low poly horse

anton980

Hi everyone! Thanks for looking! I've started working on a little short that I will hopefully finish before long. It's about cowboys!

One of the more finished models thus far is this horse. It's 1392 polygons, and so far only has diffuse and opacity maps painted. Here's a rendering of a horse:


And here's a texture I painted:


I am still yet to add a saddle and whatever gear it'll carry, and the empty areas on the texture are reserved for that. I am also planning on making a normal map for it, but not sure if it really needs it.

It would be super if you could point out whatever errors I've made as far as texture, anatomy, etc.

Xenobond

For starters, I am curious on why you chose to have the horse completely unwrapped without any mirroring? It looks like you copied the texture from one side to the other, so it'd be a waste to not have the uv's mirrored.

anton980

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For starters, I am curious on why you chose to have the horse completely unwrapped without any mirroring? It looks like you copied the texture from one side to the other, so it'd be a waste to not have the uv's mirrored.

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Hi!

It's completely unwrapped in case I will decide to make normal maps for it - you cant have overlapping polys with those.

Anton

Steve Schulze

He's not the healthiest looking horse I've ever seen. Texture is looking nice though. I think maybe the proportions on both the front and back legs are off a little bit although that may be just because he's so skinny.

Hilm

errrrrrrrrr render out the normal and tell it to ignore back facing polys? That way you can....

anton980

Ah, didnt know of that, thanks!
I'm still going to keep it fully unwrapped though. maybe I'll throw on extra stuff to break the symmetry. Besides, it's already done and there's plenty of space left for accessories

notman

I think with this current texture, there was no need to unwrap the whole horse, but if he plans on making variations later, I think it would be a good idea not to mirror it. Many horses have skin that doesn't mirror

Anyways, I think it looks pretty good. I would add a few polies to the joints to they don't look so diamond shaped. I know you're going for low poly, but I think you'd gain a lot for very little

Squirmy

Its looking good just need to adjust the leg proportions. Overlaping uvs and mirrored uvs are not the same thing.

warby

did you use one of those peltmapping plugins for the uvs?!

ironbearxl

Good looking horse, the hair is nicely done. I agree with Squirmy about leg proportions, they're looking kind of stiff.

anton980

Thanks for comments, everyone!

warby: I unwrapped it with Max 8's pelt utility.
notman: knees - done!

What's wrong with leg proportions? Too short or too long? And which legs? Maybe I've been staring at this for too long - cant see what's wrong with them.

motives

his hind legs are broken. search for horse on google images and change the legs to look like uhm well.. A healty horse

rooster

hm, I dont think the legs are broken the joint does go that way, I think the reason it looks odd is the same reason it looks odd for a person to be standing with their knees half bent. most animals when they stand in a relaxed position will straighten the limbs which locks the joints, requiring no further effort to stand- like so http://www.uark.edu/depts/agripub/Publications/Agnews/horse-sale.jpg

anton980

Thanks for pointing out the leg problem. If bent hind legs is the only problem... it will be fixed when the horse is rigged. I dont see how they look broken The horse was modeled after a bunch of photos, I tried to stay close to reference.
Aside from legs that need to be straightened out, any other problems?

low odor

It's not just the bend in the legs. The anatomy is off on the back and front legs. Particularly in the back where the cannon meets the Follock(I think that's what it's called- the ankle part before the hoof)...Lay a side view of your horse over the ortho I provided and it will help straighten the legs out... I would also fatten him up a bit, skinny horses go straight to the glue factory...

anton980

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It's not just the bend in the legs. The anatomy is off on the back and front legs. Particularly in the back where the cannon meets the Follock(I think that's what it's called- the ankle part before the hoof)...Lay a side view of your horse over the ortho I provided and it will help straighten the legs out... I would also fatten him up a bit, skinny horses go straight to the glue factory...


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Thanks for explanation! I see what you mean now. Fixed that part:


I'm not worried about the horse being skinny, in fact I prefer it that way. That's why the ribs are showing in the texture. It's the wild west, after all - the horse is malnourished.