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Optimized Game Character Modeling

by Dan John Cox

This course will teach you how to ensure your models have the right kinds of edge flow, detail level, and efficiency to ensure you create compelling creatures and characters that fit perfectly into your game’s performance budget.

What you'll learn

Character modeling for games can be difficult when you need to pay attention to detail and performance while accounting for animation and movement. In this course, Optimized Game Character Modeling, you'll discover how to manage that balance and how to create a character model for games from scratch. First, you’ll delve into retopologizing in Maya. Then, you'll learn how to build out a body mesh while maintaining edge loops and refining edge flow. Finally, you'll master unwrapping a character for games and how to take optimizations even further. By the end of this course, you’ll have a solid understanding of how to build a clean and optimized character for development in any game. Software required: Maya.

About the author

Dan John Cox has worked in the games industry for 8 years as both an environmental, concept, and character artist. He has worked at Pseudo Interactive, Frozen North Productions, Bedlam Games, Ubisoft Toronto, and Capybara Games in a variety of capacities. He has also taught Game Art at Seneca College in Toronto for 8 years and has assisted in bringing many new artists into the workforce. He's spoken at events such as GamerCamp, IGDA, Creativa Mexico, GameConnection Paris, and GDC 2014 and 2015.

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