Questions from a beginner who wants to learn!

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Hey!
So I’m pretty much a newbie in model making, i’m not new to creative work, but I have gone through a few courses and i plan to go through more, so I can grow my skills with creating models from scratch. However, I have also always been someone who enjoys the freedom to not use references and just let the pen take me where it wants if that makes sense when it comes to creative work.

My dream is to be able to create game ready models, learn animation, coding etc., essentially manage all that is needed to be done, so I can bring my universe to life through media (I’ll be working as a solo dev for a while incase).

I have finally gotten a beefy enough computer to make the work a bit easier and faster, so its time to try become a bit more serious with this.

I assume there is a lot of talented people here on this site that have much more experience than I have, so I wanna ask a few questions and if you have any good tips to keep in mind for a total beginner when it comes to this creative direction, if that is okay.

  1. When you make models that is intended to be used in a game, is there any limitations you need to keep in mind, like a max/minimum amount of vertices/faces etc.?

  2. Should I generally use multiresolution for all my models? is this also how different texture levels are made for characters ingame on different graphic settings?

  3. Is it realistic to be able to focus solely on hand sculpted models for everything? I have quickly found out through some of the courses that I prefer hand sculpting over everything else by a lot and would want to mainly focus on this as the direction for my works (I have drawing tablet with screen).

  4. Is there anything i need to specifically keep in mind for the models while making them when it comes to making sure the models is animation ready?

  5. I see a lot of recommendations to use programs like ZBrush, I got limited resources, so i’m not liking the annual/monthly subscription packs they have, is blender good enough to handle everything on its own? I plan to use Unity/Unreal engine when actually creating the game itself.

  6. Should I color the models inside blender as well? is it similar to how you would color drawings as an example, or is there a more specific process of how you go about this? I assume you should use lighting in game to produce shadows instead of adding it to the model itself?

  7. I’m not particularly good at creating music/sounds, I plan to learn it eventually, but is it generally fine to use assets when it comes to this side of development or should absolutely everything be created from scratch? downsides/upsides?

  8. Anything else I need to think about before starting at it? tips?

Unsure if this forum is the right place for these questions, so sorry if post isn’t supposed to be here!
But I feel like I should get some perspective from others too before starting, who know what they are doing instead of learning everything blindly on my own.
I just wanna make the path towards my goal as efficient as possible and at the same time be able to deliver quality work.

I realize I am putting myself up for a lot future work by trying to do and learn everything on my own, but I have always enjoyed creating things and had a lot of fantasy and stories to tell, so I wanna bring it to life in my own way if possible.

Thanks for any help if you do decide to help me with these things I am wondering about!
This post got a lot longer than I intended lol… thanks a lot for taking time to read through this!

Below is my first attempt at a humanoid/demonic face after getting new PC to see if I am capable of making these kinda models, any tips, comments about it, or estimation of my current ability is welcome so I can get a picture of where I am at in this moment.

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Always amount of vertices/faces. But also the topology, can it be rigged easily. Is it made for rigging. How are the UV …

Yes, if you are sculpting. Blockmodeling less because then you are already busy with mesh optimalisation.

No. But some do prefer box-modeling others do like sculpting. It strongly depends on the type of object you are interested in. Do you need sculpting on an oil barrel? You like sculpting because of the freedom and diverting from a predefined reference… so that’s your speciallity.

This also depend on the animation type. If it is a humanoid object, then a lot of tools are already available. Standard riggs … But when something new has to be invented then making animation depended depends totally on the usage (as defined in a script) …
Better is to have a clean mesh with good topology, so that other dev’s can evolve from that.

Handy if others are also using Blender. But info goes away when exported to other basic formats.

You can reuse a lot! But only if the maker has marked it as such. There are a lot of website with free to use media (imagery, sounds, music, software …)

Start small. Start with a simple object and use something not already done by others. Or improve it greatly. You can use BlenderKit for this.

Reading this, you should find an client with a task. Instead of spending a lot of time and resources on something you like, but having difficulties finding someone wanting to use it.

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I’m not super experienced in this field, these are just notes and thoughts I’ve picked up over the past few years. Someone with more knowledge are welcome add to it or correct me if I’m wrong. (I wrote this in notepad before FedPete responded, looks like he covered a lot already, so this is just adding my own thoughts.)

  1. Keep polycount low for real-time performance. Depends on distance, complexity and where model would be used. There are alot of target guides for this on internet, would be better if you look into them yourself.

  2. Multires for sculpting high detail. Game models need retopology + baking (you bake high-res detail to low-res mesh with normal maps).

