New to Modeling

Hi all, I’m new to modeling and I’m working on a large game on my own. I have a couple questions about getting models into a game (I’m working with UE4). I think I can easily figure out how to transfer the weapon over, but I have some questions about workflow leading to that.

Basically, my question is about texturing/materials, baking, and retopology.

I currently have a model made up of multiple objects, each of which I want to have its own reflective values (ie made of individual materials). I’m certain that, overall, I could have a single material/uv map that’s just extremely detailed, but I’m not at that point yet.

I looked at this for some guidance:

I would be using Blender rather than zbrush or topogun, obviously, but my questions are more conceptual anyway.

So right now I have a model with 76k faces, double that for tris - but this is including subsurface view:2 and mirror modifiers. 77k verts as well. Any “sharp” edges I have, I’ve been cutting an edge ring and sliding it to the sharp edge, creating a bunch of doubles. So I think in the non-subsurface model, I can remove doubles and bring those down immensely as well.

Would a potential (good) workflow approach be to dupe my current model, remove the subsurface modifier, remove the doubles, and use that as a good low-poly mesh? Or am I better off committing my modifiers and creating a new one from scratch?

Another major question is, if I were to apply various materials to the different objects in my model, then create a single-object topology and bake it with the individual materials on the hi-poly mesh, could I sort of auto-create a UV map that implies different materials for the low-poly topo? Having different objects is the only way I know to use different materials, but keeping them separate doesn’t seem like it would work for retopologizing.

Also, in that link I posted, the model/render at the bottom appears to reflect light properly (after a few seconds of loading), but the shield still remains flat when looked at from the proper angle. Is this what I should expect with a retopology? Details that are essentially hinted at with reflections and shadows, but aren’t actually there?

Just trying to understand the concepts! Thanks :slight_smile:

Moved from “General Forums > Blender and CG Discussions” to “Support > Modeling”

this is not a question, you are asking about an entire workflow, which is a skill you have to learn over time, not a question that has an answer.

there are 3 ways to learn it, trail and error, and ask for help along the way.
invest money into videos / coaching / schooling / courses
watch free tutorials and reading technical articles.

we can give you some tips and tricks along the way, but the “question” you are asking would essentially require us to go into detail about so much, it would essentially be an article at the end.
i can help you, but for this much, i wont be doing it for free.

the workflow also depends heavily on what you are doing, characters, props, environments, etc. they all have different workflows.

if you have any specific questions along the way, feel free to ask and i will reply to them as soon as i can, but i wont write an article about workflow.

That makes sense, thanks! I think my questions were really just meant to be yes/no questions to make sure I was thinking about them right.

But! I’ve moved to something else for now - right now I’m having trouble scaling a material. I’ve got multiple materials on a single object, and I’m using the principled BSDF shader for each of them so since it’s experimental maybe that’s the problem. But essentially, the materials are way larger than I would like them to be while place on individual vertex groups on my object.

I would guess that the problem is that I couldn’t scale it with multiple materials on the object - however, I have a completely separate object which is experiencing the same issue.

I’ve tried changing the texture mapping in the window on the right, but it doesn’t appear to be scaling.
Also, one of the materials I have has partial transparency (transparency in some segments but not others), but the transparency is rendering as black rather than transparent. The only image texture I’m using that has any background whatsoever is a black background, but it’s a diffuse map.

Got a fix for either of these?

Scrap that! I figured out how to rescale my textures. Problem was kinda weird because I was using multiple materials on different segments of the same object, but once I figured out I could unwrap and scale those sections of the object on their own while maintaining their individual materials, my life got a WHOLE lot easier. Still trying to figure out transparency though! I’ve got a grill material and I basically want the holes to act as holes.