A. pre-sculpt stage

The first stage in the model development is the “pre-sculpt” mesh. The only purpose of this production stage is the deliver a proper material for high resolution digital sculpting and 3D painting, a process where the model is brought as close as possible to the real visual configuration of the represented object.

In this state the model should have only the general outline of the object it should represent and should have a sculpt-friendly topology (the next model state in out production flow). That means it should be composed of mainly of quads and (where absolutely necessary) triangles. Also in order to have an even vertex density after the subdivision operations (subdivisions that will lead to the sculpt model state) each vertex should share 6 edges, no more no less. The triangles\quads the compose the presculpt mesh should also have similar sized aria in order to anticipate an uniform resolution for sculpting and 3D painting. For achieving this kind of topology Phidias has special tools that accelerate the pre-sculpt state completion.

The mapping coordinates are optional and unrecommended (due to the fact that this information will also demand RAM memory, a very sensitive issues in the high resolution sculpting and 3D painting). There only later purpose can be a texture color baking as vertex color the medium in which the 3D paint will be performed.

B. high resolution sculpting and 3D painting stage

This second stage in the model production flow is design to deliver the most likeliness to the represented object. In order to achive that a special kind of object serves as a digital 3D “canvas”. What is special about this object is that it has a very optimized structure both in the matter of video and RAM memory usage and the video and central processing power. It takes advantage of every possible hardware and software resource and it is composed in a very efficient algorithm architecture. The structure permits fast rayhits on an object of 4-6 millions of polygons, with multiple layered inter-related channels of information while working on a mainstream hardware configuration! And also the Phidias scene permits to manage several multi-million objects up to a 20 million poly count while maintaining a workable framerate and stroke feedback.

Also it has many artist friendly features both for sculpting and 3D painting like texture brush tips, stencil, layers, selection tools. An special support for tile texture editing is implemented, in order to generate accuarate, synchronized texture sets for next gen shaders and real time rendering.

C. resurfacing stage

This stage will produce the final in-game model that will actually be rendered in real-time. The previous production stage was meant to deliver all the detail that this model will display in the game render. The surface the servers as a support for that information is generated here in this production stage.

Phidias also has very artist friendly and production efficient tools for solving this kind of task. They permit to approximate very fast and easy the form of the highResolution object while delivering an animation\rigging proper topology.

The mapping and skinning are generated in this stage and are determinant for later production stages. Phidias has various tools for solving polygonal modeling tasks as well as mapping and rigging tasks under the constraints of the real-time rendering requirements.

D. highResolution 3D information baking

While this is not a genuine 3D task, it is a very important stage in the production workflow, being the one responsible to the generation of the texture maps that holds the abundant information of the highResolution sculpted object.

As in the case of the sculpting a special structure is being used, but in this case it is optimized even further for raycasting delivering tens of thousands of hits per second an multi million polygon objects.

E. animation

Phidias host a pleiade of animation tools versatile enough to permit the artists to bring life to various types of objects from character models to vehicles and items. It has support for IK\FK characterized hierarchies, space and time values tools, key controller management, animation and selection filters, non-linear animation editing. It also can work with motion capture data via an FBX animation importer.

The Phidias tools are suited as well for in-game loopable animation as for the cinematic multiple character sequences. It can work with sound information and has automatic lipsync tools.

Also it can receive as a scene environment game levels for proper animation integration.

The animation trees can be visualized in the program to give the artist the idea of how the model will behave in the game environment.