General overview of the course and expectations | Methods for gathering reference | Getting familiar with weapon terminology (how this assists in weapon art production)

Introduction to block-out models and their importance (why we don’t rush straight into high-poly) | Setting up your Maya scene to begin production on block-out model | Establishing scale and proportions | Considering the animation and gameplay impacts on your model and accounting for them in block-out | Big picture: thinking silhouette and first-person perspective | Organizing your completed block-out scene

Learning how to use Zbrush Dynamesh for fast high-poly modeling | Discussing the level of expected detail in a high-poly model | Modeling your high-poly mesh to maximize leverage of normal maps (edge width and tapered detail)

Identifying details necessary for low-poly and what can be baked from high-poly | Understanding low-poly silhouette and where geometry detail is necessary to avoid facetted edges | Modeling efficiently for unwrapping and baking

Learning the principles of unwrapping for game weapons | Efficient unwrapping and overlapping on weapon assets | Packing UVs to maximize texel density | Understanding first-person camera perspective and how to unwrap accordingly | Baking normal maps inside of Marmoset Toolbag

Establishing base materials and surface material breakup | Using reference to identify material and texture detail for interesting wear and surface treatments | Identifying and capturing subtlety from reference images in the weapon texture | Covering the basic approach to realistic weapon texturing | How to make surfaces feel more organic and less procedural and “gamey”