Homer - 21/10/2014 SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF CONTENTS MOODBOARDS AND PLANNING HIGH-POLY BUILDING A KIT-BASH SET IMPORTANCE OF KIT-BASHING CONCEPTING/PLANNING KIT-BASH ORNAMENTS MODELLING ORNAMENTAL PIECES THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT EDGES BUILDING THE BOOK CONSTRUCTING THE 3DSMAX BASE-MESH ZBRUSH TECHNIQUES ZBRUSH TECHNIQUES CONTINUED FINAL ZBRUSH MODEL LOW-POLY AND BAKES LOW-POLY THEORY A NOTE ON UVS BAKING THEORY BAKING THEORY CONTINUED BAKING IN XNORMAL OUR OBJECTIVE? IMPORTANCE OF MOODBOARDS AND REFERENCE WORKING TO SCALE, ON THE GRID TEXTURE MAPS AO + DIFFUSE NORMAL + DISPLACEMENT METALNESS + GLOSS PBR THEORY USING REFERENCE TO IDENTIFY TEXTURE DETAIL RECONSTRUCTING THE LOW-POLY SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS HIGH-POLY MODEL 3DSMAX + KEYSHOT OUR OBJECTIVE? TO BAKE OUR HIGH-POLY MODEL ONTO OUR LOW-POLY MODEL,WITHOUT LOSING HIGH-POLY DETAIL SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK - SCOTT@SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK LOW-POLY MODEL 3DSMAX BAKED + TEXTURED MARMOSET TOOLBAG 2 SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS IMPORTANCE OF MOODBOARDS AND REFERENCE Moodboards are integral to the design process, they are useful for rapid Idea development, and to give you the ability to put yourself into the correct place (mentally) to continue working on a project each day. They are a great way to gather reference images and collate them into one place, rather than having to scrub through multiple images. For each asset/project/level I find it best to gather as many photographic references as possible, even for stylised projects, almost everything is either grounded in reality or heavily inspired by traditional art mediums. I always try and take photos of anything useful as first hand reference, such as FIG B taken on a recent visit to Disney World in Florida. I collected a number from various hotels, and even visited the Harry Potter studio tour in order to snap some first hand reference for my project. I find sometimes when you physically surround yourself with the subject matter it helps make creating a final piece easier to visualise.
MOODBOARDS AND IDEAS FIG A - MY MOODBOARD FIG B - WALT-DISNEY-WORLD ORNAMENT SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS WORKING TO SCALE, ON THE GRID Working to scale is crucial for any type of Environment Art, especially in Video Games. Working to scale ensures that everything within a scene is correctly proportioned relative to each other, something that can ultimately make or break a scene. Generally fixing scale later into a project can be hugely problematic, and often impossible. When exporting art to a Game Engine, such as Unreal Engine 4, the scale of the object is key for not only ensuring that the object fits within the scene, but also that the way the light hits the object is calculated and displayed correctly. When creating modular Environment Art, using the Grid within Max/Maya is useful for ensuring that modular pieces snap together and line up with those next to them. Matching the 3Dsmax/Maya grid spacing to the grid spacing in Engine is important to ensuring that the size and positioning of assets within 3Dsmax is representative of the positioning in-game. When initially planning the book, I took the size of an A4 piece of paper (FIG A) and used that as a basis for the size of the book. I scaled the base-mesh up to ensure that the A4 paper would fit within the extents of the book cover and then snapped the bounding points to their closest grid points on a 1cm grid. BUILDING THE HIGH-POLY FIG A - USING REAL WORLD MEASUREMENTS FIG B - ROUNDING UP MEASUREMENTS TO WHOLE NUMBERS SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS BUILDING A KIT-BASH SET Kit-bashing is a technique that has been used by physical model builders for years, they take pre- existing sets and break them apart in order to use their pieces in their own models. Building from scratch often requires a huge time commitment, However with kit-bashing we are able to spend that time once, and then use the same pieces over and over to great effect. A useful kit-bash set is generic enough to be powerful in many situations, with each piece fitting together with others in the same set to build a new, unique piece. Many artists are famed for kit-bashing, employing the work smarter, not harder approach to art to ensure that they arent wasting time making the same thing over and over. SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS IMPORTANCE OF KIT-BASHING To the left you can see two examples of ornamental filigree created using different kit-bash pieces created for different purposes, these assets are simply combined in order to create new, bespoke pieces. Each combination takes less than a minute and at that point the main concern is ensuring that the design flows and that the weighting and form of the ornament makes sense. These ornaments were created