Prey concept art

[MeatWagon]

Hi there people from Human Head and 3DRealms. Would it be possible in the future (After E3 maybe) for you guys to release some pics of your concept art and pics of the high poly models you used to make the normal maps with. I love seeing that sort of thing and I'm sure your other fans would as well.

Actually is there any info you guys can give now, such as who is your concept artist/s, what modelling software you use for the high detail stuff(eg ZBrush) etc. If your not allowed thats cool. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[megarust]

http://www.liquiddevelopment.com/wbv/GDC%202005%20Final%20Small.wmv

Download that video, there's some Prey stuff in there, including the high poly normal map for the creature that has the man coming out of the beast with the rocket type arms. I need a name for that thing.

There's also a female dressed up in native american garb that might be Tommy's girlfriend. More interesting is that she's climbing up a small pillar in one scene (it's not in game, just examples of the models and animating them). Maybe you get to play as her at some point? Who knows.

It's kind of funny, because this video came out a while ago. When I was watching it I was wondering if the ones mentioned above was the stuff for prey, but it never specifically says which models/examples go to what game.

[Kev_Hectic]

It's weird, in the PC Gamer article that huge creature looks like a Pinky Demon with a human torso attached to the top of it, but looking back at the Liquid Development reel, it didn't really look like that at all to me. Maybe it's the texturing or something? http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif


But anyway, they did do an awesome job on that model though, I think it looks incredible. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

http://members.shaw.ca/mister_k/preymon1.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/mister_k/preymon2.jpg

[Gryph]

When I first saw that I thought it was for Quake IV.

[FireFly]

Yeah, I really like how well realised the mouth is in the screenshots.

[Micki!]

This thing totally owns Q4 & Doom 3... http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

I can't wait for this game...
But isn't there any REAL concept art..?! http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/redface.gif

[Nacho]

The little girl from the flash animation seems to be in there to.

[Lengis]

I'm pretty sure that's the high poly source art, before they texture it. They texture the high poly model, then bring the polys down for ingame

[MeatWagon]

Most excellent, thanks for the link Megarust, downloading now. That screen looks pretty damn good http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Sayantan]

Lengis said:
I'm pretty sure that's the high poly source art, before they texture it. They texture the high poly model, then bring the polys down for ingame



Yeah very true. First the high polygonal model is made without any optimization in mind; then it's textured. Then they kinda freeze that model and start building the low polygonal model keeping the high polygonal model as a reference. Then the texturing is automatically done when the high polygonal normal maps are burnt on the low polygonal models.

[Parkar]

Sayantan said:

Lengis said:
I'm pretty sure that's the high poly source art, before they texture it. They texture the high poly model, then bring the polys down for ingame



Yeah very true. First the high polygonal model is made without any optimization in mind; then it's textured. Then they kinda freeze that model and start building the low polygonal model keeping the high polygonal model as a reference. Then the texturing is automatically done when the high polygonal normal maps are burnt on the low polygonal models.



Not exactly, the high res poly model is never textured, its only used for rendering the normal map on the low poly model. The low poly model is the only one wich is ever textured.

[Sayantan]

Parkar said:

Sayantan said:

Lengis said:
I'm pretty sure that's the high poly source art, before they texture it. They texture the high poly model, then bring the polys down for ingame



Yeah very true. First the high polygonal model is made without any optimization in mind; then it's textured. Then they kinda freeze that model and start building the low polygonal model keeping the high polygonal model as a reference. Then the texturing is automatically done when the high polygonal normal maps are burnt on the low polygonal models.



Not exactly, the high res poly model is never textured, its only used for rendering the normal map on the low poly model. The low poly model is the only one wich is ever textured.



Wrong! The UV co-ordinates change a slight bit after the normal information of the high polygonal model is projected onto the low polygonal model. So for more precise results, its better to "also" burn the diffuse maps when you are burning the normal maps. You still can make it the way you are saying, but what I know pro's use my method more often than the method you are talking about. I dont think multiple UV co-ords are yet supported by current hardwares.

