[UniteKorea2013] Art tips and tricks

Art Pipeline Tips and TricksDavid Llewelyn

Wednesday, 10 April 13

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David LlewelynAbout the Speaker

• Been producing CGI for 15 years.

• 8 Years in game development and architectural visualisation.


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• Born in Wales !!




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• Born in Wales !!




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Overview


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• Prototyping in Unity.

• Texture creation.

• Preparing 3D assets.

• Importing in Unity.

• Optimization.

Overview


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Prototyping in Unity


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• Large number of high quality assets for distribution.

• Other work commitments.

• Some workflow optimizations required.

RobotLab and Stealth


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• Prototype thoroughly in order to prevent abortive work.

• Identify areas of your process that can be automated and implement this early.

• Small savings throughout the art pipeline add-up to large overall gains.



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• Use Unity primitives, or create your own custom shapes to layout levels and test your mechanics.



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• Make use of the Asset Store!



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• Make use of the Asset Store!

• Creating quality artwork is time consuming. Prototyping helps to identify an asset list that is 100% required.



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• Go to wiki.unity3d.com and search for “OBJ Exporter”.



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• Go to wiki.unity3d.com and search for “OBJ Exporter”.

• Editor Script that allows you to export .obj files from Unity.



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• Exported OBJ is a good base to model over.



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• Exported OBJ is a good base to model over.

• Precise snapping during poly-modeling.

• Identification of repeatable, modular pieces.

• Easier to determine asset list and distribute to team members.



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• With Stealth we started-o! creating a number of wall panels 2m x 2m.

• Used standard assets controllers and cameras to test the level design.

• Both art and code departments could collaborate and agree on design.

• Reduced refactoring.



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• Using this approach we managed to create a fully approved prototype very early-on.

• Art fits a feasible layout from the outset.

• Reduces the need to re-fit precise artwork at the modeling stage.



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Prototyping in UnityThese saving meant time that could be better spent on art direction.


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Prototyping in UnityThese saving meant time that could be better spent on art direction.


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SummaryThe main benefits of this simple prototyping approach:

1. Early agreement between design, code and art.

2. Less chance of time wasting by having to re-position/re-stitch models.

3. Earlier distribution of workload amongst artists = fewer dependancies.


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Preparing 3D Assets


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• Group assets by commonality.

• Keep hierarchies as flat as possible.

• Find a suitable taxonomy in order to organize hierarchies alphabetically.

• Consider a renaming script.

Preparing 3D Assets


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• Reduce draw-calls by combining smaller objects.

• Massive objects represent a fill cost.

• Equalize triangles for better normal distribution.

Preparing 3D Assets


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• Auto exporter scripts available through resources such as Creative Crash.

• Keep naming conventions consistent in your scene.

• OS project folders will be faster to navigate.

Preparing 3D Assets


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SummaryWhen building your 3D assets:

1. Avoid time wasted “drilling” through recursive hierarchies.

2. Less repetitive exporting and naming in your OS.

3. Improve visual quality with good modeling practice.


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Texture Creation


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• Texturing is a process that is full of repetitive tasks.

• These are obvious cases for automation.

• Standardize PSDs for easier collaboration in team environments.

• Next-gen means even more assets!

Texture Creation


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The “Master Builder"


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www.davidllewelyn.com/v2/master-builderThe “Master Builder"


http://www.davidllewelyn.com/v2/master-builder

http://www.davidllewelyn.com/v2/master-builder

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• Part of a suite of Photoshop actions to help automate repetitive tasks.

• It takes a range source maps from tools such as xNormal.

• Produces a standardized, flexible PSD template.

Let’s see how it works...

Texture Creation


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• Robot and Stealth include 433 unique textures.

• On average setting-up a PSD by hand takes around 5 minutes longer.

• So, that’s (433 x 5) = 2165 minutes.

Or, 4.5 working days!

Texture Creation


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Image Pre-Processing


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• Work in PSDs within your 3D package’s project folder.

• Use File>Scripts>Image Processor to automatically apply actions to your images.