  3. Sculpted models must be retopologized for game use.

    • Clean topology (mainly quads)
    • Proper edge loops (especially around joints!)
    • No non-manifold geometry
    • Keep scale/rotation applied
    • Rig-friendly T-pose or A-pose

  5. Blender is powerful and fully capable for sculpting + a game-ready pipeline.

  6. Sort of! You’ll be using texture painting. While Blender can texture game ready assets fully, field standard is Substance painter3d.(When you get your hand on it you will understand why.)
    Yes, shadows are created by lighting in the engine, not painted on (unless doing stylized flat-shading).

  7. Totally fine. Saves time, is good quality, legal with proper licenses.

    • Keep things simple and modular early on.
    • Use real game-ready workflows (sculpt → retopo → bake → texture → rig).
    • Save lots of WIP versions.
    • Organize your files well.
    • Make small playable scenes early - don’t wait till all models are done.
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  1. When working in Blender, go to overlays and check statics. The thing to pay attention to is the Triangle count.(AKA poly count in game industry) The amount really depends on the game focus/style, render/game engine, and target hardware. For General purpose models 5K max triangles for general objects. 10K to 20K for characters. Again as soon as I typed that there are newer more powerful computers moving older computers towards being low end/obsolete systems. So, it constantly changes and there is no hard amount unless you are already working on a project with a defined GDD.(Game Design Document)
  1. NO! and no, maybe, yes.
    2A. Multiresolution is only used for sculpting workflow. Sculpting workflow is mainly used for organic/character modeling. Polygon modeling is commonly used for hard surface modeling. Some people use Sub-d(AKA Box modeling. This is one type of Polygon modeling) for orgainic/character modeling. Sculpting is used in adding details to hard surface models, but is rarely used to do hard surface models. A great example of this is take a sphere and sculpt it into a box. It can be done, but it takes more time than just Poly modeling the sphere into a box.(AKA Pushing vertices, Pulling verts, pushing & pulling verts, or Full Manual modeling.)
    2B. I’m not totally sure which part you are talking about on the second half of your questions. As for texture resolution you would still bake textures the same with just different resolutions. As for LOD(Level Of Detail), this uses lower levels of geometry in which case yes you could use lower/higher levels of the multires modifier for the different LOD meshes.
  1. See my answer 2A and you will need to use polygon modeling for retopology. There are addons that can help and speed this up, but sometimes they fail and you have to go in an fix it.
  1. While poly modeling or retopoing, you will want to pay attention to areas that bend. Really there is a lot on this. Rather then try and cover all of this I’ll point you to some information:
    https://cgcookie.com/posts/the-art-of-good-topology-blender
    https://topologyguides.com/
    Or this course on here: https://www.gamedev.tv/courses/blender-anime-character
  1. Yes, Blender can handle it. ZBrush does have some tools and feature that are nice and a lot of people do use it, but it’s not needed. It’s kind of like doing laundry. It’s nice if you have a smart dryer that can sense when your clothes are dry and stop itself, but if you just have a standard timed dryer in which you need to check if your clothes need more drying time it still works and gets your clothes dry. At least it’s not a clothes line.(I’m looking at you MeshMixer :grinning:)
  1. Depends. If you are using existing textures then you should build them in the game engine. Every render engine is DIFFERENT! I stress this, because people will tweak textures in blender then be upset when it looks different in the game engine. Texture painting in Blender is powerful and you can do a lot with it. Including mixing in Procedural components. If you use Unreal you will have to bake the materials. Unity can use the Blend file, but I’d still recommend baking the textures and building the materials in Unity. You will be told a lot to use substance painter. Do you need to use it? Can Blender handle it? Yes blender can handle it and no you don’t need to use substance painter. Going back to laundry. Substance Painter is like a high end washing machine. Blender is more like washing clothes in a wash tub. Blender doesn’t have any predefined textures or materials. With that said there are a lot of ways to get textures/materials. Polyhaven, Poliigon, blender kit, blendswap, etc.
    Edit On shadows, most of the time you will let the game engine handle shadows. There are some games that use prerendered shadows to enhance performance. In these case, you can bake textures with the shadows in which case you will need to do lighting in Blender.
  1. Assets(Models, texture, VFX, Levels, Sound FX, Music, etc) should be used. This is a mark of a pro developer. It already takes a long time to create a game. There is a lot of parts and things to learn. NO ONE is good at everything. This is why games are made as a team of people, and even then they often times use outside assets. The key thing is to make sure that the assets you use are legal. Especially when it comes to music, in which you may have to get multiple licenses to use a single piece of music. For example you may need to get a license for the Score(Music sheet), Vocal(To use the words), Arrangement(Specific interments and tempo. Plus other changes), publishers, artist, and performance license. Most of the time a single publishing distributer license is all that is needed. It is time consuming, but make sure to read the license agreement and make sure that use in a game distribution is allowed and what requirements are needed for use. Most times it is simply a credit in the games credits. Other times it is a splash screen or logo on a splash screen at the start of the game. Some have free for X amount of copies. Other require royalties for each copy sold.
    I personally use this one https://soundimage.org/