flowing outwards from a central point, as is typical in Baroque ornamental patterning. FIG C specifically was created with the purpose of surrounding a mirror or picture, with all of the floral elements leading into the focal point (the mirror itself!) Each time a variant of a kit-bash part is created, these are added to my library of assets, for reuse in the future. FIG A - KIT-BASH PIECE IN 3DSMAX FIG B - WIREFRAME KIT-BASH PIECE FIG C - ALTERNATE KIT-BASH PIECE IN 3DSMAX FIG D - ORNAMENT FLOW SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS CONCEPTING AND PLANNING KIT-BASH ORNAMENTS In most cases, there will be a fairly useful Ornament design already available online to use as a template for your 3D model, however sometimes I will find a case where there are elements of several separate designs that I like and want to combine. Usually I will take these images and piece the elements together, as seen in FIG A. The flow is much more important than the way they fit together. In FIG B I then set about painting in my flow to unify the 2-3-4 pieces of ornament together as a basis for my design. These are invaluable in the process of constructing these ornaments, and the process should only really take 5-10 minutes to complete and will ensure that your ornament works further down the line. In FIG D you can see the basis for one of these Ornaments, I have taken my concept and traced the flow using splines. This will allow me to snap my vertices to the spline and make the job of keeping things rounded and smooth much more accurate and minimize the manual positioning of each vert in order to achieve our shape. FIG A - SEVERAL IMAGES PIECED TOGETHER FIG B - PAINT-OVER TO COMBINE SEVERAL ELEMENTS FIG C - ALTERNATE KIT-BASH CONCEPT FIG D- CONCEPT USED AS THE BASE FOR A FLORAL ORNAMENT SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS MODELLING ORNAMENTAL PIECES In order to model the ornamental pieces, I used the Box Modelling subdivision technique in 3Dsmax. The principal is simple; I begin with a plane primitive with 1 width and 1 height segment, and snap its vertices into position as can be seen in FIG E (in this case, on our flow spline, created to follow our concept) to begin my model. From here, I hold shift with an edge selected to drag out each edge extrusion, hitting S to enable snaps allowing me to select the vertices of this new face and snap them to the spline ensuring that the poly- flow conforms to the flow of the ornament. After laying down my base topology, I select the loops in the middle of my faces (as seen in FIG H) and drag these into position to create ridges and add depth to my ornament. Chamfering these edges holds them in position when the model is turbosmoothed. In FIG I you can see how I have collapsed the ends of these chamfers in order to create the recognisable pinches or flicks at the end of my ornaments turbosmoothed geometry. FIG E - BOX MODELLING BEGINS, SNAPPING TO SPLINE FIG F - SUB-D MODEL FOLLOWING THE FLOW OF THE ORNAMENT FIG G - KIT-BASH PIECE TAKES SHAPE FIG H - ADDING DEPTH TO THE ORNAMENT WITH CHAMFERS FIG I - USING TRIANGLES TO PINCH SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT EDGES The importance of soft-edges has been a fiercely debated subject for a number of years now. Realistically objects in real life have sharp edges, others dont..However when we are creating high-poly models for normal maps, we must exaggerate our edges in order to ensure that normal maps are baked out correctly and stand up to scrutiny even at a distance. In FIG A, we can see how sharp edges disappear at a distance far quicker than those that are softer. This is simply because the normal map texture on the sharp examples edges occupies far less space than the functional example; As the model and texture size decreases (MIPS) these will disappear. One of the techniques I use to soften my edges (regardless of how hacky it is) is to use a push modifier in Max to subtly push my edges outwards and soften the bevelled edges. A similar tool exists in Zbrush, called Inflate which works in the same way. These tools scale our object along each vertices normals to puff it up. The 2 examples below (FIG B + C) show some of my models and how soft their edges really are in the quest for nicely smoothed edges, even at a distance. FIG A - ILLUSTRATION OF THE IMPORTANCE OF EDGE-SOFTNESS (SOURCE: HTTP://RACER445.COM/ - EVAN HERBERT) FIG B - SOFT TURBO EDGES FIG C - USE PUSH TO HELP SOFTEN EDGES SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS BUILDING THE BOOK When it came time to construct the book, I used the base shape of the book as a template (as on page 6) and began to quickly see what kind of shapes looked best. I probably iterated with about 3 or 4 layouts until I found one that I was really happy with. I began with defining the most important lines and worked from large to small in order of size and importance to the overall design of the book. I knew that each side would