Character modeling newbie question

dongyfeng

After teaching myself ZBrush and watching a few anatomy tutorials, I'm cable to sculpt some humanoid characters. The question is how to make low poly models out of the high poly models. I know there are many topology tutorials on the internet (including the polycount wiki pages), but none of them tell you how to make a game model that really low poly like Blizzard did in WoW. For example, to retopo a head, most tutorials say I need to build edge loops around the eyes, mouth, laugh lines, etc., then connect the dots. But models in WoW or Torchlight don't have those edge loops at all. So what "guides" did artists in Blizzard/Runic Games use to build low poly characters?

unit187

dongyfeng wrote: »

The question is how to make low poly models out of the high poly models.

There were no high poly at all. Older WoW models were built from scratch as low poly. There are plenty of tutorials online for this kind of work. For example, one way to build this kind of model is to start from simple cube and using Extrude and other tools you shape it into low poly mesh.
Only the most recent models in WoW probably used high poly sculpts as their base. I am talking about Pandarens and other new characters. But they have additional edge loops at their faces, unlike older models.

cryrid

For example, to retopo a head, most tutorials say I need to build edge loops around the eyes, mouth, laugh lines, etc., then connect the dots. But models in WoW or Torchlight don't have those edge loops at all. So what "guides" did artists in Blizzard/Runic Games use to build low poly characters?

If you are aiming for a really low poly look (or perhaps a distant camera) and facial animation isn't a major goal for the model, then those kind of loops aren't going to be crucial to the model. When that is the case you pretty much just need the model to maintain the silhouette, perhaps creating the major planes of the face. You can still add some extra vertices to support basic blinking or jaw flapping if you need those things.

dongyfeng

Thanks for the replies.

@unit187, the pandaren model does have edge loops around eyes, but it also has significantly more vertices than the old WoW models.

@cryrid, yes, I'm aiming for 3rd person 45 degree top-down camera and no fiscal animation.

To build really a low poly model, directly modeling the low poly based on the character sheet in Max/Maya is the way to go?(completely skip ZBrush/baking workflow?)

unit187

dongyfeng wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

@unit187, the pandaren does have edge loops around eyes, but it also has significantly more vertices than old WoW models.

To build really a low poly model, directly modeling a low poly based on the character sheet in Max/Maya is the way to go?(completely skip ZBrush/Baking workflow?)

Pandarens have more dense mesh and have nice facial rigs to allow variety of emotions, indeed.

Yes, for really lowpoly you should go straight in your preferred 3d application without doing sculpting.

dongyfeng

Thanks for the reply, unit187.

A related question: by sculpting the high poly and baking AO/normal map to the low poly UV map, I can see where each part is on the UV map (facial features, muscles, clothes). It helps me do the texturing even I don't use normal map in my final models. That's why I'm more comfortable with high poly -> low poly workflow. I wonder how to do the texturing directly on UV map of the low poly without AO/normal map as a guide?

ScottBennett

You could use Viewport Canvas in Max to mark out specific areas. I've not used it myself other than a brief look for later use. Might want to check that out.

http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/index.html?url=files/GUID-F5518487-A253-44F0-A8D9-9CB537A8F392.htm,topicNumber=d30e412268

dongyfeng

Thanks for the tip, Scott! Sadly I don't have a Max license, but I figured out something similar: use Photoshop CC's 3D texture painting feature. Currently, its performance is not good enough (brush lags 0.5s - 1s). I heard Viewport Canvas has better performance though.