Trim Sheet|Detailed Breakdown
Hello
My name is SHUBHAM KUMAR and this is my process for making Assets which use both Trim Sheets and a Second UV Channel .
Goal of this breakdown is to achieve an appealing quality in lowest material count as possible
Why do this?- This process can be used where Vertex paint in engine is not feasible and the size of the object is huge .This would be a perfect scenario where trim sheets are the most useful .However the biggest limitations of Trim sheets are uniqueness in Wear ,Dirt and Contact AO .
TRIM SHEET
For the house I was provided with a Blockout mesh from the Client so I didn’t have to spend as much time on blocking out and I started by figuring out Materials.
Picking Materials
I picked different materials which I felt would be a best fit from multiple references. Although, be sure to keep this in mind, what the overall theme of the game is and do the appropriate research to get a feel for it. In this case, I took inspiration from the game For Honor and looked for interesting reference points.
Texture Insight
My Trim/Tiling texture creation is slightly unusual but I get the best result by this method .
For tiling textures most of the time I rely on Substance Alchemist/Bitmap2Material for my normal map+curvature+AO map
If I don’t get the desired result from this then I create my maps in Substance designer .
- If I am using Substance Alchemist/Bitmap2Material method I get my images from Unsplash.com or similar royalty free sites.
- Then I make the image tiling in Photoshop and take it to Substance Alchemist/Bitmap2Material and extract normal+curvature+AO .
- Import these maps in Substance Painter and use tiling texture sample scene .
- I then make groups with masks of different materials and work in the respective groups.
- This is how I made some tiling textures on this trim but it can different for others .
In Substance Designer method I make my normal map+curvature+AO maps and export them to substance painter.
- I then use the same tiling texture sample scene but this time I input all the three maps in Texture Set Settings and bake rest of the maps from normal map .
- Then I texture it like a normal asset in substance painter.
- I used this method because I get more control on albedo than substance designer and also I get the ability to paint or erase certain elements.
- I made all the trim elements Tiling first then I brought them in a separate scene and masked them according to trim .
Above steps look tedious or time consuming but they are not .Making texture tile in Photoshop takes hardly 10 minutes , Substance alchemist give me all the maps in less than 5 minutes ,I also use their tiling algorithm but sometime Photoshop is the best option .
Substance Painter step takes me approx an 40 minutes since I was also experimenting with megascan normal maps and albedo .
I use these methods because they saves huge chunks of time. If you have a deadline and you spend most of it making textures from scratch this can break the project or being on a hourly pay system and asking the client for more time because you spend most of it making textures from scratch instead using megascans or alchemist and get 90% similar result .
As a freelancer nobody cares how you make the art unless it breaks the game or get client in legal trouble.
Deciding Trim Spacing in Texture Sheet and Texel Density
I decide spacing by determining how big a particular texture would be in the object . In this case Roof >Tiling Wood > Wooden Planks > Carvings,ropes, stone base .
Then i decided the texel density — 5.12 Px/cm
Draw a Plane
400 x 400 cm (2048)
200 x 200 cm (1024)
Pick texel density from this ,This will be your final texel density . It’s really simple :)
Modeling
Like I previously stated the Blockout was provided hence I started making kits from the trim sheet and copied them wherever necessary .
As you can see I modeled few parts and then copied them everywhere . wherever there was a necessity for a new part I modeled them respectively.
Ropes are made traditionally with spline in 3ds max . It was the most time consuming process but it was worth it in the end .
Things to do before making a second UV channel
Note — Before starting this make sure your mesh is final .
1- Do a mesh clean up to avoid n-gons or other errors
2- Check your UV’s and make sure everything is unwrapped properly
3- Combine your meshes with respect to their appropriate texture sheets .
4- In my case — I sent a bunch of screenshots to the client for the final approval of the mesh and I got minor feedback .
It’s best to deal with these now than redoing the entire second UV channel
5- Backup your original mesh and work on a clone mesh .
Making 2nd UV Channel
Here is a Video of preparing a second UV Channel in 3ds max
- https://youtu.be/yOw357nhqEE
NOTE — For the second UV channel minimize separating the seams in your mesh and keep UV’s stitched as much as possible .
This will be your final mesh to be used in the game . Congratulations you have successfully prepared your mesh .
Baking AO and Making Masks
So, for this step we need the second UV channel in first UV channel since Substance Painter is not compatible with Multiple UV Channels
Make a copy of the final mesh and copy the second UV in the first UV channel and export the FBX to Substance Painter .
Here’s how to do this in 3ds Max — https://youtu.be/HVY5f3m2bAM
Export these maps from Painter and create a channel pack similar to a RMA map
In my case I set this up as follows
R- AO
G-Moss Mask
B- Dirt Mask
Unreal Engine Material
Export the textures and mesh to your preferred Game Engine. In my case, I’m using Unreal Engine 4 .
NOTE — When you Import your Mesh in Unreal Engine make sure to Turn off ‘Generate Lightmap UV ’ .
The material for this is fairly simple . I don’t possess a vast technical knowledge in UE4 materials
These are the options I wanted the control of-
Rendering and Lighting
For lighting I used this Free Showcase Pack — https://polycount.com/discussion/146118/showcase-bp-in-unreal-engine-4-showcase-your-models-with-ease
I used this as a base fill light and then added spot and point lights over this .
Our goal with lighting here is to show the work in a dramatic/interesting way , Showing every corner is not as important as focusing on the bigger picture .
In this case, I tried to keep outer lighting fairly white with the lamps in a yellow tint .
I chose to keep the interior in a warm tone to create a contrast between the outer and inner lights.
Remember to setup a fixed camera as final composition and add lights according to that respective camera , Later rotate the object not the camera.
The floor is a simple sphere cut on top which I then used to get floor shadows.
I used a Basic Camera with the Field of View turned to 40, to get a slight isometric feel .
Taking Screenshots
Before capturing screenshots I recommend to increasing the Screen Percentage from
100 to 200.
To ease the process in Photoshop I took every screenshot twice.
1- The Final image .
2- The same final image with a green background in unlit mode and ground plane turned off.
My camera was locked to prevent any changes in the final composition .
These steps have given me freedom to edit my background separately .
Fire is just for presentation purposes and is made from this awesome tutorial:
Limitations and Uses —
- This process is not useful for a Level Mesh
- Requires second UV channel masks to be made every time
- Can be used where Baking Lightmap is not possible and the mesh is not static like this huge Ship in the game — The Outer Worlds
Final Results
THANK YOU FOR READING !
Contact — shubham77225@gmail.com
Artstation — https://www.artstation.com/shubham01
Discord — shubham kumar#6566
