Turn your high-poly mesh into a GAME-READY asset!

In this video, I'll show you how to turn a high poly hard surface model into a game ready asset.
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[@126Natethegreat]

As an aspiring game environment artist. This was so damn helpful. It's hard to find these type of tutorials that aren't behind a paywall.

[@EnnoWinter]

Thats so true, awesome Stuff as always Josh !

[@PrefoX]

dont do it that way please, its just wrong for games.

[@FarQuZeDesigns]

@@PrefoX Huh? Every big game company uses normal maps. Are you ok buddy?

[@bobross9370]

@@FarQuZeDesigns Think he's referring to the bevelling part, which he would be correct, most game assets are triangulated and majority of 3D software don't do a great job at bevelling raw triangulated models. Bevelling is not optimized either.

[@R.Daneel]

@@bobross9370 Doesn't really matter either way. Anyone who leaves a troll comment with no clarification like they did can just be ignored outright. People worth listening to don't do that.

[@cedricj5476]

Quick tip @4:24 To select any kind of patterns of edges, for example every two, or every three edges, or any other pattern, just select two edges matching that pattern, and then just press, ctrl+shift+'+' on your numpad

[@thismanrocks]

thank you

[@okie1630]

thank you!

[@TTTristan1]

HOLY SHIT thank you

[@TehAntares]

Doesn't work for me. Do you use the default or the industry settings ?

[@damon5894]

@@TehAntares What version of blender are you using?

[@diegorevuelta5218]

Excellent video on this topic! I would like to point out something for people who will bake normal maps using flat shading in the whole model. When baking with flat shading all of your normals are gonna be perpendicular to their respective faces and since that's the direction that rays are gonna follow when baking the normal map, you are going to create 'gaps' at the edges without rays being traced onto them, therefore you are gonna lose details on the edges and get seams on your normal map as each face will try to bake onto the hard line. The solution to this is to mark as UV seams ALL of your sharp edges, with the disadvantage of using many more UV islands. A better approach is to use smooth shading so as not to have to mark so many edges as UV seams, however using smooth shading will give you 'averaged normals'', not perendicular ones and that's going to create skewing on your normal bakes. To prevent this skewing effect you can add support edges, add bevels + weighted normals or manually cut geometry where needed in order to keep their normals perpendicular to the faces and avoid any skewing. This is VERY important in 'hard surface' bakes. Don't worry about the bad shading in your low poly since the normal map will make the low poly mimic the perfect shading of your high poly independently of its own shading. Remember to always triangulate your model before exporting it since Blender has the triangulation into consideration and it bakes the normal map specifically for that triangulation. If you export your model to, for example, Unreal Engine without previous triangulation, Unreal will do its own and if it differs from Blender's triangulation it will create the so called 'X-shape' errors in your normal maps when applied, specially at low resolutions. Thank you for your videos Josh, greetings from Spain ;)

[@DeputyChiefWhip]

Nice tutorial, I work in the game industry, as a mostly hard surface artist. This method is good if your focus is on high poly models using your boxcutter and Hard ops style workflow... I mostly find it better to work my models up rather than back. So, I would model my low poly, until happy with the structure and polycounts etc, Then duplicate the low poly model to make the high poly, and continue working it up. Either way, very nice workflow Josh, Im sure it will help alot of people, you've definitely helped me while learning blender.

[@Richard930713]

If you'd like to select every 2nd, or 3rd, or any pattern, select 2 points, and press ctrl+shift+ '+' on the numpad. It's a smart select, works really well. Detects patterns from 2 already selected verts, edges or faces.

[@xavvey]

This will save me so much time! :O

[@TictacAperture]

It would be really helpful if you could make a real-time video where you make a game-ready asset from A to Z. Going in-deep with UV mapping, texel density, maybe texture atlases, in-engine tweakings and all the things we rarely see. Like your videos by the way, they're pretty useful.

[@TictacAperture]

Lightmaps too, they're a pain in the a** to understand.

[@CryptMhg]

this is EXACTLY what i was waiting for

[@JoshGambrell]

Super glad! I had a feeling you guys were.

