Sculpting a hand for a VR game – how much detail?

[Kasper Hviid]

In VR, the hands are pretty close to the view, so an extreme level of details are needed. Right now my model has:

Verts:7,793 | Tris:15,582

Too much? I can always sculpt it simpler with some lower detail Dyntopo.

I think I’ll wait a bit with normal maps. I don’t quite grasp it yet, and my personal deadline is this monday.

[Jonathan Lampel]

It’s definitely good to have detailed hands since they’ll be so close like you said, but currently VR needs to have a bit lower polycount than regular PC games. I once modeled a character for a VR game and the whole person was about 16,000 tris, so 15,000 for a hand is too high. For VR specifically, try to use as few polygons as possible and make up for the lack of detail with higher resolution textures whenever possible. 

Here’s a good example of what to aim for when it comes to poly count: 

Minimum detail:

Maximum detail if you really, really need it:

Source: http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Limb_Topology

[Michael Wanyoike]

Hope this answer doesn’t come too late. You’ll have to test it in the platform you are developing for, i.e  mobile or PC. You will need to strike a balance between performance(FPS) and the visual quality you desire. Perform multiple experiments to determine this.

Definitely learn how to generate normal maps so that you can use a low poly model that looks detailed in-game. 

[Kasper Hviid]

Thanks for the tips! I sort of felt like giving up – those normal map thingies just feels so alien and weird.

As soon as I saw the hand in VR, I realized that I had major issues with the sculpting. I think I will make it a habbit to quicky exporting to VR simply to preview the model. It makes it much easier to grasp the plastic shape than on a 2D monitor.

Another thing that went awry is the unwrapping. It is almost impossible to Photoshop the texture into whatever weird mesh the unwrap decides on.

I should learn to do a hi-poly baking, absolutely! But then I wont get those nice skin spores from the texture … is there a way to add the texture as a high map or something, before baking?

My plan so far:
Fix the basic sculpting –> Create lowpoly version –> Fix texture –> Bake normal maps –> Rig –> animate

I think I’ll aim at having baked them normals by the weekend. Hopefully!

[Jonathan Lampel]

Don’t give up! Hands are one of the hardest parts of the body to draw/sculpt, so don’t get discouraged. It sounds like your workflow is a bit off, which is likely why you’re finding it difficult to texture. I’d recommend watching these courses and then giving it another go:

https://cgcookie.com/lesson/human-hand

https://cgcookie.com/flow/introduction-to-game-asset-creation

Like you said, the hand is a super important piece to get right, so don’t rush! Take your time and I know you can knock it out of the park. 

[Kasper Hviid]

I just did made my first low-poly retopo (190 verts) and baked my sculpt into a normal map.

Holy cow! I know this is old hat to you guys, but to me, this normal map stuff looks like geniue magic!

I really should follow Jonathans advice and take things one step at a time. Still, it’s really encuraging to see some results!

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