Production Phase - Hard Surfaces
When making the hard surfaces I try to think about how the low poly will encompass the high poly and take that into consideration when making the model. It’s important to make sure that edges on the high poly aren’t perpendicular to edges on the low poly but instead get as much coverage as possible, otherwise the edge won’t show up in the normal map. For example I scale down the top of bolts, so that the edges show if you look at it from above, which is where the plane of the low poly will look from when you’re baking the normal map.
Here is a preview of the high poly of the armor that I’ve made, where everything has been done in Maya except the bags which were done in ZBrush. I feel that the time I put into making the Block In has really paid off when making the High Poly since it has been a real life-saver, as it allowed me to concentrate on each object separately, therefore saving me a lot of time. Overall I feel that I’ve been able to stay true to the concept.
Next: Organic Surfaces…