feature a key motif, the front and side with the Hogwarts Crest and the back with the Hogwarts Inlay. With this in mind I tried my best to highlight these as the focal point of the book. Additionally the front has Prof Albus Dumbledore in scrolls at the top and bottom, which I highlighted using additional floral ornaments drawing the eye into this text. This can be related back to general design, the construction of a car body is usually built around key features, the lines of the car are simply there to punctuate these. FIG A - ORNAMENT FLOW ILLUSTRATED FIG B - BODY LINES IN A CAR SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS CONSTRUCTING THE 3DSMAX BASE-MESH There are a few considerations that need to be taken into account before bringing the model into Zbrush and detailing the high-poly to add that extra level of detail across the mesh. Density/Tessellation: Ideally our mesh should have evenly distributed polygon density across the model to allow for the subdivided mesh to support the meshs original shape. Gaps (FIG B) in poly distribution, will cause the meshs resolution to be insufficient to support detailing in Zbrush. Supporting Loops: Zbrushs subdivision algorithm is different to 3Dsmaxs and as a result It is important to ensure that any hard edges in the model have sufficient supporting loops in place in order to prevent them retracting and deforming our mesh as shown in FIG C. FIG A - PRE-ZBRUSH 3DSMAX MODEL FIG B FIG C SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS ZBRUSH TECHNIQUES FIG A shows part of the base-mesh in its original, sub-d modelled form within 3Dsmax, each ornamental element is separated into its own mesh to allow for easy placement and adjustment. These are crudely positioned to fit the vision I had in mind. In FIG B I have brought the floral element into Zbrush as an .obj, I usually subdivide the mesh at this point in order to completely smooth my mesh. In FIG C I have used Geometry - Split - Groups Split to split the mesh into separate subtools allowing me to work on each element independently of the other elements around it. In FIG D I have gone through a process of ensuring that each floral element has the same amount of weight and volume. As a result of the kit-bashing process (scaling elements up and down) floral elements can often be significantly thicker than those joining to them. In order to balance these elements out, I go through each subtool using Deformation - Inflate and subtly pump up each subtool to balance them out as in FIG D. FIG A - BASE-MESH IN 3DSMAX FIG B - BOUGHT INTO ZBRUSH AS 1 TOOL FIG C - SPLIT INTO COMPONENT PARTS FIG D - BALANCED IN ZBRUSH GROUPS SPLIT INFLATE SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS ZBRUSH TECHNIQUES CONTINUED FIG E - shows a process in which I merge all of my subtools to a new subtool (Subtool - Merge Visible, then Append the Subtool into the current Ztool) and then again use Deformation - Inflate to increase the weight of the merged subtool. Using the Edit - Move (Transpose tool) I then scale this merged element in the Z axis in order to create a base for the ornament as seen in FIG I. FIG F - I began to detail my ornament by softly removing crisp edges using the Claytubes and TrimDynamic brush. This helps to both add wear to the model, and create random damage in the normals which will catch the light and give the asset some life. FIG G - As the model progresses the hard, sharp edges are eroded away and the unified level of damage brings all of the elements together. FIG H - In the example (spine of the book) I have detailed the models edges wherever possible. You can see how relative to the scale of the book, the added detail becomes small and simply serves to add small highlights and enhance the realism rather than significantly change in the shape of the model.
FIG E - CREATING A BASE FOR THE ORNAMENT FIG F - DETAILING IN ZBRUSH FIG G - MORE DETAILING IN ZBRUSH FIG H - EXAMPLE OF ZBRUSH DETAILING IN PRACTICE FIG I. SIDE PROFILE OF THE BASE SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS FINAL ZBRUSH MODEL FINAL ZBRUSH MODEL, READY FOR BAKING AND TEXTURING. SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK - SCOTT@SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS LOW-POLY THEORY The low-poly model forms the basis of the in-game model, it is the canvas on which our normals are baked and the textures are displayed. Generally its best to make sure that the low-poly is as simple as possible. Silhouette is the most important thing here, the normal and height maps will do the rest of the work. The power of the normal/height maps should never be underestimated, it is perfectly possible to create a smooth edged low-poly model with just 2 faces meeting at a 90 degree angle. Smoothing groups are key to ensuring that normal maps are baked out seamlessly. The low-poly and high-poly are usually split apart (or exploded) prior to the baking process in order to ensure that each element bakes