Hello! This article will speak a little more about the time-consuming nature of creating models for the game. We touched on it in the previous article. You can now catch up on it in a video form: [previewyoutube=LG4QkirarhU;full][/previewyoutube] In our devlogs we usually talk about the development of The Riftbreaker specifically. The contents of the articles are accurate, but relevant mostly only to this one production. Today’s topic is a little different. We’re going to talk about a very important aspect of creating 3D video game assets in general: polygon counts. Most of you know that computer graphics use polygons as ‘building blocks’ - two-dimensional, primitive shapes, that connect with each other to form three-dimensional objects on the computer screen. Even though our machines get more powerful every year, we still have to limit the number of polygons on the screen at one time, and this is what today’s article is about. We’re still going to base it on our process, but many things here are common for artists in the game development industry. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/dae1bfaf80d44442bf388f510f4b1008d6e754f9.png[/img] [b][I]Did someone ask for artillery monsters? Software: Zbrush.[/i][/b] Every prop, building or creature that we make starts as a concept sketch. Based on that sketch, a 3D artist prepares a blockout - a simple version of the model that is supposed to show the general shape of the model they’re working on in three dimensions. Once that is approved, they start the sculpting process. Using specialized modelling software, artists turn the simple blocks into very detailed models, even down to things that are barely visible. This process adds a lot of complexity and the polygon count skyrockets into millions. A so-called hi-poly model is born. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/50a0f2791200234386ba6906f61b24a2feaa45e6.png[/img] [b][I]A rock like this might look simple enough, but there is a lot of things that we can optimize here![/i][/b] These kinds of models are, unfortunately, not very useful in our world. We have thousands of objects on the screen at a time. If every one of them had such a high polygon count, no GPU in the world could render it in real-time. We have to adapt each model by lowering the polygon count, through the process called retopology. The artist reduces the complexity of the model, substituting detailed portions of it with simpler shapes. It doesn’t mean that all the painstakingly-crafted detail is lost, though. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/52e01eac27ec3950af16883946b3ddbea54e94af.png[/img] [b][I]This is what a normal map looks like. (It was made for the rock from the previous example. See if you can decipher what goes where :D ) It isn't pretty and only barely human-readable, but it does a great job saving our GPUs the hassle of rendering a LOT of unnecessary polygons.[/i][/b] When you think about it, all the creases, wrinkles, scales, screws that you see on 3D objects are a result of a difference in height in relation to the base plane. It is possible to recreate that without increasing the polygon count using normal mapping. Normal mapping is a technique that allows us to imitate the lighting of little bumps and dents, but on a flat surface. A normal map is a regular RGB texture, but the game engine does not take the RGB values to represent color - in reality, those values store the coordinates of the original polygons. The lighting reacts with the normal map the same way it would with physical models. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/232c49479fc1735213e6a4b7f7e3e0ca60e22288.jpg[/img] [b][I]Stages of preparing a building model to be put into the game.[/i][/b] We try to lower the polygon count as much as we can, reducing the initial millions to mere thousands. This allows us to render all the game objects in real-time. So, there you go - all (almost…) these steps need to be done before we can put a new model into the game. We hope the article was interesting to you, and if you would like to learn about any other aspects of game developments, feel free to ask us on our Discord! [url=https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios][img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//34659267/f0ec4006cadc3d25dbcea98e6a287efcdb3f178a.png[/img][/url] Useful links: www.facebook.com/exorstudios www.twitter.com/exorstudios www.mixer.com/exor_studios www.twitch.tv/exorstudios www.youtube.com/exorstudios