Week 5: Substance Abuse

This week I was set to go, I had my high poly at a level I could be satisfied with. So with this I decided to just commit and blitz the re-topology, unwrapping and baking with the intention of getting it all out the way ASAP at the start of the week. This gave me time for texturing and substance Painter down the line (and also go on sports socials without feeling guilty). I was expecting the retop to be a bit Challenging as I only have 4,000 triangles for the main part of the character and 2,000 for the items. As much as I like having restrictions to work round this just felt a bit comprimising considering the current state of mobile game specs. I feel like there is a common misconception about "stylised" Vs technical restraints, they are not the same thing and yet are so commonly grouped as the same. But that subject matter is for a whole over blog post though.

I crunched Monday, Tuesday and wensday morning while binge watching the first season of the wire to keep my brain somewhat active. By Wednesday afternoon I had something that with a bit of clean up would be a suitable base for texturing.

I also decided to take it upon myself to take a crack at substance painter this week, I have been meaning too for months. Part of me has been putting it off as its new software, part of me just hasn't put it as a priority over traditional methods. So it is high time I gave it a go, worse comes to worse I lose a day, maybe 2. At first it was all a bit bewildering but with a bit of consultation from Mr Burke it all started to make sense.

Now I have only used it for 2 days, it has crashed a lot (I blame DMU IT) and I am definitely under utilising it. However I really, really like this software and the potential it has. I can quite easily see most of my texturing process past baking happening in substance. It's got everything I need to make texturing enjoyable, real-time 3D/2D fully interactive viewports, organised layer structure and procedurally generated goodness.

This is great for me as texturing has always been the bane of my existence. I always loved modelling and designing. I could get my head round unwrapping and baking pretty quickly. But texturing has always been a weak spot and as a result been equally neglected. The saying a good texture can save a bad model but a bad texture can ruin a good model comes to mind here. But as all these new options are becoming available to me(e.g. Polypainting, substance, quixel...) I am really beginning to enjoy and progress at texturing and even at times enjoy it(Sometimes). Something I am really going to try and push in the future is material definition, both in my sculpts and in my material maps as this is the main difference between a good asset and a potential great one. All the highest quality most convincing realistic game art at the moment is all in the materials.

Next week I plan to clean up my texturing and make sure its all in order, that should give me a few days at the end to possible work on another small diorama scene to place and pose my character. I also hope to have some time in the evenings to get a jump start on the next project, gathering references and doing some early stage Concepting.