If you are a beginner or an intermediate hard-surface artist who's looking for ways to level up his/her skills, check out these tutorials and courses created by professionals to teach you industry-standard workflows.
Weapons and Props for Games Course at CGMA
In 6 weeks, CGMA's Weapons and Props for Games will teach you the time-proven pipeline for weapon and prop creation for games. All the fundamental steps are covered:
- reference gathering
- blockout in Maya (scale, proportions, silhouette, what needs to be considered for animation)
- quick high poly modeling with ZBrush Dynamesh
- low poly modeling (essential geometry)
- correct UVing for game weapons
- baking in Marmoset Toolbag
- realistic texturing in Substance Painter
Mentors: Sean Ian Runnels (Senior Prop Artist at Turtle Rock Studios) and Ethan Hiley (Senior Weapon Artist at Treyarch)
Price: $599
Starting Date: January 25
Student Gallery:
Hard Surface Design Course at GAI
Game Art Institute is another place where you can get an education tailored to the jobs in the industry. Hard Surface Design course has 10 modules and lets you go through them at your own pace. The modules include:
- design theory,
- blockout (primary forms, silhouette, structure)
- design refinement
- poly modeling
- weapon functionality
- texturing and rendering in Photoshop, Keyshot
- lighting
- presentation
Mentors: Alex Senechal (Freelance Concept Designer, previously worked at 343 Industries)
Price: $197
Starting Date: On-Demand
Mentor Gallery:
Handgun Tutorial by Simon Fuchs
Handgun Tutorial created by Simon Fuchs follows the production of a game-ready realistic weapon using industry-standard techniques. Every stage is recorded in real-time and provided with thorough commentary, no steps are skipped. By studying the process from start to finish, you'll get introduced to software, learn the workflow and professional tips, and get a set of helpful scripts/plugins/hotkeys used by Simon as well as the final gun model. You can read more about it here.
The tutorial includes:
- introduction to ZBrush, 3ds Max
- modeling (boolean operations, high poly in ZBrush, damage pass, UVs)
- texturing in Substance Painter (creating maps, fixing baking errors, using procedural textures, masks, generators)
- rendering in Marmoset Toolbag (lighting, camera work, presentation)
Mentor: Simon Fuchs (Senior Environment Artist at Blizzard Entertainment)
Price: $34.99
Mentor Gallery:
Weapon Tutorials by Travis Davids
Travis Davids has created several real-time commented tutorials that cover the production of a pistol, a flamethrower, a machete, and grenades in Autodesk Fusion 360. Through them, you can learn all about concept design in Fusion 360, modeling, texturing, and post-work.
About Mentor: Freelance Digital Artist who has been working in the graphic design industry since 2009
List of tutorials:
- Pistol Design Tutorial ($6)
- The Last Of Us Flamethrower Full Tutorial ($12)
- The Last Of Us Flamethrower Tutorial: Object Creation ($9)
- The Last Of Us Flamethrower Tutorial: Texturing & Post Work ($5)
- Pistol & Flamethrower Tutorials Pack ($14.99)
- How To Create A Bloody Machete (free)
- MK2.0 Grenade Tutorial (free)
Mentor: Freelance Digital Artist who has been working in the graphic design industry since 2009
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