The Good Samaritan

It’s time to learn the ins and outs of creating a game ready weapon from EXP’s own Toddeh Tovmasyan. We dive deep into Toddeh’s workflow utilising tools such as Fusion 360, ZBrush, Blender and Substance Painter to create a realistic weapon from Hellboy. Also learn how Toddeh approaches lighting and presentation to create stunning beauty and studio renders. If you’re looking to step up your Weapon and Prop making skills this is the article for you!

Intro

Hello everyone! I am Toddeh Tovmasyan, a 3D Prop / Hard Surface Artist from Tehran, Iran, currently in my fourth year at university studying Graphic Design.

I liked making art and playing video games for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t think it’d become my career path until I graduated from art school in 2019. I was not sure if I want to pursue graphic design as my future career. I heard a few friends and classmates talk about 3d modelling softwares, so I thought I should give it a shot. I got into making daily renders in C4D which I mostly used premade assets and textures, after a while I figured there's a lot I need to learn, so I started learning subd modelling and it was shortly after that when I saw a video on Quixel’s YouTube page named Rebirth and I fell down a rabbit hole.

In this article I’m going to break down my latest project ‘The Good Samaritan‘, mostly focusing on non-destructive texturing, rendering and setting up shots and using Fusion 360 for game art.

Rendering

Rendering is a part that I really started to enjoy lately. I think having a nice presentation is really key to selling your asset or making it more enjoyable and interesting for the viewer it might be wrong saying this but it's like you're trying to sell a product that you’ve been working hard for so I think it's a good idea to put that extra time on this part to make a worthy presentation for your asset.

Presentation

Personally I divide my shots In two categories:

• Studio Shots: To showcase your texturing and the model itself from various angles and from different parts. Tip: For the studio shots or overall for setting up your camera try to avoid similar looking shots like moving or rotating your camera slightly since it can get a bit dull and not interesting and you’re not showing the other parts and textures.

• Beauty Shots: To add storytelling and visual interest In your presentation. You can treat it like an advertisement using graphic design elements depending on the subject or you can go for a more cinematic setup but after all the main goal is to make “ eye candy “. You might’ve asked yourself “how many renders should I put in my presentation?“ I’d say enough to cover the textures and the details of your asset and a few beauty shots. I would strongly suggest learning a bit about cinematography and composition, different aspect ratios, camera focal lengths and their use. You can also start looking at different cinematographers' works and see how they set up their shots and compose. You can also take a look in magazines and websites to see how they present a product. If you keep looking you’d create a visual library which would help you come up with ideas more quickly. After learning a bit of “fundamentals“ , start experimenting with different camera settings and aspect ratios and the rest of the knowledge you have and who knows maybe you’ll come up with something very original, it’s the most fun part.

Lighting

So the same goes for the lighting, start learning a bit of the fundamentals of studio lighting, types of lights and what are they used for and different setups. But have that in mind that these setups might not be suitable for every asset since they have different materials, shapes etc. So you might need to start improvising and changing the positions and the intensity of them.

Studio Lighting: For the studio shots I usually start with finding a suitable HDRI that can help some of the features of the asset pop out and act as a fill light, after that I add a few spot lights forming some sort of a 3 point lighting setup to give me a base to work on basically like modelling and texturing you start with a blockout and start adding different levels of details.

After I’m happy with the results I start adding Omni lights or spot lights to accent some of the details on the asset and the textures. Sometimes the amount of these lights can get a bit overwhelming especially if you want to name them.

But remember you don’t want these lights to be very obvious on the asset since it’d look a bit off. I’d also suggest getting test renders after a few changes, take your time and compare them to the previous ones. If you feel lost you can also ask your fellow lighting artists for some feedback. You can also use the omni lights to your advantage in terms of composition and eye travel. For example, lighting certain details on the asset so the render wouldn’t draw your viewers eyes to a single part and giving it a more dynamic look.

You can do the opposite by overexposing some of the lights, creating shapes on the asset so you can lock the viewer's eyes on a certain part or detail (mostly preferred for close ups).

Spot lights can also be used for the details if you want to light a certain part only by decreasing the size of the spot.

Beauty/Mood Lighting: This part can get really fun, as I said before having developed a good visual library can make you come up with ideas quite quickly. In this part you don’t need as many lights since you want to go for a more cinematic and dynamic lighting. Look at these shots like a scene from a movie or a page from a magazine.

