Texturing Models for Videogames in 2020|Retop, UVs & Baking

learn to texture videogame characters by building on a high-quality sculpture, wrap and bake with retopology, uvs, and baking concepts, and paint textures in Substance Painter using Blender, marmoset shellback.

Welcome to the course; learn to build a low quality version of our pre existing models, upgrade to high quality local geometry, and jump to substance mantri to paint character.

Identify silhouette-critical areas and bake them onto a low-poly character, preserving beads and necklace while simplifying non-essential details. Use mirror modifier, shrinkwrap, and booleans to optimize topology and maintain symmetry.

Apply shrink wrap retopology to create finger geometry on an arm object, starting with a circle, extruding to form the forearm, adding loops for joints, and duplicating across digits.

Join the fingers by aligning shrinkwrapped envelopes, marking seams, and building clean edge loops for unified hand topology, enabling efficient unwrapping and texturing.

Finish the hand by refining geometry across fingers and wrist, adding triangles and subdividing loops to support game-ready texturing.

Create the sleeve geometry by duplicating, extruding, and snapping vertices to form a clean quad-based sleeve, then use shrinkwrap and edge loops to shape the elbow, seams, and tunic fit.

Align vertex loops to match the dress and sleeves, then join the arms to the body, refining topology with edge loop adjustments to improve the tunic’s silhouette.

Build the tunic front with carefully planned edge loops, extrusions, and bridges, using the mirror modifier, shrink wrap, knife edits, and selective subdivision to connect the hand and body.

Learn to sculpt facial topology for a game character by adding targeted geometry around the eyes, nose, and mouth, then refine with extrusion, mirroring, and shrinkwrap.

Finish the cheeks, ears, and neck by extruding and refining faces and vertices, applying base operations and smoothing, then shrink-wrap to achieve clean, ready geometry.

Learn ear modeling for game characters using vertex groups and shrinkwrap to preserve volume, align with the face, and minimize artifacts.

Finish the face by refining hair and neck topology through extruding vertices, adjusting loops for smooth silhouettes, and planning symmetry and later joining with the hat.

Follow along as you sculpt the scarf in Blender, using shrink wrap and subdivision surface to preserve silhouette, crease edges, and merge necklace geometry with a boolean.

Finish the scarf by extruding and shaping geometry, using shrinkwrap and subdivision surface modifiers, then collapse loops and optimize topology before joining the scarf to the body.

Make one horn from a circle, enable shrinkwrap to the high quality target, then build a low-poly base with a subdivision surface to shape the horns; duplicate to other side.

Mirror the horn by duplicating geometry, setting the pivot and X scale to minus one, and refining edges while disabling shrinkwrap for edits; then optimize and move toward the hat.

Beginning the headpiece, this lesson guides retopology for a game hat by building low-poly geometry with planes, snapping vertices along the face, and extruding while avoiding unnecessary slots.

Direct vertex flow to shape the headpiece, hiding the front and aligning loops for clean topology. Remove unnecessary faces and prepare to join everything together in the next step.

Finish the headpiece by closing the flat surface, join all pieces into a single mesh, and prepare accessories in the next video before final assembly.

Begin a cane from a simple cylinder, preserving the silhouette and keeping the pendant and leaves as separate pieces. Use circles, extrude, loops, shrinkwrap, and triangulate to shape with geometry.

Master cane detailing through iterative extrusion, edge loops, and precise cuts, then apply shrinkwrap and bridges to finalize the geometry, including leaves and a hanging pendant.

Learn to fix shading on the bottom of the cane by using smoothing groups, marking sharp edges, and adjusting normals, then refine topology with extra geometry, loops, and extrusion.

Create cane accessories by modeling leaf-like pendants using planes, shrinkwrap, bridging, and extruding stems, then refine with normals, grid fill, and extra objects to add rounded details.

Start working on the accessories by creating a shoulder piece, applying shrink wrap, aligning geometry, refining normals, and preparing feathers for baking onto flat geometry.

Finish the accessories by duplicating feathers to save time and share texture space, then shrink-wrap beads and necklace segments onto the hyperbolic mesh, adjusting the scarf geometry for fit.

Merge the body with accessories (shoulder pads, feathers) into a single Blender mesh, keep hands separate for mirrored symmetry, and optimize geometry by collapsing loops to meet a 15,000-triangle budget.

Merge the scarf to the neck by subdividing and merging vertices, align loops, and ensure shoulder symmetry for a clean neck topology.

Merge the horns with the headpiece, align geometry, and simplify by collapsing edge loops and deleting unnecessary vertices to reduce triangles toward the 15,000 target.

Join the headpiece to the body by merging vertices and refining topology. Create and adjust geometry with cuts, triangles, and subdivisions to ensure a seamless, well-formed connection.

Finish up the retopo by merging vertices, snapping edges, and subdividing to refine the mesh, then join vertices and check model integrity for open areas and angles.

Optimize the model by removing loops and excess geometry from horns, face, beads, and necklace to save texture. Check topology, fix open borders, triangulate polygons, and prepare uvs for baking.