[@nbamol5453]

Same

[@Eener1000]

Last time I messed around with 3d modelling was around 2002 and now I am looking up tutorials to get back into it again. Hearing you call out the number of polys for the "low poly count" model made me go "wha...." How times have changed since back then that would be a super high res model.

[@Genebriss]

TLDW: remove half the edges.

[@Auti3D]

Can also try using the Decimate modifier, this will remove Geometry depending kn the value you set in a ratio. 1 will remove nothing, 0.9 will remove 10% of the mesh, 0.1 will remove 90% of the mesh. This works well and really quickly, although make sure before applying modified its exceptional, as using this method will probably make the shading of the object bad, but sometimes you can get good results by messing with the value. Keep in note only do this method when the model is final, editing the model after applying this modifier is near impossible

[@RetrovexAmbient]

Yeah the topology is ruined after applying it ​@@Auti3D

[@jtvj8423]

Modelling is one thing but UV perfecting is it's own beast. Project from view, project cube, project cylinder etc., can work very well for hard surface when selecting specific faces. If your normals are all good and you think about where to hide seams, things can look amazing once you get it into Substance Painter or other texturing methods. Great video, once again gives me confidence that I'm on the right path.

[@JoshGambrell]

Glad to help! I have a video on UV unwrapping dropping tomorrow :)

[@clementkirton]

the shape edge is because there is not enough padding in your UV island if you add more padding it should not show up. hope this helps someone wanting to do more bakes (also for hard surface baking marmoset toolbag has a lot better tools to make bakes look a lot cleaner )

[@JoshGambrell]

Yeah Marmoset seems to be the best option all around. Good note - I usually do my 1 segment method so I am not as familiar with baked bevels.

[@JoshGambrell]

@Tester 1 I have it, pretty good from using it so far, but I need to play with it more.

[@mercartax]

This thread is a good read about all things related to normal map baking: polycount.com/discussion/107196/youre-making-me-hard-making-sense-of-hard-edges-uvs-normal-maps-and-vertex-counts Any hard edge results in more vertices because normals are stored per vertex. Adding extra 1-segment bevels to the edge of your mesh should not increase vertex count in the end because you smooth out those edges instead of making them hard as you would do with the "true" low poly version of your mesh. Thus the same vertex can be used to store normal information for adjacing faces. But: Overdraw caused by thin triangles might become a problem when many beveled edges are on screen but take up very few pixels. I will cite from humus.name: "[...] whenever a polygon edge cuts through a 2x2 pixel area, that quad will be processed twice, once for both of the polygons covering it [...]" www.humus.name/index.php?page=Comments&ID=228 As with most things - it's complex. :)

[@Y0uDude]

Do you mean the annoying edge in the bake can be avoided if there is more space between or in islands on the UV map? Also without marmoset? Sorry, I don`t get it, but I am also not a native English speaker.

[@MZONE3D]

Nice video. Just to point out, for hard surfaces, I mostly turn off "average normals" in the substance bake. That will get rid most of the blurry edges especially on panel indents. Try average normals on and off to see which gives the best result

[@JonathanGilmer]

6:25 whaaaaat that's an awesome shortcut that I wish I knew way sooner!

[@toolazytobeoriginal4587]

"...bevel bakes, it's a normal thing." I see what you did there and I love it

[@Remowylliams]

Thanks for the tutorial. I'm a bit disappointed that you baked in Substance but I'll look for a similar video where Blender is used.

[@BobJones-cd9mt]

I use limited dissolve and or decimate and then just add loop cuts etc where its needed where the texture is being affected by bad top. As long as the mesh is holding enough form so to not affect the texture. Im happy. great vid btw.

[@taminaion7122]

Think you just taught me more in 30mins than my university has taught me in 3 months...... Thank you :3

[@JoshGambrell]

Happy to help!

[@Kinosei30]

28:50 - You can also use a fully smooth shaded low poly object to get rid of that sharp edge on the bevel without the need to add a 1 step bevel. However, that will mess up some other normals, for instance, those holes you have on the corners would not look very straight down if looking from the top, they would be good looking only if the camera is facing on the face of this smoother normal of the face. That is a solution for some of the cases. It works very well for very simple objects.