[Parkar]

Sayantan said:

Parkar said:

Sayantan said:

Lengis said:
I'm pretty sure that's the high poly source art, before they texture it. They texture the high poly model, then bring the polys down for ingame



Yeah very true. First the high polygonal model is made without any optimization in mind; then it's textured. Then they kinda freeze that model and start building the low polygonal model keeping the high polygonal model as a reference. Then the texturing is automatically done when the high polygonal normal maps are burnt on the low polygonal models.



Not exactly, the high res poly model is never textured, its only used for rendering the normal map on the low poly model. The low poly model is the only one wich is ever textured.



Wrong! The UV co-ordinates change a slight bit after the normal information of the high polygonal model is projected onto the low polygonal model. So for more precise results, its better to "also" burn the diffuse maps when you are burning the normal maps. You still can make it the way you are saying, but what I know pro's use my method more often than the method you are talking about. I dont think multiple UV co-ords are yet supported by current hardwares.



Why would the uv coords change when you render the normal mapp?

All the tool needs to do is for each pixel on the skin trace out/in from the low poly model and find the normal of the high poly model than save the offset between the low and high poly normal.

In all tutorials I have read on the subject the only object with an uv map has been the low poly object. I have never seen the uv map of the lowpoly object change on all the test models I have made using normal maps.

You can how ever uv map and texture the highpoly model and render that to the low poly model if you realy want to but the only thing you realy gain in that process is light information and you can render that without uv mapping a couple million polygon model so usualy you don't uv map and texture the high poly model.

[ADM]

megarust said:
There's also a female dressed up in native american garb that might be Tommy's girlfriend. More interesting is that she's climbing up a small pillar in one scene (it's not in game, just examples of the models and animating them). Maybe you get to play as her at some point? Who knows.



That's not from Prey.. it's from a UT2003(4) mod.

[Lengis]

Link?

[Gryph]

A mod used stuff made by Liquid Development? Very interesting.

[Sayantan]

Parkar said:
Why would the uv coords change when you render the normal mapp?



Because its actually a projection method and depends on the way you are projecting. It doesn't have to match the polycount of the both versions of the model. Its a common sense to think that normals do have a probability to not match perfectly.

C'mon, you do know that the normal information on corners as well as at the middle of a flat large polygon do react completely different after normal mapping. So dont you think its better to make the diffuse texture more compatible to the high polygonal model rather than the low polygonal one?

As for example, think of the player hands in D3. Do you think the diffuse were made using the low polygonal hand wires? If you do, I'd have to say you dont have "that" eye or common sense. It "ofcourse" depends on the artist as of how he wants to accomplish his task. But my main point is pros dont create the diffuse based on the UV co-ords on the low polygonal model ................ not even for wall panel textures

nuf said http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[George Broussard]

Parkar is right.

- Build high poly
- Build low poly (can swap the above, it's artist prefernce)
- Generate normal map (from a program that take's both models).
- Unwrap the low poly and create diffuse, spec, etc, textures.

I don't know anyone that textures the high poly models. There is no need. It's sole purpose is to create the normal map to fake the higher poly geometry. The low poly models get all the texture work.

[Sayantan]

/me bad .......... I wouldn't dare to comment on a Uber-Industry-Professional. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hhg.gif
You say it's true; its gotta be true.

But still this soul isn't satisfied. I'll try to explain what I said above with proper visual examples next time. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/redface.gif

[ADM]

Lengis said:
Link?



http://www.damnationthegame.com/

[Parkar]

How its solved in the corners/edges is that if the surface is smooth the angle you trace out from the low poly model is interpolated between the normals of the 2 (or more if its a corner) polygons in question. (Not entirely sure how this is done in detail or if I have understood this particular detail correctly)

here is a tutorial that explains the whole process and theory behind it rather good.

http://www.monitorstudios.com/bcloward/tutorials_normal_maps1.html

[Killd a ton]

George Broussard said:
Parkar is right.

- Build high poly
- Build low poly (can swap the above, it's artist prefernce)
- Generate normal map (from a program that take's both models).
- Unwrap the low poly and create diffuse, spec, etc, textures.

I don't know anyone that textures the high poly models. There is no need. It's sole purpose is to create the normal map to fake the higher poly geometry. The low poly models get all the texture work.