Post Production

After I’m happy with the renders I take them to Photoshop for the post.

• Studio Shots: At this stage I don’t do much for the studio shots since I want to keep the light and colour the way they are. I go with a small bit of sharpening by duplicating the layer putting the blend mode on overlay with a high pass filter ( you might need to change the amount depending on your shot so I’d suggest turning your layer into a smart object), and I add a slight amount of vignette on top, you don’t want your vignette to be very intense but it still depends on what sort of look you’re going for, I’d say just use a slight amount so the corners of your shot wouldn’t feel as open so your main subject would pop and be in the centre of attention it's like adding a slight contrast.

• Beauty Shots: Treat the beauty shots like Raw footage. You can start with Colour Correction, Adjusting the lights and Colour Grading it after that you can also add a bit of sharpening to make the features pop, adding glow and of course adding a vignette. I’ll go more in depth in the pictures below and how I did it for the shots in this project.

Using Fusion 360

You might have noticed a lot of Hard Surface and Weapon Artists are using Fusion 360, even Concept Designers. Well F360 or overall the CAD modelling software’s can give you a lot of freedom. From not having to worry about the topology to having specialized tools and shortcuts for different tools and adjustments, since they're mostly used for engineering or CNC milling and such.

The amount of tools in Fusion can be a bit overwhelming at first, not gonna lie I still have a lot to learn about Fusion but having a good knowledge about the software and the tools can help you a lot with modelling complex hard surface shapes and details and it can be faster than poly modelling at times. If you just started using Fusion organic shapes can get really annoying to make if you are not familiar with the tools so I’d suggest you take your time and learn about the software first. You might need to go back and forth between your poly modelling software and Fusion at times if you’re trying to make organic shapes. So the first tip as I said before is to learn about the software and its tools.

Thankfully there are many resources available for learning F360 which I’ll name a few below:

• Duard Mostert has a few tutorials about making weapons in F360 on ArtStation Learning which are quite good. He also has a tutorial on Gumroad about using F360 for game art. There are also a couple of tutorials on his YouTube Channel which are also pretty good.

• Alex Senechal also has a couple of videos on his YouTube channel sharing some tips.

• There's also this beginner tutorial on 3D Gladiators page on YouTube.

Just like any other software, Fusion has its own pros and cons but I still haven’t faced that many “issues“ since I haven’t used it as much as other artists have.

Low Poly

Now the first thing we need to do after we’ve finished our model in a CAD software is to turn it into a polymodel. As I said, the CAD workflow is still new to me but I know a couple of ways to do this. I’ve seen artists use MOI3D to turn their model into a polymesh, the process can be a bit annoying but many feel comfortable using MOI3D. And the other option that I got introduced to is using Pixyz. You might've not heard the name of this software. It's basically used for “optimizing 3D data workflows and preparing 3D data for any visualization use“ ( I just Googled that). Now you need Pixyz Studio for this part, the process is surprisingly pretty fast and easy.

Step 1: I exported my model with a .step format from Fusion

Step 2: Importing into Pixyz

Step 3: Converting to a polymodel - In this part I selected all of my parts for showcase but sometimes you need to convert them separately to be more precise.

In this part you set a value for your mesh density. The lower the value, the higher the density.

Now the mesh you have is not totally perfect.You want to take the model into your preferred 3d modelling package and start cleaning up your lowpoly, getting rid of unreasonable dense parts and maybe adding segments to parts that their silhouette is breaking. I also did the same thing with my highpoly mesh but I went with a much lower value when converting it then afterwards I took it into ZBrush to make my highpoly.

Now another tip I’d like to give anyone who’s curious to try CAD is to also give Plasticity a look. I'm not trying to advertise or anything but judging by how it’s improving I think it can become really handy. And a good news for blender users it has a direct bridge link in the latest version between Plasticity and Blender which can be really helpful if you’re making a game ready asset. I’m also looking forward to trying it out.

Now in my case Pixyz did quite well but the model had a big amount of unnecessary triangulations and some parts didn’t have enough segments so you could see the silhouette breaking a bit. What I’m trying to say is don’t rush your low poly stage, take your time, get into every part of your asset and inspect every part. You might need to get rid of some unnecessary triangulations or add some segments to some parts, I’d also suggest merging your verts by distance to get rid of any stray verts. Unfortunately I didn’t spend enough time on my low poly so I learned that the hard way.