[@handsomeman-child8751]

6:12 an easier way to select all the edges along a side is to press ctrl + alt + shift while clicking the edge. This works fine even if for some reason the edges are different lengths and keeps you from accidentally selecting unrelated edges in your topology that happen to be the same length.

[@vaclavfliegel703]

14:54 But smooth, beveled cube has, in teory, 24 vertexes in Unreal as well as flat, un-beveled flat-shaded simple cube. Only smooth un-beveled has 8 (should-it has 14 though) As far as I know that is because engine counts hard edge as double vertexes. UV seams does that too but not on top of it. So after UV unwrap, beveled cube still has more vertexes, but not that much more (36 if nicely unwrapped, 26 really messy unwrap, compare to 24 of flat shaded cube). Unwraped beveled cube from Blender to Unreal somehow import as 50 vertexes-probably because the default unwrap. If you do not have much or any seams, there is almost no reason not to bevel. For some reason, Bevel option "Harden normals" unfortunately multiply vertexes too, in my experience at least, so Weighten normals seems to be better way for low poly.

[@teainastorm4357]

Thanks a lot Josh - your tutorials are level headed and comprehensive. Very grateful!

[@AmandeepBlender]

At 6:25 ctrl+alt click should select all the edges

[@JoshGambrell]

Amazing, thanks for the tip!

[@user-di6qc1qr7i]

u can use "select next element" function (shift+ctrl+numpad+\- default. Better change to ctrl+middlewheel up\down)

[@i5ten]

One tip for baking in Substance from Blender, is to allways have the lowpoly be smooth shaded this way the Bake comes out alot cleaner and the shading of the low is going to be replaced with the shading of the high so it will look fine either way, try it I have found waaay better baking results with smooth shaded Geo when coming from Blender

[@clementkirton]

This works on some shapes but it will make metal or shiny flat areas have a weird reflection just smooth shade with a 30 to 45 auto smooth normals enabled

[@i5ten]

@@clementkirton that sounds weird, baking should never bake any reflections. What settings were you using?

[@i5ten]

Also Autosmooth will negate all benefits from baking in smooth shading

[@JoshGambrell]

I have found both work pretty well, but you are correct!

[@clementkirton]

@@i5ten ​ kzbin.info/www/bejne/eKq2m6uvjbhskJY I made a video to show the shading errors its not a big error but it does show on metallic or very reflective objects and can make things look really wrong in realistic renders

[@dash9655]

Hey Josh, thanks for this video, it was great. Maybe you could do a follow-up where you have an asset made up of a few objects, and/or a few materials? I have been struggling to build assets like this, then use SimpleBake to atlas them together, it's not very well described out there. Even further, adding decal machine on top and trying to atlas the decals and texture them is currently really tough going.. seems like most of the hard surface tutorials completely ignore the steps in getting to a game engine.

[@Lucius.Hercules]

don't forget checker deselect is a feature now lol idk when it was added but i'm grateful.

[@BlendtutsES]

About duplicating the name from object to mesh: Most software only have one name for the same object, but Blender has two names. When exporting, if the name of the object and the object data is exactly the same, it will get just that name; but if the object's name and mesh's name are different, they will be added, like "Amazing_Model_Cube.001". There is usually no problem with that, except that if you bake maps in Substance using the match names option... the names will not match ;P And that's why it's important. I remember making a little script when I used to work a lot with Substance to just run the script and automatically apply all the objects' names to their meshes before export :)

[@anDREas17gr]

leaving another comment cause my guy, you are a life saver Ive been looking for cool tricks like this for ages :) Subbed ofc excited for more

[@mr.rationality5349]

I've found that smoothening your low poly geo for baking really helps with the beveled edges. Sometimes you will get funny artifacts around the edges when it's sharpened.

[@JoshGambrell]

Yep, it does actually work better in a lot of cases, should have mentioned that!

