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requiem2d
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FPS Weapons Workflow
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Full Article
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Welcome to an article on production work flow, more specifically, FPS
weapons. This piece is geared towards Mod teams. What it will do is try
to explain on how you can optimize your processes as well as help you
in making the right choices, it is not an article designed to teach how
to model, texture, animate or code weapons in any depth.
The modding community has two major restraints compared to professional studios:
- Time.
Most people modding either have a day job or go to school. Modeling,
texturing, animating, mapping, whatever they do, they have to fit it in
somewhere between work and family, and that free time is often plagued
with interruptions or other distractions resulting in fragmented &
short spurts of work.
- Skill. This can be broken down
further into two parts. On the first hand, the quality of an amateur's
final product compared to time spent is on average significantly lower
than that of a professionals. Second, the breadth of their skills is
usually limited to 1 or 2 sets, which is why we often see teams
recruiting “UV Mappers”, something which doesn't exist in the industry.
Taking this into consideration, you as Project Lead or Art
Lead on a mod team need to make tasks available to your team as fast as
you can as well as cut down on the time taken executing these tasks.
Below you will see two charts, the left depicts a typical mod work flow whilst on the right we propose an optimized variant.
When analyzing the typical model, the first thing which should jump out
to you is the lack of flexibility. Everybody in the chain is dependent
on the other and this can quickly lead to blocks when say your animator
is going on vacation. Although he could have gotten his hands on the
asset earlier, people somehow feel that the asset needs to be complete
with all textures before it can be animated. This thought process where
every task has to be done one by one is only in part applicable to what
you are trying to accomplish here. You need to break out of this
mentality and act upon the opportunities presented to you.
Let's take a look at the Optimized Process step by step:
1. Creating the 1st Person Model
First thing you need to recognize is that a player is only going to see
<40% of a weapon in first person view, so spend your time wisely and
more importantly, on visible faces. Modeling non-visible faces is one
issue which will not only waste time at the beginning, but as a result
also waste time when unwrapping and creating a diffuse, spec, alpha,
normal and if the occasion arises, a glow map. A modeler should
understand or discuss what animations will be used before modeling. In
addition, you will be able to use more polygon's where it counts (back
of weapon, weapon sights, etc.). An example of eliminating non-visible
faces can be seen below:
 
 In
most cases you will find opportunities to re-use art assets, even for
1st Person pieces. This usually ranges from magazines to scopes/sights.
Identify what these items are in your design document before beginning
with production. For some assets you'll only end up producing the body
of the weapon.
 Another aspect of 1st
person models which is recommended are Normal Maps. We are all aware of
what they are and how they work but do we really put them to use? You
as artist have a decision to make here, do you want the texture artist
working hours on end to get the lighting right on a diffuse texture map
just so that it interacts incorrectly with lights in-game? Or do you
wish to have players carrying a weapon which is an active part of the
environment, reacting to all light sources? Beware that it can be a
time consuming process with a lot of trial & error if the artist
has little experience in this area.
2. First Distribution
Before the modeler unwraps his model, he can send it to the animator.
UV or not, Texture or not, the elements and proportions of your model
will remain the same. After all is done, your weapon will still be X
units long and will still consist of a Body, Magazine, Trigger, Slide,
Hammer, etc. So if it needs to go to an animator, do it now ! He/She
might be going on vacation in 2 weeks!
In regards to
unwrapping, the UV can now focus entirely on visible faces. This not
only gives your texture a significantly higher resolution, but also
means you can arrange your faces in a more meaningful manner which in
turn results in less seams. You've just increased the potential quality
of the texture whilst having spent less time!
When
unwrapping first person models, people often assume that a
proportionate UV map is one which is equally balanced. This is
technically correct, but the deciding factor is perspective and a first
person view is extreme in that respect and has little to no
flexibility. So balance your UV from the first person perspective. Take
the example below, the front and back sight in real life are of equal
height yet in-game the front sight is 5 times smaller from this
perspective! Bad UV's can't save great textures, play it smart.
3. Second Distribution
At this point, instead of handing off the work just to the texture
artist, you also want to get the coder in on it. With the Model and
UV's in hand the coder can begin setting up the structures &
hierarchies required to be able to import the file. Depending on how
easily you can replace your import file with an updated model, you
might even give it to the coder before the modeler unwraps it!
All of the above has been in relation to the 1st person model, it's now time to take a look at the 3rd person model.
4. World Model
Now that the Modeler has done his work and all other positions are
working hard on their newly acquired first person model, we can put
this artist back to work.
The world model or 3rd person
model is of significantly less detail both in terms of model and
texture. Whilst a 1P model can be 5000 Polygons and have a texture of
1024 x 1024 pixels, a 3P model will usually fall down to anywhere
between 20%-50% of that value. Also take into consideration that that
is for a full model, all faces are visible. A world model can be
derived through many different ways. A simple method would be to take
your 1P model, remove unnecessary detail, cut it down the middle and
then mirror it to the other side. Weapons with a different other half
can have the necessary details carved out of this reflection.
Once the modeler is done with this piece, they can pass it on as they did with the 1st person model.
The
texture artist doesn't need to go out of his or her way to now complete
this piece: taking high resolution orthographic renders with 100%
self-illumination from the sides can be used to in a copy paste fashion
in order to keep the style the same as the 1st person model.
You can even apply the same technique to transfer your 1P normal map by
projecting it as a diffuse map. This clearly gets more complicated if
your weapon is full of curves which often isn't the case.
Closing remarks
Although the above shows you how you may optimize your processes, it
takes more than that to really succeed in such optimizations:
- Coordination.
Someone on your team needs to supervise & coordinate the timely and
accurate execution of tasks. They have to be able to identify such
time-saving opportunities, be able to look down the road 2 months in
advance and make sure a suitable infrastructure is in place (Forums,
Repository, FTP, Project Management tool, etc.).
- Quality vs. Quantity.
As supervisor, make sure that quality reaches the level you require and
stop there! Do not spend 80% of your resources on making the final 20%
of an art asset perfect! Focusing your energy on creating assets which
are accurate to the millimeter will result in a mod which will never
release! Use your common sense and know when to say “Alright, this
piece is done, let's move on”
I hope this article was
beneficial to you and your team and that it will help speed up your
production line. Mods are time consuming to build and require a lot of
dedication, but don't make it harder on yourself ! Identify time saving
opportunities and make use of them! Good luck!
Image Credits:
Crysis (PC)
Insurgency - HL2 Mod
Counter Strike Source - HL2 Mod
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