This week, SLC Peer Tutor Hope gives us an overview of modular game asset creation workflow.

Ever play a game and wonder to yourself, “How many hours did it take to create this world? Everything is unique everywhere I look!” You aren’t the only one who’s questioned this, so today I will give some insight into how the wondrous worlds are created. The most important thing when creating a game is the artist's workflow and the pipeline they use to create assets. This process includes modeling, texturing, rigging, animating, VFX, lighting, world placement, and functionality programming. Each of these processes is done by a team of people and are done parallel to each other. It’s important that each artist does their part of the work as modularly as possible. 

Modular asset creation is, in essence, creating something that can be reused multiple times. An example of this would be a wall mesh. Each building you see in a game consists of multiple meshes placed side by side to create the building (Figure 1). If the 3D modeler did their job correctly, the environment artist should be able to stack wall meshes on top of each other to create a unique building facade. Different arrangements of these meshes is what creates the variations of buildings in a game and gives it visual uniqueness. This method of modular modeling is not limited to just building structures, but is a theory that is expected to be applied in every aspect possible during the asset creation process.


Figure 1

Textures are different maps that are combined into a material that gives the look of a mesh, examples being a water material or maybe some wood planks. Most of the textures you see in a game are tiling, which means that it can be applied to multiple wall meshes and seamlessly flow into the next, creating a flawless looking wall. Another example of modular material creation is the use of material instances (Figure 2). This is essentially creating a master material that has editable properties. The artist makes a copy, or “instance” of the master material and is able to modify the properties without affecting the master. This is commonly used in creating color variations for foliage but is applied in almost every assets material in the game.


Figure 2

So now that we have a basic understanding of what modular asset creation is, we have to start applying that to our workflow. An artist’s workflow is unique to the individual; however, here are some tips to get you started:

  • Have as solid of a concept as possible BEFORE starting to create the asset.
  • Unreal uses base units of 300, so when modeling modular pieces scale them to 300x300 cm.
  • Create meshes that can be reused as many times as possible by just changing the material. 
  • UV the model and assign the materials to each shell based on the finished concept. Each of these materials will be modified individually in the game engine, so if you want every color map to be modified the same, you should create a single material for the model.
  • Position the model's pivot point so that each mesh will perfectly snap into place in Unreal.
  • Be sure to have all geometry 100% finished before starting to rig.
  • Make sure to completely skin the rig before creating any animations. 
  • Create individual animations. The walk should be its own, a run, whatever number of attacks, etc. These will be imported into the game engine and blended together using programming. There is no need to animate transitions when animating for games. 

This is a very short list of some things to keep in mind when working. It will take you a lot of trial and error in your pipeline to get your own workflow down, but that’s what school is for (experiment, experiment, experiment!). If you run into trouble, ask a fellow student, teacher, or the SLC for insight into their workflow.

Want to meet with Hope or another SLC tutor one-on-one? Email learning@rmcad.edu or self-schedule here.