When it comes to more complex operations where I might have to cut something in, I might use a boolean and fix the geo afterward. Most of the time I end up drawing vertices or lines and cutting the shape out to fit the concept or design as needed. My overall approach here is that I want as little cleanup as possible. I like to work with modifiers in 3ds Max and approach my work in layers. This lets me work in a really flexible way where I can just turn on or off elements as needed. Basically, I invest the time up front to speed up the steps later.

UVs

When it comes to UVs for hard surface, the main thing to be aware of is that you want to keep your UV edges straight where possible as this will allow you to pack your UV islands more closely. Also, bear in mind that you really only need 6-8 pixels of space between islands to prevent texture bleeding when you mip your textures down.

*If you’re unfamiliar with what Mipping is, it just references a texture that becomes progressively lower in resolution. Usually, this is used to reduce render time and is a cost-efficient way to help with memory loads.

My workflow mainly focuses around trying to keep as few UV Islands as possible. This helps for clarity when editing UVs but also reduces the number of vertices created by splitting your UVs. Every so often you’ll need to go and add more UV splits due to erroneous shading or odd normals, but I always try to start large and break it up from there.

These days we have access to things like IPackThat and RizomUV. These software solutions are used to great effect, I personally usually end up using a mix of packing software with editing by hand afterward. I like to know what I’m getting and if there is an error I need to correct later on I know why, where it came from, and where it’s located. I definitely encourage you to learn these tools, but having a thorough understanding of UVs first will be very important. Again, new software solutions do not afford the ability to become less meticulous!

Texturing Process

For texturing these days I use several different software choices and it’s pretty dependent on what my goals for the given project are.

Substance Painter offers a lot of flexibility in terms of non-destructive workflows and procedural materials. The catch here becomes that things look procedural out of the box and it requires a lot of hand editing and masking to really make something look unique. Overall though, it’s one of my favorite tools to use.

3D Coat and Photoshop are my go-to tools for making handpainted art. The color blending tools in 3D Coat and the ability sync to Photoshop makes the combination of these two tools a strong force in the stylized artist’s toolkit.

*One additional thing I’ll mention is interesting new tools like SoMuchDiffuse that give you some hand-painting flexibility in Substance Painter. New options like this could open new doors for the stylized 3D artist.

Stylized PBR

This is a topic that I have a particular love for. In modern games, we’ve just begun to touch the surface of what PBR has to offer, and there is still so much room for development and evolution. You could definitely say that I’m just a bit excited to see where we take stylized PBR in the future of games.

My overall approach when it comes to practical application is to do whatever it takes to make the asset look good within its own context. I know that sounds kind of broad, but ask yourself “What are the goals of this project?” My best words of wisdom are that I encourage you to experiment and to draw inspiration from many sources. Breaking convention can sometimes lead to great surprises!

Captain Ahab Details

The whale, anchor and the stripped part of the gun were a lot of fun. Painter gives great freedom to work in flexible and nondestructive manners. For these specific elements, I layered several Fill Layers together to isolate specific channels so that I may manipulate them to my needs.

First I begin by creating a Fill Layer of the color I’ll be using as my base. Then, I create a Mask on that Fill Layer where I stamp an Alpha or draw in the shape I want.