VR-Ready Asset

CONSTRUCTION OF A VR-READY ASSET

We’ll go over how to make a VR-ready object with 3ds Max, Vray, 3d Coat, and Substance Painter in this post.

We’ll start with a high-quality textured guy 3d model for this presentation.

We don’t need to care about correct joint deformation while skinning the model so it can be positioned in a supine position on the surgical table’s surface. We may collapse the stack after posing and apply some quick remodelling to address the joints and make them look right.

Produce a plane with 100 or more pieces in each dimension and set it above the guy and table models to create a genuine drape flow.

Then, using the cloth sim modifier, drape the fabric organically across the man and the table, collapsing the stack once you’re satisfied. This cushion was created using basic polygon modelling techniques and photos found on the internet as inspiration.

Only diffuse textures are included with the guy model. You can, however, apply an inverted copy to the bump channels to produce texture on the skin and stubble, which will be picked up well later when we bake the normal map texture.

V-Ray materials for the drape and pillow can be created using the same processes as any other high-quality pre-rendered animation. To collect light and bounce it back onto the models, put up GI lighting and a simple room scenario.

It’s time to produce the low-resolution assets after the high-resolution models and lighting have been put up. Any sections of the high-res man that won’t be visible under the drape can be removed.

Coat in three dimensions

After that, export each high-resolution model as an OBJ so that it can be opened in 3D Coat for auto-retopologizing. Return the autoretopologized models to 3ds Max, where you’ll clean and improve them until they’re nearly identical to their high-resolution counterparts.

Make a copy of the low-res drape, flip the faces, and then erase anything that will not be viewed by the user.

It’s time to UVW now that the low-resolution geometry is finished. Unwrap each of the four low-res components individually with a UVW Unwrap modifier. At this time, don’t think about where you’ll put the UV islands.

Once all four parts are finished, combine them into a single mesh and use the UVW Unwrap modifier again, this time simply using the “Pack UVWs” tool to place and scale all of the islands proportionally in relation to each other.

Then, depending on the importance of the details, manually resize some of the islands. The man’s islands should be scaled up twice as large, but the drape beneath and pillow underside islands should be downsized to half their original size, as they will be rarely seen and require little texel detail. Run the Pack UVW tool once more, this time unchecking “Rescale Clusters” to avoid losing your unique scaling.

Detach the elements into four independent components in 3ds Max after exporting a consolidated, low-res model as an FBX to your Unity asset folder.

Each low-res component should be assigned a projection modifier, and its high-res counterpart should be used as a reference model. Any cage may be customised to fit each reference model perfectly.

The final stage in 3ds Max is to texture bake the high-res models’ normals and lighting onto their low-res equivalents. To do so, make sure the box environment, table, and all three high-resolution components are all visible. Unhide each low-res model, then use the Render To Texture dialogue to render both a normal and full map.

Substance Painter is used for the final steps. Export all four low-resolution components into a single FBX file. Start a new “PBR – Specular Glossiness” project in Painter by importing the FBX as well as the normal and diffuse maps created in 3ds Max.

Make a separate folder for each of the four components and apply a mask to confine the effect to the proper model. To set up specularity and glossiness, create a fill layer called Base Properties inside each folder.

Drag the normal and diffuse maps into the appropriate folder slots.
Make final edits and alterations, such as making the lips look wetter or slightly changing the skin tone.

Using the “Unity 5 (Standard Specular)” preset, export the maps to Unity’s asset folder. Create a new “Standard (Specular setup)” shader in Unity and assign the albedo, specular, and normal maps to their appropriate slots.

Your project is finished after the shader is applied to the model. Heizenrader’s Jon Huhn is a Senior 3D Animator. Jon has worked in the medical device sector for over two decades, developing high-end animations for marketing and training, and is now honing his skills in creating VR-ready models and textures.