separately from the rest of the model. Generally it is key to aim to create a low-poly model that completely encapsulates the shape of the mesh, however details that are going to be baked onto the surface can clip through the surface of the low-poly as shown in FIG B. FIG A - THE LOW-POLY MODEL WITH THE DECIMATED ZBRUSH MESH FIG B - THE LOW-POLY WITH THE HIGH-POLY (GREY) SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS A NOTE ON UVS Whenever I create my UVs, I always aim to add plenty of padding between each UV island, this is the secret to great, working textures. The more padding between each UV island, the smoother our edges will be and the better quality our normal maps will be. This is a technique to fix an optimization that most games engines use, simply put, as the player moves away from an object, our textures are reduced in size, causing bleed from one UV island to another. The more padding we add, the less evident this is. See FIG B. FIG A - THE BOOKS UVS, WITH PLENTY OF SPACE BETWEEN EACH UV ISLAND. FIG B - PLENTY OF PADDING IN OUR NORMAL MAP SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS BAKING THEORY In the examples to the left, I am showing 3 different techniques to bake normals, A and B are both right however in this instance technique B is the correct technique to create great results from our low-poly mesh. Generally speaking, when we are met with an angled corner such as in FIG A, anything close to 90 degrees should have an hard edge. Splitting the smoothing groups like this is key to ensuring that our normal maps are baked correctly. Each time we split our smoothing groups (as seen in Fig A) we MUST also separate our UVs into individual UV islands. As seen in FIG B. A B C Welded UVs and 1 SGs Useful for Organic shapes Split UVs and split SGs Useful for Hard Surface Welded Uvs and Split SGs Causes seams and broken High-poly Model - Turbosmoothed with soft edges Low-poly Model, cube consisting of 6 sides (12 triangles) A: 1 smooth group B: Split smoothing groups, unique groups per face. C: Split smoothing groups, unique Low-poly model and High-poly model aligned UVs for Low-poly Model. A: Unfold mapped, all faces connected and welded together, vertices welded. B: Each face split from the adjacent face. C: Unfold mapped, all faces connected and welded together, vertices welded. FIG A - USING SMOOTHING GROUPS CORRECTLY FIG B - SPLITTING OUR UVS ACCORDING TO SMOOTHING GROUPS SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS BAKING THEORY CONTINUED In the continued example on the left, we can see how in each example we are using a projection cage. A cage is used to limit the distance from the low-poly mesh that the normal map renderer (Xnormal in this case) projects its rays to capture the high-poly detail onto the low-poly meshs UVs. In order to create a cage that Xnormal can read we must first triangulate our low-poly model, we do this by placing an Edit Mesh modifier on-top of our low poly. (See FIG A). From here we can add a Projection modifier, to create our cage. In order to edit the extent of our cage, we can use the push slider to encapsulate our high-poly. To export our mesh into Xnormal, select the low-poly and hit File- Export - Export Selected- Save as Type - Xnormal .SBM Exporter and export the mesh with an appropriate name. A B C Welded UVs and 1 SGs Useful for Organic shapes Split UVs and split SGs Useful for Hard Surface Welded Uvs and Split SGs Causes seams and broken The box with a projection modifier based cage. Our bakes from Xnormal. Example As normals are very wobbly, and as a result they will compress badly. Example B has nice, smooth Normals, with plenty of padding to allow for correct smoothing. Example C shows nice and smooth Normals however with no padding they will have seams on their edges Our normals applied to the low-poly geometry. Our final results. Example A has wobbly normals, deforming in the light. Example B has smooth edges and smooth normals. Looks seamless. Example C has black seams across its edges. FIG A - SETTING UP OUR PROJECTION CAGE FIG B - EXPORTING THE LOW-POLY AS A .SBM FILE. SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS BAKING IN XNORMAL At this point I have, as can be seen in FIG A, my low-poly with the projection cage correctly set up to encompass my entire high-poly mesh. We now need to load our mesh into Xnormal, as in FIG B. In FIG C we can see that in order to use the projection cage we must select Use Cage from the low-poly tab. In FIG D, we have now loaded our High-poly file into Xnormal, exported as any accepted file format (including .OBJ) In FIG E, we are ready to bake our mesh (its that easy to set up!) As mentioned before, the more padding the better, so crank that right up and hit Generate Maps to render those normals! FIG A - OUR FINAL LOW-POLY PROJECTION CAGE, SET UP IN 3DSMAX FIG B FIG C FIG D FIG E SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS AO MAP AREAS OF AMBIENT SHADOW (NOT CAUSED BY