[@isabel5066]

this was super helpful and made me understand more of 3d.. as a student x) ! awesome video

[@png940]

man you covered all the questions around the topic i really apreacaite that thanks a lot that was really helpful

[@Meteotrance]

Ngons and boolean operation are usually banned for low polygon triangulated workflow , retopology is essential if you want to make your game able to work on tablet and smartphone device , using repeat and symetrise asset and texture are something to master the less polygon and texel resolution you use the faster and more object you can have , now on high end graphic card and game console it's became more permissive, but you need to keep as low as possible and bake high detail on texture to perform well especialy for high frame rate gaming.

[@jowhee8519]

You can use Ctrl Shift Num+ to select next active on these rings or bevels.

[@upowlnight]

I dont understand how you "just go ahead and run a symmetry". It seems super useful and quick without adding any modifiers or anything, you just hit a hotkey, and select your axis. I've searched for hours and havent seen anything else that works like this Edit: Ohhhhhh I see now. Part of Box Cutter or Hard Ops. Looking at those now. They do seem super useful.

[@xavvey]

I can't give more than 1 thumbs up for this video... thanks a lot for this vid Josh!

[@user-iz1cq1or8o]

Thank you so much Josh.

[@R.Daneel]

I'd only do a 1seg bevel on the 6 primary edges of the main "cube" of this object. It's reasonable to assume the camera may get close to those in basic use. They are also the edges that get worn for a real object. If someone kneels down to inspect the bevel of one of the cutouts and sees a hidden sharp edge, whatever. Beveling all those curves and flourishes just wastes polys imho. I'd also try deleting the entire top circles and baking those in. Once the barrels are "installed", you might not see much difference. They are right "in your face", though, so maybe not.

[@ollie4859]

thank you Josh！amazing videos！

[@JoshGambrell]

Thanks Ollie!

[@skynliner3434]

You can select every other edge in the bevel using ctrl+numpad +. Select 1st and 3rd edges and press ctrl-numpad+ multiple times, it will select 5th, 7th, 9th edge... . Especially useful for decimating cylinders - select 1st and 3rd edges and just hold ctrl-numpad+ until it loops Btw isn't it quite dangerous to dissolve first or last edge of bevel? Imagine a bevel on 90° corner. By dissolving last-bottom edge of bevel you will lift up a bottom face so corner won't be 90° anymore

[@JoshGambrell]

Right, if I did that it definitely wasn’t on purpose, an oversight on my end. It’s fine if the second edge in the bevel is on a planar surface, but then it wouldn’t be part of the bevel would it...

[@julianbridges838]

Best video Iv watched on this, showing a genuine workflow. Thak you sir, very much :)

[@danford6678]

Your videos are great Josh keep up the great work! Something I did notice though is you could have deleted 3 / 4 of your model did your editing work on the last 1/4 and saved yourself a mountain of time by mirrioring everything back later.

[@protools3000]

Thanks Josh! For better polycount visualization in further tutorial videos would be appreciate to turn on *Statistics* in the *Overlay* options.

[@JoshGambrell]

Yea, I realized my banner was covering it after the fact. My apologies!

[@CEndamist]

nice video. a lot of what you show I was already doing but I did learn a few things from this that I was not using. thank you for making and sharing this video.

[@thefreshest2379]

You could add checker deselect to quick menu and speed it up a bit

[@3Dtexel]

Very cool tutorial, interesting I just find you now. I wanted to ask about nGons and then you started talk about it.. amazing timing..

[@davideblonda6159]

Man i was thinking ok i will press one button and than the magic will happend, but the decimate modifier still sucks i guess xD...I must also say i'm so glad that there isn't an automated tool, because working on the 3d model is just so relaxing.

[@Usual_User]

That exactly tutorial what i search for a long time! Thank you!

[@JoshGambrell]

Perfect, I'll be making more on game assets then!

[@Usual_User]

@@JoshGambrell thanks, that will help allot!

[@xavvey]

Yes! Please do!

[@zlazher]

Nice tutotial!!! you should paint the asset in substance in another video.

[@curlybrace6694]

just wanna say, that your videos are very cool and informative! thank you!

