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Optimization for Games: Settings, Materials, Textures & Commands

Unreal Engine & Maya Techniques With Rodrigo Brea

Description

As important as it is to make great art for a game, it’s also crucial that your game runs efficiently for an optimal experience. In this 3.5-hour workshop, Environment Artist Rodrigo Brea shares industry techniques for troubleshooting and checking the performance and frame rate of your game project and covers many of the basics as well as the key tools that will help you monitor and find issues as you expand and add assets to a project.


The workshop begins by examining the various aspects of exporting static meshes from Maya as well as how to set up the import settings in Unreal Engine. Rodrigo follows with a more specific look at the important settings within assets that will help reduce the impact on performance; the same applies to textures and materials, as all these elements come to play when your assets go into your game levels.


Once the assets are set up efficiently, Rodrigo reveals some of the useful optimization view modes within Unreal that will make your life easier, including how to visually "colorize" the screen to get a feel for where things may be too costly or not working properly. He also shows some of the console commands that provide much more in-depth technical results.


The final stretch of the workshop covers more of the tools that help with overall performance — for example, cull distance volumes — as well as some of his tried-and-tested tips to conclude the lessons.


Rodrigo’s Unreal project files are included with this workshop, plus many of the assets demonstrated can be downloaded for free from Unreal. A list of the console commands featured in his workshop is also provided.


Duration: 3h 27m

Format: HD 1920x1080

Rodrigo Brea

Senior Environment Artist at Retro Studios

Rodrigo Brea graduated from the Digital Production Program at Gnomon School, where he specialized in Modeling and Texturing for Games. He has worked professionally in video games for over 5 years since graduation. He has worked on various platforms, from PC/console to VR, and in various art styles. Rodrigo loves making art for video games and sharing his techniques with other aspiring artists whenever he can.


Follow Rodrigo’s career on LinkedIn.


  • When Rodrigo joined our team, he instantly elevated our game. His work is clean and high quality, but he also was a huge contributor to our company culture. He takes feedback amazingly well; he's kind, patient, and always happy to help someone through a problem. Artistically, he came up with a lot of great solutions for problems that we encountered, and he has a lot of flexibility beyond 3D modeling skills.

    - Izaak Moody
    Art Director at Humanoid Studios

  • Rodrigo is the type of game artist who understands the steps of creating a compelling environment from grey box to final look and polish. He has a lot of technical knowledge that he applies to his workflow, which is extremely valuable to any art team. He also mentors and supports others and lifts them up to do their best.

    - Denis Osmanbegovic
    Principal Environment Artist at Free Range Games

  • I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rodrigo; he is an energetic and inspiring team member. He has an excellent sense of planning, set dressing, and making game environments eye-catching. He has consistently contributed ideas and constructive feedback to make the game levels more appealing and interactive. Rodrigo is always there to help a fellow co-worker and is forward-thinking on how to make the project better. I learned a lot from Rodrigo’s guidance and experience as a senior environment artist.

    - Clarence Lowe
    Environment Artist at Illfonic

  • Having worked with Rodrigo for over two years, he brings a certain infectious positive energy. Not only is he talented and eager to assist anyone on the team from mentorship to a helping hand. It's his positivity that is one of his strongest attributes. He is a great member of any team and a friend to anyone in need. His eagerness to dive into any program or problem presented to him can also not be understated. Rodrigo fully commits himself to whatever task is presented, gains a certain mastery, and then assists in training those around him.

    - David Lichtinger
    Lead Environment Artist at Illfonic