Non-Destructive Texturing

Now this was also something that I learned during the making of this project. A bit of backstory: I was in a voice chat session, texturing my gun like any other person using normal blend modes. A good friend of mine also joined the chat, after seeing how I texture my asset he asked me if I’ve lost my mind. And he introduced me to “non-destructive“ texturing. Shout out to my good friend and awesome Weapon Artist Martino.

Benefits:

• Most experienced artists might already know about this workflow or have heard about it.

• Now this might sound complex or a bit overwhelming at first but it’s a good way to save you some time and eventually make you not go through every single layer tweaking the values and eventually burning out.

• Before we break it down with screenshots I want to explain this workflow in a “ few “ words.

• So imagine every layer on top is connected to the base layer, meaning if you change the values like Albedo / Roughness / Metallic they're also going to change on the other layers which can save you a lot of time, you can still tweak the values of other layers there's nothing to worry about.

Problems:

• I haven’t faced any problems with this workflow, it was just me forgetting about how it works and I would lose some time trying to figure out what I did wrong, which can still be beneficial for your learning, find the error, learn from it etc.

Texturing Process

Blending Modes:

• Folders: Passthrough ( on used channels )

• Albedo: Overlay

• Roughness and Metallic: Linear Dodge (Add) to add only, Subtract to decrease only but my favourite is Signed Addition (AddSub) since the darker values subtract and the brighter ones add

• Normal and Height: Normal blending mode.

But if there's a layer that you don't want it to be “connected“ to the rest keep it on Normal mode.

As you can see the values of the layers on top change when we adjust the values of our base layer.

Extracting Texturing Information From References

Usually you want enough references to cover every angle from the same item so you don't have conflicting refs. If you have a lot of references from different variants it can get confusing and hard to choose a direction.

Another thing I learned is to study the material you’re trying to make, let's say Parkerized metal, you can study different stages of the material to understand how it evolves and behaves in different scenarios. The more you know about your assets possibilities the more informed decisions you can make in your creative process. As I mentioned you can study your asset in these conditions:

Brand New > Slightly Used > Heavily Used > Completely Used

I also have to thank Theodor Gerhamn for the awesome help and feedback.

Texturing got really confusing at first, since The Good Samaritan was made for a movie and it didn’t have many real life detailed photos, the only detailed referencess I found were from Adam Savage’s Tested channel on YouTube, which were quite helpful during the modelling stage but the material lacked interest. I had a rough time choosing the direction, the way I thought it’s gonna work was to choose different damages and details from the refs I had, and replicate them in substance painter which proved to be confusing which got me back to just studying them and seeing how the materials evolved. But in the end this can also be a good practice if you're making an asset from a concept.

Plastic Wrapping

Truth be told the bullet package is an asset I made for presentation only so the plastic wrap isn’t “game ready“. This part took me a couple of tries to finally get to my desired look. So at first I scaled up my bullet like 25 times because Marvelous Designer kind of does a poor job simulating on very small scales. This is the vacuum seal I made for my project. I deleted the rest of the faces because I wanted to make the cardboard in Blender.

You can also choose different presets in the physical property of your fabric to see which one can give you the desired look. This one worked the best for me:

At first I started with adding a rectangle about the size of my package.

Then I added an internal rectangle for the vacuum seal.

I copied this plane and took it behind my mesh (have in mind you have to flip your plane so the normals would be in the right direction)

Then I choose my inner rectangles and I Cut & Sew them.

After that we have to sew the rest of our segments plus setting up the values (you might need to tweak them multiple times and simulate again to get the desired look)

And the “last“ stage is freezing the back faces because we don't want them to get simulated and act as a board, also strengthening our outer face in the front so it wouldn't get affected as much and then after its simulated fully we would freeze the outer face and simulate our middle face (vacuum seal) again.

Also before exporting I remeshed the simulation by right clicking on my face and selecting Quadrangulate.

After I was done I took it into Blender and smoothed the normals and imported it to ZBrush to add some details and take away unwanted highlights by smoothing them out.

Growing As An Artist

Well after each project you keep finding your weak spots and you discover your strengths, you learn new workflows or keep improving what you already know, your visual library also gets stronger, which makes you set a higher bar for your next project.

