Proper way to model and texture space ships???

Support Modeling
1

Hi guys. Im new to Blender and i started to modelling hard surfaces a week ago.

Im trying to model a space ship, well, i dont have real issues about the modelling part, but i find myself in a crossroad because:

I want to make a high poly version just for rendering purposes.

At the same time, i want to make a low poly version because i plan to use the models on unity/unreal engine.

Im using grebbles to make the ship. This means, i have tons of pieces scattered along the main hull.

So, my first two big questions are:

What is the proper workflow to texture and uvmapping all these pieces???
I imagine i need to uvmap each one of em, group em, and layout the uvs??

How do i make the low poly version from the high poly?? should i just erase most of the extra pieces and make just the main hull as the only piece?

Note that 75% of the pieces in the “high” poly version are just hard surfaces. I didnt smooth anything, except for a few grebbles here and thee.

I have a model already created in maya, but it was just a test. I used to be a maya user but for reasons i moved to blender (i dont want to know anything about Autodesk anymore) and instead of importing my model i want to start from scratch.

Is there any plugin or any specific workflow i should follow? specially when talking about the texturing/uving.
Who could imagined that hard surface modelling is far more complicated than organic modelling… lol.

Many thanks in advance.

2

Add-ons :

Hard ops (known to be one of the best Blender add-ons) :
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0RqAjByAphGEVeGn9QdPdjk3BLJXu0ho

Decal machine (just got released, looks amazing and works in combination with Hard ops) :

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcEiZ9GDvSdWJMe__2SAWtil--lCXdIsq

Some good spaceship tutorials :

and many others to find on Youtube.

What is the proper workflow to texture and uvmapping all these pieces???

If you want to have one UV map for the entire spaceship, join all the pieces and UV unwrap with either Smart UV Project or Lightmap Pack. Then, if you want to paint on one piece at a time and have it isolated in the viewport, you’ll have to Mesh>Vertices>Separate>by loose parts (or shortcut “P”).

How do i make the low poly version from the high poly??

Since you use grebbles you have to make a “retopologized” version. Now retopology is a whole other world :

Best setup I know without any add-on :

Add-on :

update : https://youtu.be/iFAqXENpKLY

There’s also Retopoflow but I don’t think it’s very suited for hard surface.

Then you’ll have to bake normals, ambient occlusion, color and all the other things you need.

Is there any plugin or any specific workflow i should follow? specially when talking about the texturing/uving

If you want a convenient layer-based workflow for texturing you have BPainter (currently in active development) :

updates :

more updates (and page to get the add-on) :

Good luck man ! Come back when you have more questions.

3

Thanks! thats a lot of info to look at. I will get into it as soon as i can. I also took a look to hardops, and looks great but its pretty confusing. But i will check it out again.

About the tutorials, already checked those out. I already was using the displacement technic for my main hull, but the rest of the tutorial is not what i was looking for, since my main problem is that im using grebbles, and the process is different at some point.

Anyways, thanks!