DIRECT LIGHT) ARE CAPTURED IN THE AO MAP. THIS IS USED IN UE4/MARMOSET TO DARKEN DOWN OUR MODELS CREVICES TO GIVE THE APPEARANCE OF DEPTH. TEXTURE MAPS FINAL ZBRUSH MODEL, READY FOR BAKING AND TEXTURING. SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK - SCOTT@SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK DIFFUSE/ALBEDO MAP THE ALBEDO MAP IS THE COLOUR OF THE OBJECT. IN A PBR WORK-FLOW THE ALBEDO MAP SHOULD NOT CONTAIN ANY LIGHTING INFORMATION (SHADOWS OR HIGHLIGHTS). IN METALLIC AREAS THE ALBEDO COLOUR IS USED. SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS NORMALS MAP THE NORMAL MAP DEFINES THE WAY IN WHICH LIGHT INTERACTS WITH THE OBJECT. OUR GOAL IS TO BAKE OUR HIGH-POLY DETAILS INTO A NORMAL MAP TO GIVE THE LOW-POLY THE APPEARANCE OF THE HIGH DISPLACEMENT/HEIGHT MAP THE HEIGHT MAP IS BAKED AT THE SAME TIME AS THE NORMALS/AO, IT CAPTURES THE VOLUME OF THE HIGH-POLY IN ORDER TO DISPLACE THE LOW-POLY MESH. WHITE IS UP BLACK IS DOWN. SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS METALNESS MAP (OFTEN VARIES BETWEEN RENDERERS) THE METALNESS MAP DEFINES THE BASE PROPERTY OF TEXTURE. WHITE/LIGHT AREAS ARE METAL, AND BLACK REPRESENTS ALL MATERIALS NON METAL IN NATURE. GLOSS/ROUGHNESS MAP (INVERSE IN SOME GAMES ENGINES) THE GLOSS/ROUGHNESS MAP DEFINES THE TIGHTNESS OF THE SPECULAR HIGHLIGHTS. FOR EXAMPLE A VERY GLOSSY (WHITE) AREA WOULD BE VERY SMOOTH AND REFLECTIVE WHEREAS A BLACK AREA WOULD BE MATTE. SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS PBR THEORY Physically Based Rendering is a programming solution to an age old problem in Games Rendering. Historically, specular and gloss values were based on arbitrary values that typically had little or no relation to the way that specularity works in real life. When we created games pre-PBR, specular values would often vary greatly across levels, resulting in each objects properties needing to be tweaked manually across the game in order to unify them. PBR addresses this by using real-world measured specular values that are unified across the board. Regardless of the renderer, if your textures are PBR correct, your maps *should* work in the same way. As you can see in FIG A, Specular/Metalness governs the reflectivity and metallic property of the surface. This should really be an ON/OFF deal (in real life, surfaces are either metal or not) however dirty metal may fall into the grey area between the two. You can also see how Gloss/Roughness governs the sharpness of surface reflections, with rougher less glossy surfaces having bigger less defined reflections across their entire surface. Gloss/Roughness maps *can* contain far more detail than Specular maps, generally they allow for more manual tweaking without breaking PBR. FIG A - PBR DEMONSTRATION IN MARMOSET TOOLBAG 2 SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS USING REFERENCE TO IDENTIFY TEXTURE DETAIL Reference is key to capturing reality, in the texturing phase I tend to pick out several key images and isolate what makes those surfaces work the way that they do. For example in FIG A, you can see dirt that has collected in the deep crevices, giving the surface the appearance of having an almost Ambient Occlusion dirt property. In FIG B, I like how the most outward surfaces (which would receive the most handling from the user) are the most smooth and reflective. I wanted to capture this by smoothing my outward areas also and adding this reflectivity in my PBR set up. In FIG C, I used this example of worn paint as reference for the worn paint on the Hogwarts Crest, this shows the way paint flakes off when heavily damaged/disturbed. In FIG D you can see how dust collects on the top-most faces of the metal surfaces. I tried to capture this in my model by using the normal map to select the top-most surfaces and lightened these in a similar fashion. FIG A - DIRTY ORNATE DETAIL FIG B - ORNATE CAST METAL SMOOTH, SHINY SURFACES FIG C - WORN PAINT TEXTURE FIG D - DUST ON TOP FACES OF A SURFACE SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE SPELL BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF - WORK IN PROGRESS RE-CONSTRUCTING THE LOW-POLY After completing the texturing and baking process, the exploded model is ready to be reconstructed. Using the original high-poly model as a template I reconstructed the low-poly model of the book by hand. FIG A illustrates the UV mapped low-poly model, with consistent chequerboard pattering, to show that the density of the UVs is consistent across the mesh. FIG B shows the low-poly model in 3dsmax with the diffuse map only. FIG C shows the low-poly with all the PBR goodness combined with the Displacement and Tessellation on-top. FIG A - UVS AND WIRES IN MAX FIG B - DIFFUSE + LOW-POLY IN 3DSMAX FIG C - TEXTURED, RENDERED LOW-POLY SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK ORNATE BOOK - BREAKDOWN PDF THANK YOU FOR LISTENING! SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK - SCOTT@SCOTTHOMER.CO.UK