STEP 27 OF 67 · YOU ARE THE TECHNICAL ARTIST

Make the surface detail

Every custom piece needs UVs (a flat layout for its textures), texture maps and materials for skin, cloth, leather and metal. Fine sculpted detail is baked into normal maps.

How to do it

  1. Unwrap UVs in Blender.
  2. Bake detail from a high-detail copy into normal and displacement maps.
  3. Build materials for each surface type.
How AI speeds this up

Ask Duke to write Blender bake scripts and material setup scripts for you.

Example from a sample game

Ashfall: cloak 4K textures, stitching baked from a 2-million-polygon sculpt.

Before you move on

In Duke Forger, this step's gate checks:

Words to know

UVs
A flat layout of a 3D model's surface that says where each part of a texture goes.
Normal map
A texture that fakes small bumps and detail on a surface without adding polygons.
Material
Instructions that tell the engine how a surface looks under light: skin, cloth, metal, wet stone.
Texture
An image wrapped onto a model to give it color and surface detail.
Do step 27 on your own game

Included in Creator, Academy and Studio. Duke drafts it with you and checks it before step 28 opens.

Start free