3D Stylized Props Part 1 Romain Durand PDF

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summary of techniques made by the class head....

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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Introduction  Hello and welcome to this tutorial where you will learn how to do a stylized PBR box, this tutorial will show you in 3 parts how to model, sculpt and texture completely an asset. Please note that this is my way of doing it, but tons of ways exist in order to achieve the production of a stylized props, things could be improved and i’m far to know everything.  This tutorial will help you understand how to stylized an asset, from its shapes to the colors, how to synthesize it in order to have something clean and nice looking. We will be using softwares such as Maya, Zbrush, Marmoset, Substance, Photoshop and Unreal Engine.

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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Modeling    Usually before starting my modeling, I try to define from the concept what elements I’ll need, some that may be repetitive, or that are the main shapes. Since I’m doing a simple props here, I had no concept and went immediately toward modeling the shapes that I had in mind.    

  Here you can see that I have my angles, metallic beam and wooden planks. 

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

  Using some soft selection (B key in maya) I’m deforming them in order to have some nice curves, I try to never have straight lines or primitives shapes.    

      Once I’m fine with those shapes, I’m starting to build my box out of it. For the sake of this tutorial we won’t use anything like mesh atlas/ texture atlas, won’t have any tileable texture or symmetric stuff, everything will be unique.  I usually use this blockout as a basis for my retopology, so it’s a win win situation where most of my topology will be done before even starting to do the sculpt!    

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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 Here i’m modeling the bottom part of the main frame

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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     The modeling of the base is here, i’m not happy about this cubic shape because i’m always trying to apply some little stylization rules, that’s why we are going to deform it. Before doing so, what you can do is duplicate it, in order to have a ‘save’ of your mesh in the scene.

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

  Hot tip 1 : Shapes and Composition Help!  ● I usually try to design my elements with trapeze shapes, those got some strong and nice direction and helps to give some flow to your shapes.

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  I also try to respect some Small/Medium/Big composition rules. The ⅔ rule is also cool in order to bring some balance in your objects! Always try to avoid parallels lines. 

  Those little rules helps me to have what we call ‘force lines’ that will help will readability in game.           

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

 In order to deform my mesh, i’m going to use a tool in Maya called Lattice. With that, I’ll be able to have some nice and clean deformations, in order to respect my little rules. (You can also do it by hand with a soft selection of your mesh if you want to.)   

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

You can setup as much lattice divisions you need and then modify your mesh easily by selecting the lattice points !   

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

Here i’m finally happy with my shape and I can go on the last step that I usually do : Preparing the mesh for sculpting!  The final step is pretty simple and revolves around adding some non chamfered bevels in order to do a Smoothed Mesh version of my box that will be clean before exportation toward Zbrush. What I do is selecting the exterior edges of my mesh, and bevel them with the Chamfer turned off.   

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

    By enabling the Smooth Mesh preview in Maya (3 key, you can play with the 1,2,3) you can see that my beam is now thick and nice looking! Beveling helps you define what material your mesh will be, if its metallic give it a lower value, if it’s something like wood, I usually go a bit high to have something thick and sexy.   

 Here you can see without, with bevel and with the Smooth Mesh preview. 

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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  Here it is before.   As you can see everything looks low and not appealing, it got some hard edges and feels a bit boring, what we want to do is to play with the bevels as ‘controls’ of your thickness.             

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

  And once you enable it, everything is Thick, with some nice smoothed edges and it is almost ready to go into Zbrush!   

    The last step that we need to do, is to convert the Smooth Mesh preview into true quads, and then export it !      

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

  In order to do so, what you need to do is select your mesh (duplicate it before, delete history etc etc) and go to Modify -> convert -> Smooth mesh preview to polygons. 

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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    Here are the different versions of our little box, from the simple blockout, toward something that is clean, thick, smooth and ready to go into Zbrush! Now you simply have to select your box, and export selection in .Obj in order to start the sculpting process! 

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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Sculpting   Simply import your .obj into Zbrush, and what I do is divide my mesh in order to have a nice topology, I also do an auto polygroup. You can also dynamesh in order to have the cleanest start in order to sculpt, just think about not merging everything together.  

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

 When everything is finally ready, I start to blockout my shapes in the woods, using some Orb brush called Slash_Curve, I try to have some nice flow/shapes and usually have a pretty big brush size,also don't forget to enable the backface mask (Brush -> Auto Masking -> Backface Mask) Else, you will be sculpting on both side of your plank, and you won’t like it.    

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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    I blockout all of those wooden shapes, and then i’ll detail them a bit more later, its kinda hard to explain the sculpting process but i’m thinking that it's mostly understanding where to put pressure, and where you wanna have your hard/soft edge flow, have area that are deeper than others and have a good mix off all of those parameters.   When i’m done with the planks, I start to do the metallic part, and in order to give them some age and destruct them a bit I grab my old friend the Trim Lasso Tool! 

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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    I usually apply some damage to my object, trying still to respect the rules that i’ve been setting up before (Hot tip)! When doing the detailing, please also think about how you want your object to look like, and try not to add too much noise!     

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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    When i’m done with the Lasso tool, I come and smooth it out a bit, I also add some little detailing with some flat brushes. I also always try to keep in mind that i’m doing something that is clean, easily readable from a distance and Thick., it’s always better when it’s Thick.

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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    I then come and do the same on the wood, adding some more details, maybe some wood nods and other damaged parts. 

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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     As a little finishing note, I add some damages on the wood again, but also some little layering in my metals with a lasso mask + move brush, I also add some little dent and holes in it, in order to give it some texture and interesting point of interest for the eyes. I always try to keep synthesize, most of the time, less is more!

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

  And that is the end of the part about modeling and sculpting, we will now go into the Retopology and UV part !   

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Stylized PBR Props Modeling and Sculpting

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Outro    Thanks for joining me in this small tutorial that I hope helped you! While you are reading this you can check out my portfolio : https://www.artstation.com/romaindurand And if you have any questions, feel free to contact me : r [email protected]  I always quickly want to talk about Artside, a video game art school where i’ll be part of the teaching team, if you want to learn about it feel free to have a look here : h  ttps://artside.school/fr/  

About Me  

  I’m Romain Durand, French, born in dijon. I’m 20 years old and specialized in 3D Environment Art, and in love with the stylized art style ! I’ve been working in the video game industry for more than 3 years and had the luck to work on games like Spyro Reignited Trilogy and with companies like Toys for Bob, Airborn Studios, Spiderling Games and more!...