I made a Robot in 3ds and then i rigged it. And after a while i was able to export it to Unreal Engine the animations and everything working.
And now i need to work on Textures but i have never done them.
I went through documention and tutorials.
And it seems like i dont need a Light Map for skeletal meshes like mine.
And if i use a high poly and a low poly model. Then i need to bake the Normal Map.
I think that is still easy.
But, if i try to bake a normal map without a low poly mesh. Jus the high poly mesh. Then i get just a blue picture. I guess that is normal, at least so i believe.
Now i wonder if i even need a normal map if i dont use a low poly mesh.
And i am not sure what other kind of maps i need for Unreal Engine.
I started using Substance Painter and was able to import my mesh.
Can maybe someone give me a list of maps the i should use.
I want to have the best possible outcome for the Engine. The most efficient outcome for the Engine if someone wants to use my mesh.
And do i need a normal map if i dont use a low poly model?
Textures seems to me so far the most complicate thing in the whole content creating workflow.
The basic ones that I would always use are -> diffuse, normal and specular map
Beside that:
-SSS map -> defines where the subsurface scattering effect should be
-displacement map -> for tessellation
-variation textures
-ao maps
-…
displacement map - I looked this up and it looks amazing but to a high price.
There is another thing i am not really getting. At the moment i have only one smoothing group on my model. If i use the auto smoothing group option in 3ds . And then import both models into the Engine. The Auto Smoothing version has a much lower Vertex count compared to the version with only one smoothing group.
I am not understanding why it is like this. I looked in Google for some answers but couldnt find anything good.
Yeah, i will first make a version like this in Unreal Engine. And then i reduce it and make a low poly version.
Just step by step.
Will be something like a Drone of 2m x 2m x 1m.
Maybe 50k would be okay.
Can you please explain me why the Auto Smooth option in 3ds is reducing the Vertex count that much?
You should get familiar with the process of texturing, baking normal maps etc… Check out some tutorials on youtube.
About your question if you need to have a normal map, basically you need a normal map just to show details which would be to expensive “tri count” to show them with real geometry in the engine.
At least you will need a normal map if you bake your high poly mesh to a low poly mesh.
240.000 tris is not that much, especially if your robot is a big one… and your main target platform is PC. For some reason i’m reading all the time, don’t use to much tris but in my opinion tris are not that much of a problem these days.
Here is a nice list with the tri- count of some PS4 characteres, even for a weak console “comparing to a high end pc” developers are uisng 100.000 tris and more for important characters.
://www.polycount/forum/showthread.php?t=141061
My model is rigged and everything. But its a lot of different meshes.
If i import it into the Engine the model seems to get fused together.
I read the Unreal docs and there is this.
Using multiple meshes makes it possible to LOD individual parts differently as well as exporting parts separately for use in modular character systems. There is no performance penalty for creating your Skeletal Meshes this way. The individual parts are all combined when being imported into Unreal Editor.
If the mesh parts all get combined together.
Can i still texture the single parts in the Engine?
I could fuse all parts together but that would take a lot of time. And making part by parts is kind of easier then having the whole mesh.
I dont know if i should combine all the parts or not.
Can someone please give me a answer to this.
