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[Elliott D.]

This is my dinosaur monster:

I made him in about a week of 6 hour days, with some long gaps of no work in between.

I wanted to explain some of the process for anyone who is interested, so I took a bunch of pictures and made some notes.

The original model was made in sculptris



This is surprisingly not the hardest part. Sculptris is free, powerful and simple. It takes at least a couple weeks of messing around to feel like you have any control, but once you have the hang of it, this is the easy part.

This is 316000 polygons. It's not really important for the high res model, but I try to keep that number in hand because things get a lot harder on my computer as I try to continue if the model gets closer to a million.

Then I made a low poly version


I used to do this part in 3d studio by optimizing the high res mesh in a couple stages; first procedurally and then with manual touches. I started using some projection tools still in 3d studio but they were really awkward. I tried them in blender and it was a step up, but still frustrating. I bought a program called topogun which is very specialized for two steps in this process. it was 100$ and has been well worth it to me.

This model is 1600 polygons.

To continue, the low poly model needs UV data. The pelt mapping tool in 3d studio is great for this, you define seams on the model then take the sections and stretch and relax them in a 2d simulation. This is particularly useful for organic stuff and characters.



I really enjoy packing the UVs; it is monotonous but very enjoyable for some reason.

Once this low res model is UV mapped, I can take it back into topogun with the high res model and bake out the normal map

Here is the difference this normal map makes with the low res model:


Returning to sculptris, I switch to paint mode and do an autounwrap of the high res mesh. I'm not very advanced at this part; I grab some texture images from the web and paint in colours and normals.


Using the painted high res model, I can bake the colours into a new colour map that fits the low res model.

To get the normals, I load the high res model's normal map as it's colour. I take the baked map from that and blend it in with the previous normal map to add the surface detail.


Here's the final look in Unity:

Also look at it in the webplayer for dynamic light and animation.

I'll explain the rigging and animation in an update soon.
Feel free to ask me any questions to get more detail about the process.

[Joshua]

Thanks for sharing you process. I am fascinated by how other people work (processes/workflow/tools/etc).

[Nate Kling]

Great Post! I'm sure this will be a great resource for people learning the workflow of 3d! Thanks!

[laserpanda]

I think that's the first time I've seen sculptris used to make something that isn't insanely high poly. Looks good.

[DustyDrake]

Wow, that's quite the difference!

[Elliott D.]

Yea, that's normal.

[BorisTheBrave]

I'm curious why you use pelt mapping - I thought most 3d tools offered better uv unwrapping nowdays.

[Elliott D.]

Pelt mapping is pretty much the tool that contributed the most significant decrease in the amount of time this process takes for me. If there's something better, I'd love to know what it is.

[BorisTheBrave]

I've never used pelt mapping, so I cannot really comment, but I thought that after cutting seams, automatic[url] unwrappings did a decent job.

[Elliott D.]

The first example looks like it was an automatic pelt mapping.

If you're cutting the seams, I guess that is automating the stretch and relax as well as the packing. I've never found automatic packing to do a very pleasing job.

Automatic is probably very good now. But really you can't make a flat map of the world without some sort of giant Greenland situation somewhere. I think having the control is better if you understand what all the steps mean in a graphics programming point of view.

That said, you should go with whatever makes it easier for you to make a game.

[DustyDrake]

Yea, that's normal.

Well I've never seen the difference a UV map can make so clearly, so that was quite amazing to me!

[Elliott D.]

I couldn't resist making the pun. You should see it in real time if you haven't checked out the web player that I linked.

Because it's changing the way lighting affects it, the details are convincing in motion as well.

[DustyDrake]

I couldn't resist making the pun. You should see it in real time if you haven't checked out the web player that I linked.

Because it's changing the way lighting affects it, the details are convincing in motion as well.

I did, it was amazing!