The only case i know of where one would texture the high poly version is if the game engine dosen't support normal mapping and you just bake all of the models looks in to a defuce texture. Oh, and then for cinimatic ofcaues.

[Sayantan]

Okay I wanna know something else.

The following is a leg I made in 3dsmax7.

http://img142.echo.cx/img142/3214/normalopt7vj.jpg

Both the models are the same. The left one is a simple low polygonal model, whereas the right one is the same model with the normal maps of another high polygonal version burnt onto it. Now say I need to use a constant skin texture throughout (assuming that the renderer is one having per-pixel lighting) and will make the texture really flat (without any highlights or shadows). But I also want to add a bit of red-ish detail at some exact parts of the knee. I usually use a program like "Texporter" to get the UV co-ords from the model onto a texture and then start making textures. Now if I use the UV co-ords of the low polygonal model as a reference for the texture, How am I gonna paint the red-ish details on the knees precisely? http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

I thought about this problem a lot and only found one solid solution uptil now ---------> Also burn the diffuse maps after you've textured the high polygonal model instead.

Please contribute if you know more about how to solve it. And I apologise to everyone here to go really OFF-TOPIC. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

[pegisys]

the color map is the diffuse map, you have to use the same uvw, if you ever did bump mapping in max it's just about the same thing

you can still use texporter but you have to unwrap it in a way that can be drawn on when you do the uv for the normal map

[Killd a ton]

In other word's do your uv then rendere the normal map using the uv you just made.

if you want some visual Q's to where what is on your model with bump just bake a compleat rendere and have it in a seporat layere in photoshop.

[Sayantan]

Killd a ton said:
if you want some visual Q's to where what is on your model with bump just bake a compleat rendere and have it in a seporat layere in photoshop.



Thats exactly what I was talking bout. The only difference is I was saying to bake the diffuse to be the diffuse for the low poly normal mapped version. But to achieve that I gotta texture the high poly version rather than the low poly one.
Note:- I might just have to unwrap the low poly ........ but thats all I'll need to do for the low poly.

[Killd a ton]

baking the defuce would mean that you wold only get the defuce texture colors and would also have to unwrap the high poly model.

[Sayantan]

Killd a ton said:
baking the defuce would mean that you wold only get the defuce texture colors and would also have to unwrap the high poly model.



Yes. Thats true. But that can't be avoided in case I need to get my hands to texture the nifty details which are there on the high poly model and that's exactly what I'm trying to say and will be willing to do.

[polypusher]

George, you get more bang for your buck if you texture the high poly model and bake that onto the low poly. Then you can recycle the high poly model for publicity art or whatever.

You can get away from UV unwrapping the high poly model by using the 3d program's auto UV tool(s) and painting the texture in a 3d/2.5d painting program like ZBrush. You should already have ZBrush on hand for detail sculpting the high poly models. It's a must these days. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

This removes some of the work in textureing the low poly model and frees you from some contraints that come from texturing for low poly. Plus you can easily generate higher resolution texture maps if you start with 512x512 and decide mid-way through production to up them to 1024x1024, etc

[Parkar]

uv mapping a several million poly model takes a lot of time. Just building the high resolution model is enough extra work as it is.

Yes you can get very nice results by doing this but a good texture artist will do a very good job at it on the low poly model quicker then doing all the stuff involved in texturing, making shaders, uv map etc for the high poly model.

Besides in most cases you will probably have to do some tweaking to the generated skin after baking it to the low poly texture map.

I don't think texturing the high poly details directly on the low poly texture is much of a problem after you have rendered the normal map since you can see were the details are. And if you want to you could renderer a grey shaded version of the high poly mesh to the texture and use that to see were stuff is. There is probably even more good ways to see what you are actualy texturing but since my experience with normal mapping is rather small I have not tried many different ways to see which is more efficient.

[polypusher]

Read my post over.

UV mapping the high poly model takes no time at all.

You use the modeling package's auto UV'ing feature. In Maya it's called Automatic Mapping, in Max it's Unfold.

You then have the texture artist paint the texture ON the object in 3d with ZBrush.