[@JoshGambrell]

Thank you!

[@TheMrTysiek]

You are so helpful bro, greetings from Poland :)

[@JoshGambrell]

Thanks man. Best wishes to ya

[@everlastingmedia]

You could save a few clicks with "checker deselect" under the Selection menu when dealing with those bevels.

[@erikm9768]

These videos are so so good

[@MR3DDev]

honestly 2.3k is really good for current gen and PC, I guess depends on the fidelity you are going for

[@Andredy89]

I: watched half of an hour hoping to see how to bake LP in blender Author: ok, lets bake in substance...

[@ParkingLotStudioGames]

Must be infuriating... It got me when he said "I'm gonna keep this video efficient" Like mate you're wasting people's time with the stories and all unrelated shit you do in this video We want to get to the point quick not to hear your every thought

[@bloodshoot1115]

Probably the first result on google: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5XGoJefqq6qjq8 You guys are getting lazy...

[@vmirevi]

you can crack it mate

[@Andredy89]

@@vmirevi I don't like to use cracked apps( Sure i have some software from torrents, but as more i earn with it as more licences I buy

[@fsava6324]

Amazing! Nice work Josh, this tut really helped!

[@madstones1]

these are the tuts we like, keep up the great work.

[@JoshGambrell]

Thanks bro, will do!!

[@LiquidMark]

Thank you very much for this video!

[@magedafra]

nice workflow pal

[@jwbonnett]

There is a better way to bake the bevel in so that you don't see the edge, there is actually a shader node for bevel and you turn the samples up to 16...

[@dayzproplay345day9]

YESS josh did it this is just what i need

[@tangentsmith2961]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like for the mesh simplicity sake one segment bevel needs to be added manually to some dominant edges that are clearly in front of players eyes. There is no point in beveling details that are hard to see or those edges on some small details. Your model is a good example of the complex structure where one segment bevel is not necessary inside the model where players can't really see if there is a lovely beveled edges inside the model while as a developer you will be able to create more optimized and less heavy mesh saving on polycount yet keep detailed and more sexy shape where you exactly need it.

[@JoshGambrell]

Fair point. You would need to balance those manual bevels vs. time it takes to add them and how much bigger the poly count will be.

[@9l_Kendr]

Very informative,please more videos about game assets

[@JoshGambrell]

Will do!!

[@boobtubenoob7061]

I would have probably been a lot more brutal with removing geometry but this was a great walkthrough of the process regardless!

[@Mokikimoki]

You can get rid of some of the normal issue especially the one on the top if you disable "average normal" in substance. At least that is the source of baking issues for most of my bakes in the past.

[@mikelittlenz]

Really cool tut josh, I learnt a lot!

[@tmoneygamestudio]

Man that was a simple way to UV unwrap that I have seen so far.

[@JoshGambrell]

It is definitely straightforward but sometimes requires manual tweaking.

[@L6PODskipper]

really really good explanation!

[@JoshGambrell]

Thanks Fabian!

[@cerberus8666]

Do you mind using screencast keys? And pls.

[@baykus790]

The biggest thing i learned in videos is people dont apply modifiers, they just keep it and applies if necessary. So they are always able to change the object if they dont like it.. In my case, i always apply modifiers, otherwhise i just cant move on...

[@luizfernandonoschang8298]

I would like to know if you really use this workflow in a daily basis. What you do if you figure out you need to make changes to your model later? Do you need to repeat all the process of simplifying the model again?

[@damjanzugic6343]

Hi, great video and tutorial. Just have a quick question, how to you access that menu on screen for symetry when you can click on X,Y,Z? When I select my mesh, then go into Mesh>Symetrize I dont get that at all, the only thing I get is a small menu to choose from -X to X for example, which result is breaking and deleting faces from my mesh. Anyone has an answer, would appritate it a lot! Thanks :)

[@520theghostskullgamingchan7]

Awesome thank you thats so helpful & great to understand.

[@jackmaguire8634]

Awesome for porting existing assets!

