Introduction
Hello everyone! My name is Fadi Azar, and I’m a self-taught 3d Artist with a main focus on Hard-Surface and Props. Currently working for Experiment 101 in Stockholm, Sweden.
I love everything related to 3D and making games, and I’m trying in each project to develop myself in a certain aspect to achieve good-looking assets.
Goals
My main goal in this project is to make a mix between hard surfaces and props at the same time to showcase my ability with handling those two things together.
Software
I started learning Blender last year and now it’s my main tool for the modelling pipeline and Uv Mapping. I used Substance painter for baking and texturing and Marmoset for rendering and I arranged my references in PureRef.
References/Inspiration
Finding references for this project wasn’t that easy, I spent quite a lot of time searching for references and videos for the motorcycle to understand how the shapes were constructed from all the angels.
Modelling
After collecting all my references I started blocking out the shapes using primitive objects and very basic shapes just to get an idea about the overall look and use them as a starting point for detailing the mesh.
I usually used to use ZBrush to make the high poly mesh by using the Dynamesh workflow, but in this project, I tried to use only Blender for the whole pipeline, so the high polys are a mix between SubD and remeshing workflow( A bit similar to Dynamesh workflow in ZBrush).
I will explain how I approach the remeshing workflow to one of the objects that I used in this project.
1. First I selected the sharpened edges ( If this option does not give the desired result of selecting a specific edge so you should select it manually).
2. The next step is to crease the selected edges so that we can use the subdivision modifier to get a clean look around the cylinders.
3. The scaling of the object is very important when it comes to using the remesh modifier so make sure that you applied the (rotation and the scale) of the selected object.
4. Choose the Voxel option inside the remesh modifier and decrease the Voxel Size value (lower value means dense mesh so be careful when you decrease it) and don’t forget to enable the Smooth Shading option.
5. Then I added a Corrective Smooth modifier, I enabled Only Smooth and then I increased the Repeat option to polish the edges and get a smoother mesh, value between (25 and 50) works fine.
6. I then added the Decimate modifier and chose the Collapse option and I decreased the Ratio value between (0.1 and 0.2) which should work fine.
Tip: This workflow could slow your viewport in Blender when you use it for multiple objects, so be careful when using it.
And for the tires here is a breakdown of how I approached them.
For the cloth, I used the Simply Cloth pro-Addon, so basically, I modelled a rough mesh then selected the boundary edges and I pin them and then I hit the play bottom. After that, I adjusted the mesh manually by enabling Proportional Edit. This function will let me transform selected vertices while having that transformation affect other nearby elements within a specific range.
For the gun, the GasCan and the shovel I used the same modelling workflow for the high polys which was subD and remeshing.
For the Uv mapping, I usually use the Uv toolkit Addon. It has very useful functionality when it comes to straightening the UV islands that will help later to save a lot of Uv space when it comes to packing.
For packing the Uvs I used UvPackMaster, it gives a very decent result when I pack my Uvs. So for example, when I have a mirrored Uv Islands I usually enable Lock Overlapping which will preserve my mirrored islands whenever I repack my UVs. It’s very useful.
Texturing
Texturing is the most enjoyable part of the whole process.
I used Substance Painter for the baking and the texturing, but I usually do some simple setup before start texturing. I change the Color Profile to ACES_UE4_Log made by Bleleux and then I enable Tone Mapping and I change the Function to Log.
After that in the Shader Parameters, I change the quality of the Ao to High and I use Studio Tomoco for the Environment. Those simple steps will make the viewport in Painter to look a bit similar to Marmoset’s viewport.
I usually start texturing by layering the details one by one. I spend most of the time layering/Painting the details in the BaseColor/Roughness because, in my opinion, they are the most important maps in texturing.
Rendering
For lighting, I used a bunch of point lights and a HDRI. I usually try to use different lighting scenarios to see how the mesh would look in different environments. For this project, I used a low contrast indoor HDRI from Polyhaven.
For the post effect, I set the Tone Mapping to ACES and I increased the contrast just a bit to give it more highlights, and for the rest of the post effects, I just adjusted randomly until I liked it (like the Sharpen and the Vignette).
I wanted to make the motor be more in contact with the ground so that is why I added the mud, it’s just a simple mesh that I made using Geometry Nodes following a tutorial by MaxEdge.
Conclusion
At the end of this article, I really hope that you find it useful. If you have any questions or you are wondering about something just DM me on Artstation, I’m always happy to help.
Big Thanks to Games Artist for this opportunity.
