The Last of Us: Part I...Trim Pipeline

Trim pipeline
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The trim pipeline was probably the thing I pushed the most during the production of TLOU: Part I. I hoped that the use of baked-bevel-trims might help us to reduce the amount of uniquely baked props as well as other existing trims that didn't follow a shared layout. Our texture memory is always stretched thin in our TLOU games and so this was my effort to combat this. The goal was to create a trim layout that could be shared by the team, a functional replacement pipeline for the many uniquely baked 1-to-1 assets and to document and provide resources like substance designer templates, example assets and tutorials that would help to encourage adoption by the team.
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This work began over 3 years ago and this particular layout was the first of what would become three different layouts (others created to handle assets of different sizes and styles). One of which was presented by Ali Ghadami and Edgar Martinez and further integrated into our pipeline. Since the release of TLOU: Part I we've continued to build on this pipeline and as such, this particular layout and method has since evolved so that what you see here, no longer represents our workflows. However, it's development for TLOU: Part I laid an important brick in a foundation that we, as a team have continued to build upon.
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I'm very proud of the trim work, I pursued it's development and the creation of the Houdini tool for around a year during pre-production, finally landing upon a solid workflow with accompanying tool and thorough documentation. I'd also like to mention that this method is by no means new, rather it's quite an old technique. I first used a very similar method and automatic trimming tool, way back on 'The Lego Movie Videogame' (2014). The workflow and tools to support it on that game were developed by an incredibly talented technical artist called Neil Dorrington and i'm sure the methods were probably used on games prior to that too :-)
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This has been my third Naughty Dog title and it has been an incredible experience and as always, it takes a monumental team effort in order to make such amazing games. Without the hard work and dedication of the entire team, across all departments, none of this would be possible. Please do check out all of the posts from the other incredible Naughty Dog artists!

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Please enjoy this small gallery and stay tuned for more very soon!
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On The Last of Us: Part II we found that texture memory was being eaten up by the number of small, unique props each area contained. I wanted to replace some uniquely baked assets, with a trim + blending approach in order to help the team tackle this

On The Last of Us: Part II we found that texture memory was being eaten up by the number of small, unique props each area contained. I wanted to replace some uniquely baked assets, with a trim + blending approach in order to help the team tackle this

First I created a carefully measured set of high poly panels. When mapped at 512px per meter these sizes would fit most faces of our small props. Some duplicate sizes exist here to allow us to have additional trim details, like grooves, or rivets etc

First I created a carefully measured set of high poly panels. When mapped at 512px per meter these sizes would fit most faces of our small props. Some duplicate sizes exist here to allow us to have additional trim details, like grooves, or rivets etc

(Includes audio) Here's a short video that explains the theory behind using baked-bevel-trims to represent bevels/chamfers on a low poly model

Using substance designer I created a template material that would allow the team to 'plug in' tileable textures and have all of the edge-wear and texture details as well as blend masks created for them, with room for additional tweaking.

Using substance designer I created a template material that would allow the team to 'plug in' tileable textures and have all of the edge-wear and texture details as well as blend masks created for them, with room for additional tweaking.

In order for artists to visualise their baked-bevel-trim textures applied to assets, I created these test assets for use in substance designer. These are essential to ensure that additional normal details do not break the baked-bevel angles

In order for artists to visualise their baked-bevel-trim textures applied to assets, I created these test assets for use in substance designer. These are essential to ensure that additional normal details do not break the baked-bevel angles

Here's an example of a metal material I created. These models are all hard edged, with no bevels, allowing the bevel details to come entirely from the normal map

Here's an example of a metal material I created. These models are all hard edged, with no bevels, allowing the bevel details to come entirely from the normal map

And a tintable plastic material. The models themselves all need hard edges and 90 degree angles for the baked-bevel-trims to function properly, this allows us to bevel less and make additional polygon savings

And a tintable plastic material. The models themselves all need hard edges and 90 degree angles for the baked-bevel-trims to function properly, this allows us to bevel less and make additional polygon savings

This comparison shows a previously baked asset and the same asset remade using baked-bevel-trims. The newer process allows us to achieve a higher resolution result using re-usable trim shaders, improving the quality whilst reducing texture memory costs

To demonstrate the effectiveness of the baked-bevel-trim approach, I created example assets, like this food cart, to show that baked bevels could replace 'most' modelled bevels on an asset and could also present a great alternative to unique 1-to-1 bakes

To demonstrate the effectiveness of the baked-bevel-trim approach, I created example assets, like this food cart, to show that baked bevels could replace 'most' modelled bevels on an asset and could also present a great alternative to unique 1-to-1 bakes

Here's an example image taken from the Lab area of the game that I worked on, showing a small selection of assets - some chairs, a table, windows, a door frame etc...

Here's an example image taken from the Lab area of the game that I worked on, showing a small selection of assets - some chairs, a table, windows, a door frame etc...

And here we can see how extensive my use of the baked-bevel-trims was here. I'd guess that around 80% of the assets I made and featured in Lab, used baked-bevel-trims, as opposed to solely using unique bakes, which was our previous, texture heavy workflow

And here we can see how extensive my use of the baked-bevel-trims was here. I'd guess that around 80% of the assets I made and featured in Lab, used baked-bevel-trims, as opposed to solely using unique bakes, which was our previous, texture heavy workflow

(Includes audio) For TLOU: Part II I also created many shared assets, included the extensive door library. These are great use-cases for the baked-bevel-trim method as I try to demonstrate in this video

(Includes audio) I worked with our tech team, as well as the team at SideFx Labs to develop a tool that allowed us to automatically unwrap our models to match the baked-bevel-trim texture layout. Here's a quick demo I've squeezed into the 1 minute limit