In VR, the hands are pretty close to the view, so an extreme level of details are needed. Right now my model has:
Verts:7,793 | Tris:15,582
Too much? I can always sculpt it simpler with some lower detail Dyntopo.
I think I'll wait a bit with normal maps. I don't quite grasp it yet, and my personal deadline is this monday.
It's definitely good to have detailed hands since they'll be so close like you said, but currently VR needs to have a bit lower polycount than regular PC games. I once modeled a character for a VR game and the whole person was about 16,000 tris, so 15,000 for a hand is too high. For VR specifically, try to use as few polygons as possible and make up for the lack of detail with higher resolution textures whenever possible.
Here's a good example of what to aim for when it comes to poly count:
Minimum detail:
Maximum detail if you really, really need it:
Hope this answer doesn't come too late. You'll have to test it in the platform you are developing for, i.e mobile or PC. You will need to strike a balance between performance(FPS) and the visual quality you desire. Perform multiple experiments to determine this.
Definitely learn how to generate normal maps so that you can use a low poly model that looks detailed in-game.
Thanks for the tips! I sort of felt like giving up - those normal map thingies just feels so alien and weird.
As soon as I saw the hand in VR, I realized that I had major issues with the sculpting. I think I will make it a habbit to quicky exporting to VR simply to preview the model. It makes it much easier to grasp the plastic shape than on a 2D monitor.
Another thing that went awry is the unwrapping. It is almost impossible to Photoshop the texture into whatever weird mesh the unwrap decides on.
I should learn to do a hi-poly baking, absolutely! But then I wont get those nice skin spores from the texture ... is there a way to add the texture as a high map or something, before baking?
My plan so far:
Fix the basic sculpting --> Create lowpoly version --> Fix texture --> Bake normal maps --> Rig --> animate
I think I'll aim at having baked them normals by the weekend. Hopefully!
Don't give up! Hands are one of the hardest parts of the body to draw/sculpt, so don't get discouraged. It sounds like your workflow is a bit off, which is likely why you're finding it difficult to texture. I'd recommend watching these courses and then giving it another go:
https://cgcookie.com/lesson/human-hand
https://cgcookie.com/flow/introduction-to-game-asset-creation
Like you said, the hand is a super important piece to get right, so don't rush! Take your time and I know you can knock it out of the park.
I just did made my first low-poly retopo (190 verts) and baked my sculpt into a normal map.
Holy cow! I know this is old hat to you guys, but to me, this normal map stuff looks like geniue magic!
I really should follow Jonathans advice and take things one step at a time. Still, it's really encuraging to see some results!
