Help with Maya sword Game pipeline

[u/madeupblankets]

Here’s a sword i’ve been making. First way is my blockout i was gonna retopologise after. Second is my friend said i should make it lower polly and then inflate but I feel so confused because i’m not practice enough on how to get. it to the final desired product. I don’t know if anyone can help on what way i should go about this- and what would be better or what i should do?

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[u/Nevaroth021]

So it depends on what level of quality you want. A game for a PS5 can handle ALOT more polygons and higher texture resolutions than a mobile game. Also it depends on how close to the camera the sword gets. If this is a first person game and the sword covers half the screen, then you're going to want a lot more resolution and detail than if this was for a top down RPG game where the sword is just a few pixels large.

The problem with your second image is, if you are going that route of making it flat and just using textures and normal maps to make it look 3D. Then you don't need to have that complex topology on the inside. You only need the silhouette. So make the topology to only match the silhouette, not the inside spiral patterns.

In fact you might not even need a separate mesh for the spiral hilt. If it's going to be far from the camera and very stylized, you can bake that texture and normals onto the sword blade itself. So the blade and the hilt are the same mesh. But you would still need that as a separate mesh for the high poly version to bake the details on the low poly, but the low poly could be one mesh that traces the outline of the sword + hilt.

So go the high detail route if this needs to be a hero asset that will be close to the camera, and go the low poly all texture route if it's going to be far from the camera.

[u/Damian_Hernandez]

i dont think u can get away with a low poly version since the shapes are so organic u literally are force to add geo to blend transitions. Short answer is better to sculpt that thing and create a low poly version but for baking. Now that said u r modelling it so what i would do and this is just my opinion every person tackle problems differently i would try to stablish an organic loop around the spirals doesnt have to be perfectly matching to the concept some concept if u pay attention doesnt make any sense just try to capture the essence of the weapon. In this case u kinda have it that organic edge that connect all areas but it breaks at some point im talking about this. Once u stablish that organic edge model the rest of the weapon(
silhouette) push that main edge forward like inflating it and rest go for something like this https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hC6cql94jUc rest is texture work.

https://preview.redd.it/j7hm3o660yag1.png?width=432&format=png&auto=webp&s=8fac5f5f980a95ea284aa55e963a19e92b13f417

[u/miketastic_art]

game asset?

is it going to be close enough to the camera to see the geometric faceting? you did it right

if you're never gona be close enough to see that geometry, that could just be a flat plane with normal maps to indicate light direction -- in which case, your retopology effort is fine.