[@BernhardRieder1]

isn't there any better, faster and more automatic approach to get the low-poly mesh? Especially when using Plasticity, and you need a low-poly mobiel game asset. Curios, if there are no better options today. Thx Josh, keep rocking and happy new year, cheers

[@creativecorner2071]

Another amazing tutorial! No surprise here

[@JoshGambrell]

Thanks!

[@WillFalcon]

How did u get a color gradient on edges of selected object? Front edges are green , then yellow and back edges are orange.

[@bestpranks7852]

you're awesome, i love your totorials

[@alanbrody3223]

I'm sure mine is a noob question, but why did you keep the faces where the barrels go? Wouldn't it be better to have a hole there?

[@aaronspencermusic]

I watched for 22 minutes before you're like "now we're gonna go over to substance" and i'm like "fuck, that's 22 minutes wasted, i'm here for the Blender with no intentions of spending money on substance"

[@protator]

He shows how to bake normals in Blender in so many of his free yt videos, so what's the problem? How does the switch to substance at the end invalidate the modeling portion of the tutorial?

[@vmirevi]

you can crack it

[@sherzodsalikhov2209]

C - select edges - Cheker Deselect - ctrl +x = profit

[@schoolhomevrtechnologyassi6286]

I wonder if Checker Select and Symmetry are available in 3ds Max? Probably on the modelling ribbon bar,

[@Manimanocas]

This video is 1 year old but I forgot, how did you merge that vertice that you slided along the edge on legs?

[@Leevy27]

Many thanks Josh! Really helpfull

[@JoshGambrell]

Glad to help!

[@ericdodier3404]

Thanks man

[@NoOneRazer]

Can you show how you UV Unwrap 1 segment bevel'ed mesh???

[@deviloflaplace3499]

thanks

[@nicholasjarecki6529]

Considering all of the components of the final asset (barrels, container, and handles), how do you handle the modeling process when you consider exporting? Say for example that the barrels and handles are not meant to detach from the container in a game environment -- they just remain static. Do you boolean the low-poly assets or join them so that they become one single-component asset, or do you parent the parts so that they don't separate (in the event that they aren't meant to do so)?

[@PrimordialStrange]

This Tutorial is So So well done! Can you please make a tutorial on modular mesh creation for game engines? I super request it. Thank you for this tutorial!

[@JoshGambrell]

Thanks a bunch! We actually have one available on blenderbros: www.blenderbros.com/offers/Tt2PoxBL/checkout

[@PrimordialStrange]

@@JoshGambrell Thank you. I needed to make sure it goes into modularity basics. Now I am sure of it. I'll buy it asap!

[@TitusKrakenDesigns]

thank You, again! :D

[@delko000]

What if you want to use a displacement map for example? Would you have to retopo the whole thing to have square-shaped quads rather than ngons/triangles? What would be the workflow if one wants to sculpt organic scratches at the surface also? Wouldn't a quad topo be better? or instead keep it this way and sculpt with dyntopo and bake these scratches?

[@jowhee8519]

How about only manually bevel part of the asset? Imagine putting it in the game, lots of assets are only showing at certain angle, for example a chest you look at it in the front to open it, this way can save a lot of geo.

[@romanstudio7581]

Hello, Josh. Can you make a tutorial about Mesh Machine,please

[@lbpdluis]

how do i know how many poly is ok for a game depending on the asset ? lets say a weapon

[@qaxt8231]

I have a question, should i join objects ( ctrl + J ) before or after applying modifiers?

[@tothemoon7438]

11:33 can u please tell, how did you do this symmetry ?

[@teckougeki]

I would really love to see an in depth video on the two types of baking you showed in this video. Use a much simpler model and apply bevels and baking it with the different methods.

[@s4nder368]

Hey Josh, great video, but I have a question, what symmetrization tool are you using. It doesn't look like standard blender interactive mirror or something like this

[@Arcelux]

I am guessing this would be harder to do with organic mesh. Hardsurface seems s traightforward.

[@Rafi_3D]

Hi Josh, great video! I'm just curious what addon do you use for symmetry?

[@herogamerbr12]

HardOps

[@sandran8103]

thanks! you helped me;)