Inspiration and reference:
After a bit of research I’ve decided to do a traditional lute since it has such a deep history in the area and yet it’s an everyday object which is made of wood and therefore gives me the chance to show the effect of this wear and tear over time. The main images that I will be referencing are of a Nepalese Tungna, known in Tibet as a Dramiyn. It is an instrument used as an accompaniment to singing and during religious festivals, in Buddhist culture. I chose this one because it’s a bit different than the others in the shape of the soundbox and the decoration of the grip and pegbox. I find these peculiarities and its sculptural qualities give it a very elegant shape/layout and an interesting overall look. I will also take inspiration from the other images, to a lesser degree for textures and wear
Workflow:
I will first do a blockout in 3ds Max which I will take into ZBrush to add the needed high poly detail. I will see how this goes and what steps to take after but in principle it will probably need retopo which I can do back in Max and for texturing and baking,since I am learning Substance Painter, I will be using that. Hope everything goes well and I still have enough time, since that is rather hard to come by lately.
Technical considerations:
Since this is a prop I must pay attention to optimizing polycount and texture space. A lot of detail is great but if it makes for a very expensive object that can cause issues so I will try to capture as much detail in the normal map. Basically I will try to use geo only where the silhouette of the object depends on it. Af for tecel density, since this object is 70cm in length a map size of 1024 would probably be sufficient to remain at over 1k pixels/m but I will go for a 2048 map for the added clarity when the camera is zoomed in.