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• Work in PSDs within your 3D package’s project folder.

• Use File>Scripts>Image Processor to automatically apply actions to your images.

This o!ers some distinct advantages:



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1. Flatten PSDs to reduce project size.

2. Reduce compression artifacts with filter combinations.

3. Normalize histogram levels.

4. Apply artistic e!ects or sharpening.



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• The PVTRC format is commonly used for mobile.

• Can result in visible stepping or “banding” across gradients.

• Apply a hi-frequency noise to your textures to simulate dithering.

• Trick the PVTRC compressor.



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Processing images before import allows you to:

• Reduce VCS sync times.

• Apply stylized filter treatments.

• Improve compression results for mobile textures.

Summary


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Importing into Unity


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• Unity was designed to work similarly to Autodesk Maya in terms of interface.

• However, there are some di!erences when it comes to 3D.



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• Scale is important for things like light-mapping and physics.

• Unity default unit = 1m (100cm).

• Maya default unit = 1cm.

• Default scale factor therefore = 0.01 (100x0.01)=1



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• 3DS Max default unit = 1m.

• Unity default unit = 1m.

• Scale factor should be set to 1.

• Do a cube test!



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• Unity uses the “left hand rule” for cartesian coordinates.

• Same as DirectX.

• +X faces in the opposite direction to right handed packages.

• World-space rotation about Z will be in the opposite direction.

• This can cause complications when eyeballing values.



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• 3DS Max uses swivel coordinates, so Z is up, rather than Y.



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• .FBX .DAE .3DS .MB .DXF and .OBJ supported.

• Unity also supports the embedded FBX standard.



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• Texture assets can be included with your 3D model file.

• Great for rapid prototyping, but can clutter projects with metadata.

• Consider importing standard FBX



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• Duplicate or unwanted materials, textures and models can quickly build-up.

• This can slow the team down.

• I propose a quick way to tidy-up a cluttered project:

Cleaning-Up


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1. Backup!!

2. Select all your scene files from within the project panel.

3. Right-click, and select “Export Package”.

4. Save this somewhere outside of the Unity project folder.

5. Select the project folders containing any duplicate files you wish to remove.

Cleaning-Up


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6. Right click and “Delete”.

7. Right click anywhere in the project pane, select “import package”.

8. Select the package you just exported and reimport.

9. Voila! You should end-up with a project containing only the assets referenced by your scenes.

(Don’t use this on your scripts folder!!)

Cleaning-Up


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When importing into Unity:

• Be aware that Unity uses the Left Hand Rule for cartesian coordinates.

• Use the embedded FBX format for rapid prototypes.

• Periodically remove unwanted files or duplicates.

Summary


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Optimization


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• Use Unity’s view modes to troubleshoot and optimize poor draw performance.

Optimization


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• Specular component encoded in the alpha channel of the di!use texture.

• Alpha view can be used to check specular maps are displaying correctly.

• When using PSDs, transparency on the base layer can cause specular to not come through.

• Useful way to troubleshoot.

Optimization


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• Draw cost without visible on-screen result (except alpha).

• Overdraw represented in an additive colour scheme.

• Lighter areas represent higher levels of overdraw.

• Remove these polygons from your model if possible.

Optimization


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• MipMaps are textures storing precomputed texture subsampling.

• E!ectively smaller versions of the texture.

• Swapped at runtime to ensure texel-density is appropriate to the final on-screen resolution.

• Mipmap view shows which MipMap level is currently being used.

Optimization


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• Highest (blue) mipmap level in foreground, yellow in the middle, red in the distance.

• Red in the foreground means textures close to the camera will appear blurry.

• Blue in the background means textures likely to be too high in resolution.

• Waste of memory.

Optimization


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• Set the Max Size for your textures in the inspector.

• Scene should be correctly balanced in the mipmap view.

• Correct distribution (blue> yellow> red) ensures that memory is not being wasted.

Optimization


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• Objects at same scale are statically batched.

• Rendered in the same draw-call.

• Boosts GPU performance.

Optimization


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Questions?


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[UniteKorea2013] Art tips and tricks