A. Start with creating a basic Game Design Document. This is known as a living document, because you move thru creating your game it will change. This helps you to narrow down what you want to do and reduce time wasted, because you have an outline of your goals. This is especially good for you, because you already have characters and stories floating around in your head. Put that to paper. If you leave it in your head it will change and get fuzzy. Thus wasting a lot of time. Plus added benefit if you get someone to help you on a part or the whole thing then you can just give them the GDD or the part of the GDD that apply to them to get them up to speed quickly. I recommend looking at other GDDs to get an idea. Start with Tic-Tac-Toe and then look at some of the others here: https://gamescrye.com/resources/game-design-documents/

B. Decide on a naming convention and keep it consistent. I’d even recommend writing it down in your GDD. NAME EVERYTHING as you go. Organize things as you go. It’s a lot harder to come back and do it later. Plus it takes up a lot of time if you do it later. It’s faster and easier if you do it as you go. In Blender F2 is the rename hotkey. There is an extension you can get Copy Object name to Data name it will do exactly what it says. you can do it in outliner thru right click menu or thru object menu of 3D Viewport. It will do all selected objects. Note: you can go to preferences(Ctrl+comma)->Extensions and search for Copy Object and then install thru blender instead of doing it from the link. The link just gives you the info on this. Data name isn’t as important as object name, but there are case where it is a life saver.

Rigging has tools that are supper helpful in the naming department. Do 1 side of a character. For example: foot, shin, thigh, upperarm, forearm, hand, etc. Then select those bones, right click->names->Auto-name Left/Right. Then use right click->symmetrize to create the other side. Symmetrize is shown in a lot of rigging tutorials, but for some reason the auto naming isn’t. This saves times and it reduces bones not getting the .L or .R added to their name.

Learn to save in versions or milestones. For example sculpting base, sculpting medium details, sculpting high details, testing different ideas, textured, rigged, etc. Save often. CTRL+S is your friend. CTRL+ALT+S does incremental saves. It will up the last number in the filename or add a number to the end of the filename if there are no numbers. So Model01version101 will become Model01version102. SHIFT+CTRL+S does save as and you can increment the last number or add a number by pressing Numpad Plus or clicking the plus icon next to the name. You can also use Shift+Numpad Plus to do tens. Ctrl+Numpad Plus does hundreds. Numpad Minus decrements the number.

C. As others have said, start small, and work in steps. For example: Adding a character. Then adding a character with animations. Then a simple scene. Move around in the scene. Add a prop/pickup item. Animate it. Add a skybox. Each piece is small and builds on the other, but it also provides different challenges, but most important it provides point of victory/accomplishments. This is important to keep you motivated fired up. Especially when you start getting into harder things like Physics and Game logic or repetitive things like animation, and retopology.(Yes I know there are people who love doing retopology. So no hate. I mean, I prefer rigging any day :blush:)

D. Learn to create in reusability. Textures that can be used over and over. Meshes that can be used in multiple ways. For example: a plate mesh that uses different textures to make different kinds of plates. Charater base meshes that can be changed by using different textures or by morphing the mesh.(AKA morph targets. In Blender this is called shape keys.) A great example of this is in anime styled games where they use a common head shape, but use different hair and hair colors to make different character. Same with clothes. Grant covers this somewhat in the modular dungeon section of the Complete Blender Creator course. Think reusability when creating assets for your game. This reduces your work load. Take 2 cup meshes with 4 textures and 2 color adjustment(Red instead of green, etc.) for each textures. That gives you 16 different cups in the time it would take you to create 3 complete cups. Maybe even less, because color adjustment doesn’t take a lot of time.

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  1. There is no clear answer to this; it depends on the scope of your game, the artistic direction, the game engine you intend to use, and the model’s intended use.
    You would generally allocate more geometry to things the player is likely to see the most of e.g. main characters (including player character), tools & weapons that can be picked up, interactable objects etc.

  2. As far as I know, multires doesn’t translate to most game engines and is mostly a sculpting tool. You may be thinking of LODs.
    It can be used to make some textures (normal maps) but it’s not a tool for making most of the texturework. Anything sculpted in multi-res is generally not going to be a game-ready asset until it’s been properly retopologized, though.

  3. No. Sculpting is good for organic forms but industrial designs are much better done through hard surface modeling. You will also need to be able to do poly modelling to some extent if you want to do retopology into game-ready assets, it is a necessity for animation at the very least.

  4. Yes, proper topology is crucial for animation. It’s also important to plan your animations ahead of time because knowing how the model will move will influence how you set up your topology to minimize artifacting.