If you want to use shaders for effects they take minimal time to set up and are reused on multiple models. One Skin shader can service any character once you plug it's texture node into it.

Any touchups to the low poly texture map can still be preformed into photoshop or ZBrush

In practice this kind of pipeline is as fast, if not faster, than painting textures the old way, is more intutive for artists, has the benefits I listed in my first post and is the way content will be created in the future.

Check out this movie to see how fast it is to generate a detailed highpoly model with ZBrush.

Angler Fish (http://206.145.80.237/zbrush/media/AnglerMovie_Shorter.mov)

The movie starts from scratch but for the case we're discussing the workflow would be to take your medium-low poly model from Maya or Max and bring it into ZBrush for this stage. You can paint color onto the model the same way the artist in the vid is painting modeling detail. It's really that simple.

[Parkar]

The feture you are talking about is not called unfold but automatic unwraping in Max and it creates seems like nothing else, wich may or may not be a big problem in zbrush if you use high enough resolutions on the textures. Using unfold would be realy bad since the uv would over lap like mad so painting at one place will put color at another. Unfold is just a tool in the uvmapping tool thats suposed to be used with smaller parts of a model in the uv mapping process.

I am not saying you can't do it your way or that its a worse way. But I myself prefer working on skins in 2d rather then on the 3d model. If you prefer painting in 2d then a good uv map is a must. The way I would use the zbrush "3d" painting other then making detail on highres meshes is painting directly on the low poly model in zbrush. This way I only need the uv map from the low poly model that has been done by hand meaning its actualy useful painting in 2d as well if I want to do a certain detal in 2d. I also see exactly what I get and don't need to bake it to the lowpoly texture to test and see how it will realy look.

I realy need to try the new zbrush. The old one sucked badly but from what I have heard the new one is realy nice and most people use it to do the highres model.

Edit: also are we not ging offtopic by the way, can't remeber what the topic was realy about.

[Sayantan]

Cool down guys. It was me who started this Super off-topic thingy. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif
Let me conclude by saying "Its Artist preference". http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tinyted.gif

[Parkar]

I think we cooled down about 1 day ago if we were ever heated.

Your word summs it up pretty good though.

[g-dog]

Not sure who won...but you two guys blown-my-mind w/ your knowledge/insights into poly-pushing (wink). My mouse and I bow down to thee(s).

[polypusher]

Nobody won. You can't be right or wrong with this kind of thing. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Sayantan]

polypusher said:
Nobody won. You can't be right or wrong with this kind of thing. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif



Yeah coz all theory changes after a bit of graphic technology advancements. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[PlayfulPuppy]

George Broussard said:
Parkar is right.

- Build high poly
- Build low poly (can swap the above, it's artist prefernce)
- Generate normal map (from a program that take's both models).
- Unwrap the low poly and create diffuse, spec, etc, textures.

I don't know anyone that textures the high poly models. There is no need. It's sole purpose is to create the normal map to fake the higher poly geometry. The low poly models get all the texture work.



Eh? I've always unwrapped the low-poly model before creating the normal map, so that the diffuse and the normal maps can share the same set of texture coordinates.

Seems rather wasteful to do it the other way around, do you guys keep multiple coordinate channels or just laboriously move the normal maps to match the unwrapped diffuse map?

[Killd a ton]

only very very very few games supports multiple mapping coordinate to be stored to there model format.

[PlayfulPuppy]

Killd a ton said:
only very very very few games supports multiple mapping coordinate to be stored to there model format.



Being my point. I mean, it's perfectly possible, but a bit unusual.

[polypusher]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but this is just an example of the method I use:

http://www.bfcommandcontrol.org/pink/gallery/psy2.jpg

I was able to bang this out in about 5 hours. Another hour or two to create a realtime mesh and it's ready to be brought in-game.

[Soilwork]

That's some nice work.

[Steve]

Very cool.

