- Home /
The question is answered, right answer was accepted. Also too broad a question for UA!
Blender vs Mudbox Workflow for Games
So right now I'm really confused...I'm following video tutorial here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg-GUvYRHcU for making a Human Template Character. My intention is then rework it further, animate, and use it more for video games. I originally started with mudbox but I grew frustrated because I've been told and am hearing its bad workflow to start with a sculpting program so I previously played around with blender and came across the above video for making a low poly human character and I've been wanting to learn it more anyway since it seemed more game-friendly though I've heard Maya and 3ds work better so i'm not sure anymore other then it seems to be preference I guess.
The engine I intend to use is Unity 3D and I recall at the beginning of the above video that this type of character template is designed to work well for games which I am working on in blender. Well i'm pretty much finished with it almost and I noticed that the Subdivision being at Level 3 with the Modifier on has the Tris Count in Object View is much higher then what it shows in Edit Mode so this as really concerned me since it shows the Tris at around 230k + currently.
Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/AQEjNT8.png
Or is that inaccurate? I know they say for games its best to try to keep the polycount as low as possible. The original character I created in Mudbox to start with for this game I am working on was around 500k but after retopology I dropped it to a mere 153k. I was thinking this was still much too high even though I ported him into Blender Fine to try to animate and I had him all rigged up but the rigging was not working so I started from scratch with just blender instead since I thought maybe this would be better to keep it lower for game use which has me concerned and wondering am I wasting my time. Also I remember that the starting mesh to work from in Mudbox which is normally for a base to resculpt is at around 66k I believe. So I'm pretty much feeling like I could go back and rework it all to be far less then what the Tris is currently at in Blender...I'm very confused and am not sure at this point if I should continue but I'm very inexperienced at this too so I find myself stuck at a standstill again right now.
Does anyone who's made video games have any tips or advice for me so I can get over this problem?
Unless you plan on hovering 5cm over the surface of that character, there is no point in that much detail. Phong Shading and textures will make it look just as good from that distance at a much lower subdivision level. I don't think you have to start over, but since your inexperienced, I'm just going to say: The more you make, the more you experiment, the more you "play around"... the better!
Answer by VesuvianPrime · Oct 22, 2013 at 12:49 PM
Deygus, a typical workflow for games:
1) Build your low-poly character in a modelling tool like Maya, 3DSMax, Blender, etc
2) UV map the character
3) Export the character into zBrush/Mudbox
4) Do your high-poly sculpting
5) Bake out the detail into a normal map
6) Apply the normal map to your low poly character
Also, I can't stand Blender. It uses Z up which causes all kinds of problems with Unity's Y up.
Open Unity and make an empty GameObject. Select it and take a look at the axis. You'll see an arrow for each dimension: XYZ. Notice that the Y arrow points upwards.
Different 3d applications have different axis. In Blender do the same thing: make a cube, select it, toggle the transform tool and look at the axis. You'll see that Z is up.
There are ways to export from programs and adjust the axis orientation, but it's very problematic, causes unwanted rotations, and never seems to work properly. A regular question on this site is "How do I export from Blender to Unity?".
$$anonymous$$y personal preference has always been $$anonymous$$aya. It's an industry standard tool and is very, very well integrated into Unity. You can also get free student editions of the software.
$$anonymous$$aya, like many 3D packages, will present you with a window when you first start it. This window will guide you through a number of videos to get started.
That's a separate question, but well documented in UA.
Blender for example uses different coord system to Unity and so it is required to rotate the model in Blender and apply rotation before you export in order to make it match up. It's not really a problem but can sometimes take some wangling. Obviously not ideal from workflow perspective but once you work it out its smooth sailing.
Never$$anonymous$$d and yeah I found that as you mentioned @$$anonymous$$eat5000
I decided to research it some more and came across a few articles about it. Seems like it resolves itself now in the latest version of Blender and Unity but I can see reference to where it still caused issues for some with modelling. I didn't see $$anonymous$$e as rotated 90 Degrees but then again I exported and reimported as .obj to then map the textures over later. Still playing around with it though.
I'm not arguing any of it, just trying to understand it better. I think I understand where it might become a problem with the skeleton but can't really look at that now since I don't have a fully built character that is rigged and animated. I'm mostly trying to figure out which way to go on this because even though I hear its good to be versatile with workflow and programs I don't really wanna waste my time learning this in one program if I'm better off learning it in say $$anonymous$$aya or another as an example because then I feel like I'm gonna have to remake it over and over for just the same character which is a bit annoying when I am trying to get past that part to have something ready.
The article I found said even $$anonymous$$ax has Z up and a few others where was $$anonymous$$aya has Y up but can switch.
I had the game object selected in the window.
Follow this Question
Related Questions
Beginning Game Development for Unity 2 Answers
blender export, strip out scale curves 2 Answers
Voice chat, when close to object? c# 1 Answer
Maya fbx vs Blender fbx 2 Answers