HardSurfaceCheck
HardSurfaceCheck is the evolution and big brother to the Hardsurface Asset Checklist Blender Addon - after a lot of feedback from artists who loved the concept and wanted to use it in Maya or 3Ds Max, I decided to make it a standalone desktop application but bigger and better!
HardSurfaceCheck is an essential tool for aspiring Hardsurface Artists, students, and anyone seeking to streamline their workflow. I believe in making quality industry knowledge accessible, bridging the gap left by unnecessarily expensive game design degrees. My mission is to instil best practices, empowering artists to grow and excel. Here's what's new:
Enhanced Gamified Progression System that enables you to see exactly where you are in each stage of the asset creation pipeline. Each stage features a mini progression system, designed to provide a deeply satisfying sense of advancement and achievement.
Professional Artist Workflow with informative descriptions for every task. Go deeper with extensive insightful articles to help enhance your knowledge base. The checklist takes you through each stage: Reference Gathering, Mid Poly, High Poly, Low Poly, UV'ing, Export & Bake, and finally Texturing.
- When Articles are clicked on, the app takes into consideration the position of itself in relation to your main monitor sides, popping up on the opposite side so you don't have to drag it over.
- The article window also copies the height of your main app window.
- Within each article there is an estimated time for reading it. The longest article is only 3 minutes long, allowing you to get back to the important stuff!
Autosaves Progress so when you load it up the next day, you don't lose any of the progress you have made. It also saves the position on screen so you don't have to keep dragging it to the side every time you load up. Not only this but it automatically saves any notes that you have made.
Always-On-Top which can be seen in the bottom right corner dubbed "Stick/Unstick" - allowing you to keep it at the forefront of your viewport so it doesn't get lost among your other applications - keeping the knowledge and checklist exactly where you need it. Articles inherit the Stick/Unstick toggle!
Resource Links is a short list of some of the most helpful articles and examples from around the internet at your fingertips. From learning how to bake in Marmoset Toolbag by Joe Wilson, understanding how to properly incorporate a Boolean + Dynamesh workflow by Ben Bolton, to understanding Texel Density by Timothy Dries, and a huge library of weapon references via Dinusty.
Colour Presets so you can customise and change how the primary colour scheme looks. Quirky feature but i like it. When a colour preset is selected, it automatically saves it.
Other links that lead you to my youtube tutorial page, an awesome Discord for anyone to join and feel welcome, and if there's any issues or if you want to say hello my Twitter/X account! Please say hello!
Software Agnostic meaning unlike the original Blender Addon I made, this works separately to any and all 3D software as it is it's own thing. So feel free to use in conjunction with 3Ds Max, Maya and Blender or whatever else you're using (i know there's a Rhino3d user still out there...somewhere).
I want to give a big shoutout to everyone who contributed whether knowingly or unknowingly. Like Ben Bolton and Rick Greeve. Thanks to Dan Conroy for looking over the app once it was finished and saying, "If I was a junior and had that app holy shit the info would be gold". Hilarious.
Thanks to Jordan Cain for allowing me to use his awesome SubD examples and macrophotography and to those who don't know i've used your art as inspiration and referenced; you're a big inspiration to me!
I really hope this helps people.
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An executable to install HardSurfaceCheck onto your machine.