[hell-angel]

Imagine running into that in prey. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Steve]

hell-angel said:
Imagine running into that in prey. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif


I'd kill it. Kill it goooood http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[hell-angel]

Steve said:

hell-angel said:
Imagine running into that in prey. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif


I'd kill it. Kill it goooood http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif



As would I, but not before I have to change my underwear. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[polypusher]

Thanks for the compliments all. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif


hell-angel said:
Imagine running into that in prey. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif



I was thinking more of a Blood vibe.

Either way. 3D Realms/ Human Head know where to find me... http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Malgon]

Very nice dude. Thats pretty cool for five hours work. I like it. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Mr.Sociopath]

what was done in 5 hours exactly?

[polypusher]

Mr.Sociopath said:
what was done in 5 hours exactly?



What do you mean?
The creature. Didn't the image show up for you?

[Mr.Sociopath]

polypusher said:

Mr.Sociopath said:
what was done in 5 hours exactly?



What do you mean?
The creature. Didn't the image show up for you?



you are saying you did everything from ground up, the model(all pure modeling, with all the details) and textures in 5 hours?

edit: ok, now i just saw the tutorial you gave a link to.. now i understand how it is possible..
sorry I was thinking of something like more standard vertex modeling which would take longer in my opinion..
so great work there , i'm impressed http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[polypusher]

Yeah, Zbrush is great. For things like the veins on the back of his hands, you "paint" them on in 3d and it raises it up and paints it blue at the same time in one stroke. Brilliant.

[DudeMiester]

I don't see why you would want to texture the low-poly model ever. Consider if you have multiple LODs for the model. It's a lot easier to simply project a high poly model's texture onto a low poly one, then entirely retexture it. Furthermore, it's much more natural to be texturing the high poly model, as you have a better idea of what colour should be where, based on the mesh structure. The computer is can easily project and filter the high-res texture onto the low poly one. It's seems quite clear to me that GB is wrong (at least in the sense of the ideal process), but those comments are old, and maybe his perspective has changed.

[Parkar]

DudeMiester said:
I don't see why you would want to texture the low-poly model ever. Consider if you have multiple LODs for the model. It's a lot easier to simply project a high poly model's texture onto a low poly one, then entirely retexture it. Furthermore, it's much more natural to be texturing the high poly model, as you have a better idea of what colour should be where, based on the mesh structure. The computer is can easily project and filter the high-res texture onto the low poly one. It's seems quite clear to me that GB is wrong (at least in the sense of the ideal process), but those comments are old, and maybe his perspective has changed.



LOD's are usualy not hand made.

Have you ever uv mapped a 100 000 000 poly model? It sure is a lot more work then uv mapping a 5000 poly model, trust me. The artist has more control if he paint's the low poly model to. You could always just colour the high poly model and render a GI texture to the low poly model so the artist can clearly tell were the details are since that does not require a uv map on the high poly model.

I have honestly never heard of anyone doing it the way you say so if you can point to a tutorial or someone discussing this method that would be an interesting read.

[DudeMiester]

Well uv mapping it would be hard for sure, but why would you do that? Just paint the texture directly on the high res model in 3D. There are plenty of programs you can do that with, most notably ZBrush. Getting an ideal UV map for the high poly model is unimportant, so automatic generation would be fine. For the low poly models you can tweak the map how you like, and let a projection algorithm take care of filling in the actiual data.

[polypusher]

The problem with generating your art like this though is it takes away some of the power from low poly artists.

Because they are mostly the ones running the art departments in game studios right now, methods like this are meeting resistance. They've spent years perfecting their techniques of painting lighting information and detail into the texture, laying out UV's and counting every single triangle. As the tech improves, these menial tasks becomes less important. The people who can't adapt; the thought of their niche becoming obsolete scares them.

Before normal mapping, high poly artists didn't get jobs in games except for doing pre-rendered cinematics(like Blizzard) or game cover art. At present, they're hired specially to generate the high poly models for normal maps, becuase a lot of studios didn't have anyone on staff to handle these chores.

As the years go by you're going to see less and less of a division between game art and regular CGI and more artists with a cinematic background infiltrate the industry. It's like the early 90's when Disney animators began getting getting jobs at Lucasarts on Sam and Max and Day of the Tentacle

[DudeMiester]

Oh I'm sure, but I was speaking of ideals, not petty politics.