  5. ZBrush is not a requirement, it is more performant then Blender when it comes to sculpting but that’s it. If anything I’d recommend sticking with using just Blender since learning multiple programs at the same time and jumping between them will be a chore and Blender has almost all the workflows you need to create game assets already integrated. There is also a lot of useful add-ons for Blender.
    ZBrush is primarily for people who want to JUST sculplt and nothing else.

The only outside program I would say you almost have to pick-up would be Substance Painter as Blender still lags behind in the texturing department and there really aren’t any alternatives. You can buy a one-time license on Steam instead of paying the subscription. It is somewhat pricey but if you’re patient, it does go on sale every so often, sometimes down to half the price.

  1. You can bake some normal maps in Blender, but for texturing ^^
    Though it depends on the art-style of the assets you want to make. Blender can do some basic texture painting, it’s just not amazing at it.

  2. I would just use placeholder assets for those and don’t worry about it until the game is ready. If actually you get your game to the stage where you think it’s close to ready to release then you can consider investing into hiring someone to make some sounds or custom music for you.

  3. No, starting and doing is the most important. Don’t think too much about things you’re not ready for yet because it will keep you from doing things.
    Just focus on learning stuff one bit at a time and all the other pieces will start falling into place on their own.

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Appreciate all the replies!
Definitely a few things I’ll have to rethink then, but overall this is a treasure trove of information for me, so I’m only more motivated and excited to get going now with all this here, so I am happy I asked before I started so I could get a better perspective, as I would likely have wasted a lot of time and energy without this…

These make a lot of sense when you point it out lol… :sweat_smile:

Probably not a bad idea either way, it would get me some more experience too.
But this will be passion project for me, so even if it ends up a flop in the end, it will give a lot to me just having explored those things I want to do, and I love the feeling when learning new things, so I would come out of it with a lot of new knowledge and skills, that I may be able to bring into other things, one experience richer.
I would also regret it more not trying to achieve the things I want.

I’ll stick to blender for most other things then, but I’ll make sure to pick up Substance Painter at least, I don’t wanna be stuck with the wash tub :speak_no_evil:

I’m glad you’re telling me this, while I haven’t been modeling etc. as much while awaiting a better pc for it, I have been doing a lot of world building on the side and while I aim for mostly solo dev currently, I’m not putting it to the side of possibly including more people onto the project if anything actually comes out of doing this eventually.
So I do have a lot of content sorted out for several game concepts, general world settings, world rules etc. stored up from years of working on this, being able to easily transfer knowledge to anyone else and get them up to speed in an organized manner would be really nice, especially when there is so much of it already ready, I’ll make sure to take a good look at that.

Do you make a GDD per individual game or is future games added into the same documents, like if its an sequel as an example?

I’m gonna do some more research, as well as checking out all those sources you guys sent and going through a few more courses to better understand it.

Will do, although I do kind of have it in the back of my mind a bit, I am miles and miles behind the industry already and likely will be for a while longer even if something comes out of it, I also think its a bit important to probably try be a bit future proof if that makes sense, with industry standards for everything always in motion, so I am not completely left behind moving forward.

AI is a big topic today and is likely the future, so I am just wondering, is that something you guys have already been experiencing with in some way or another?
I’m not really interested in having it do all the work for me as it will probably take a lot of the fun out of it, but is there some stuff like that I should be thinking about as I move forward that are likely to be standard eventually?

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Expansions are sometimes added to the same GDD, but usually There is 1 document for each game. If you are using an office suite like Microsoft Office, Open Office, or my favorite Libre Office(Free Open Source). Then you can create a file type called Master Document(File->New->Master Document) this allows you to view/print multiple documents as 1 master document. This is meant for when you have multiple authors working on different chapter of a book or in this case, want to have access to all the GDDs at one time. Usually used when you expansions packs, but it’s your GDD. Whatever helps you to get organized to layout a road map(Set milestones) for your ideas. It also is used for early trouble shooting, such as story inconsistency.

Not really. Some of the most popular games today are retro or pixel art style games. Look at Minecraft or Roblox. The key is for it to be fun.

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You don’t know what’s being developed for use behind closed doors and what software or tools or other changes to the industry will happen within the coming years.
At your current level - which is absolute beginner from what I’ve gathered - it’s completely pointless to worry or think about those things. You need to focus on getting the basics into your head first and nothing else. As you learn the basics, topics will come up and if they interest you then you can look into them and explore them further if you wish.

The only other advice I’d give is to just not spread yourself to thin with too many things at once. It sounds like you want to learn almost every step in the game dev pipeline but I would advise to focus at learning one or at most two things at a time. Don’t try to do everything at once. Even stuff like Sculpting vs Hardsurfece modelling vs Poly modelling require very different approach and skillsets, I’d focus on one at a time.

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