Master Class: A Guide to Character Art Preparation

Character Art Director Abdenour Bachir shows you how to import art assets from 3DS Max into CRYENGINE in our latest Master Class.

00:00 Introduction
01:07 Agenda
01:46 PBR (Physically Based Rendering)
07:45 Exporting high resolution textures to specific hardware platforms
08:33 The 3 basic texture types used for characters
09:19 Character-related shaders
10:35 Character head demo in engine
11:57 Setting custom FOVs to showcase character
12:54 Setting up a test background and lighting
13:40 Folder organization for character assets
15:58 Protyping a character asset in Max
19:17 Creating a new level in the engie
20:51 Moving an object's pivot in Max
21:29 Modifying an object's pivot in Max
23:21 Pivots and geometry precision
24:10 Creating a character material in engine and syncing it with Max
26:37 Creating a new material in engine
28:37 Syncing an engine material to and model in Max
30:17 Testing multi-materials in engine
30:40 Converting a material to a multi-material
34:07 Placing a background behind the head
35:39 Adding lights to the scene
37:42 Generating a cube map
38:20 Testing various cubemaps on an asset
39:12 Adjusting the angle of the sun

Abdenour draws upon years of experience to deliver an in-depth presentation showing character art preparation workflows that you can use in your own projects.
The presentation covers everything from prototyping a character asset in Max to setting up the asset in CRYENGINE, including syncing materials, lighting, and testing it in the engine.

Find out more on the topic with our Documentation pages:

This Master Class is aimed at users with some experience of game development and CRYENGINE.
If you are completely new to CRYENGINE, we recommend that you download our beginner's course:
Or you can watch the tutorial on our YouTube channel:
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#CharacterArt #3dsmax #GameDesign

[pufthemajicdragon]

You mentioned Ryse, that game *still* looks gorgeous. I finally got it running at max settings in UHD (had to get a GTX 3070 to get a decent framerate) and it can stand next to recent AAA titles in terms of graphics quality. The biggest telltale signs of its age are in lower-poly models and distance LOD being a bit fuzzier. But it's still gorgeous.

[cryengine]

The Master Class uses a highly detailed human head asset, which includes texture types, character-related shaders and materials, pivots, lighting, and environment probes.
You can access this asset and follow along by using our free Game SDK Sample Project.

Download it from The CRYENGINE Marketplace:

Follow along with the tutorial by taking these simple steps:
1. Download the free GameSDK sample project from the marketplace
2. Use the CRYENGINE Launcher to import the GameSDK project
3. Click on the gear icon next to the imported GameSDK project and choose Reveal in Explorer.
4. Copy the GameSDK folder to a folder of your choice (we never recommend working with or inside the default launcher folders).
5. Launch the copied GameSDK project. It needs to be running in order for .cryasset files to be generated.
6. In the second GameSDK folder, open the objects-part0.pak file in 7Zip or another extractor.
7. Navigate to the folder and choose extract.
8. Extract the folder to the same relative folder location, for ex:
9. Follow the tutorial and drag the extracted assets into a level.


We always recommend copying the GameSDK project instead of working inside it, as updates can overwrite changes that can cost work.

[trivedi.arindam]

Really nice tutorial. Extremely helpful.

[daniloribeiro]

Great tutorial, many details learned on Cryengine, very detailed in the workflow, and all that Ryse mention man help me.. we deserve Ryse Next

[greenscreamstudios]

Are you folks planning on doing any more Blender related tutorials?

[driguest]

Good french accent ! haha
content de voir un Français chez Crytek ! c'est pas tout les jours !

[randomfootages]

Are you going to show some muscle power to UE5 next year???