Two Questions about 3D modelling for Skyrim

[LivewareCascade]

1) I'm trying to make a bow. I notice all the bows in the game are more or less, of one size. I'm trying to make a fairly big bow, comparable in height to Legolas's longbow from the LOTR weapon pack. The question is simply this: To make a big bow, do I simply scale my mesh up, or do I have to change the location of the bones too?

 

2)I'm just getting the hang of modelling in MAX, and I know my way around editing a diffuse texture in photoshop. However, how do I get a good quality normal map? the Photoshop plugin produces fairly poor results, and I've seen people refer either to "sculpting" in mudbox or zBrush to give a better finish, or "baking" a normal map using a high poly CG model.

 

Could someone expand on these last two techniques and point me to some decent tutorials? I'm having a really hard time finding decent ones that aren't using the photoshop plugin.

[Twizzler77]

Hey there,

 

I'll throw some ideas out there for you and hopefully more experienced modders can chime in regarding your first question.

 

1: Typically, scaling a mesh up requires moving the bone locations too. If you do this, make sure to save a copy of the unscaled mesh (or keep tabs on how much you scaled it by) and bring it into the game and see what happens. Make sure you Reset XForms so the Transform and Scale values don't get imported also (You don't want to have a mesh with a 150% scale value in-game...could possibly wreak havoc). To do this, go to Utilities > Reset XForm in the Command Panel and be sure to Collapse the modifier stack before exporting.

 

2: This is a much deeper area of expertise and will take some getting used to. Essentially, you are taking the lighting information from a high poly/sculpted model and using it on the in-game mesh. My workflow looks something like this:

 

- Reference/Concept art gathering

- Build high-poly mesh (3DS Max and/or ZBrush)

- Build low-poly/in-game mesh (3DS Max)

- Bake Ambient Occlusion/Normal/Cavity (Optional) maps. I use xNormal to create these maps but 3DS Max is perfectly capable for this step if you want to keep things simple.

- Continue to final textures (Diffuse, Normal, Specular, sometimes Gloss and Emissive.)

 

There is a wealth of information out there: Google "normal map workflow" for a tutorial and pick one at your choosing. The nVidia PS Plugin is best used for finer detail and typically will not work well for larger forms.

 

Hope this is useful to you. If you have any more questions, I'm happy to help out where I can.

[LivewareCascade]

This info is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!