Usually at the end of each project I look back to see what I did wrong, not to make myself sad over that but to know where I should spend that extra time to make myself better at what I do, basically learn from your mistakes. For example after looking back at The Good Samaritan I figured I need to spend more time on my Low Polys and UV’s and stop rushing things.

The learning cycle never ends, there are many things that we still need to learn and get better at. Meanwhile the industry is also evolving meaning new workflows, tools etc. it's better to keep up. Don’t be overwhelmed by the amount of things you need to learn, one step at a time, we’ll get there. And also if you can’t spot any weak spots you can ask a more experienced person to review your project or your portfolio, nothing wrong with getting help most things I learned were from other artists and friends.

Focus and Artistic Preference

I wanted to become an environment artist when I got into game art in 2020. I struggled with that part because I didn’t know about how PBR texturing works and how I should properly make an asset, long story short I didn’t know the fundamentals. So my fellow artist friends suggested I should start with making a prop so I’d learn how to make a game ready asset from start to finish.

I have to thank Mohamed El Bouhy and Lisa Salmon and also the EXP community for their help and support. After I finished that project I felt I liked making detailed realistic props more so I focused more on my modelling and texturing skills, and I also got into making hard surface assets and here I am.

Finding Inspiration

I usually have a hard time trying to find something to make. I mostly end up scrolling on auction websites until I find something interesting, if I’m trying to make a realistic asset. I still haven’t made something off of a concept, that’s something I’d like to do in the future. I’d say when you’re looking for something to make, it's better to limit yourself. It's like the reference situation I talked about. Choose a subject and ask yourself some questions like: Weapon? What type of a weapon? Pistols? Assault Rifles? Modern? Vintage? Old?

Another source for inspiration can be starting to learn a new software or trying a new workflow, which is also pretty nice. It doesn't matter if you'll keep using it or not, at the end of the day you’ve learned something new.

Seeking Feedback

When I just started game art I didn’t know many people so I would just ask for feedback in any community I was in, I would ask people how did they improve as an artist or if they could suggest any resources to get better. I’d say all the tutorials and resources aside, getting good feedback is what can really push the quality of your work and you’ll also learn new things from the experiences of others which can make you also help others. Grow and help others grow, that's a nice mantra.

Getting feedback from different groups of people can also help you know who can give a more honest feedback without any sugar coating and without being rude. You might get annoyed by some of them, which is totally fine, you don’t have to stress over that, just thank that person for their time and move on. Not every feedback can be useful for your current need but give it a good read you’re still learning something that can come in handy in another project, it’s free information after all.

And also use the knowledge you gained by getting critiqued, useful or not people still spend their time helping others which is in fact as a friend of mine would say an epic gamer move. Long story short, respect the people who are being kind enough to share their knowledge. This is going to sound a bit cringe but try to act stupid and curious, we’re all trying to improve after all it's better to get that fire going.

Additional Tips

All of us at every level, artist or not, deal with certain obstacles like procrastination, lack of motivation and focus and having no drive towards our goal. Everyone is dealing with their own problems, personal and professional, even I do. One thing that I believe is more important than skill is discipline which I’m also trying to get better at.

Personal development can definitely help you figure out a lot of things, get you back on the road heading towards your goal. Scheduling and having a plan is definitely a good thing but most times we end up saying “I got it figured I’ll start from tomorrow“ next thing you know you’re a thousand steps behind.

You’ve probably heard this a lot but DON'T compare yourself to others, everyone’s moving at their own pace which is totally normal. We can’t reach level 10 in a day. I mean we’re all gamers, we know it takes a lot of grind to reach that level even after all that there are still people who are better than us which is also normal.

Start small then after completing each task start making bigger steps. Constant repetition of what you're doing can keep you ready for the next task. Saying these is easier than actually doing it.

Getting rest is okay unless you’re trying to quit or go on a long hiatus then coming back to what you were comfortable doing can feel very overwhelming and scary at times. (trust me I’m dealing with this at the moment). At last I think having self-discipline is the most important thing, you have that then you have no problem reaching your goal.

Outro

Thank you for reading my article and I hope it has been helpful for you and a huge thanks to Experience Points for the opportunity and the love and support from the beginning of my game art journey.

I know the last parts sounded like your typical motivational speech but I wanted to end this with a quote I really like (it’s the last one I promise).

“If it’s humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach“

Also feel free to contact me via my Linktree if you have any questions :)