College Assignment Help, 60 Poly capped tree, any tips appreciated.

Ratman

So I'm on a Games Development course in College and part of my assignment is I have to make a tree, using less than 60 polys.
I was given the theme 'Goth' to use when designing and creating the models, so I was going to go with a Nightmare Before Christmas/general Tim Burton feel.
I've only been using 3DS Max for a couple of weeks and I'm finding it difficult to keep it under 60 polys while making it look good, any tips would be appreciated, cheers!

slipsius

You need to post wireframe pictures of what you have. otherwise we have no idea what kind of tips you need.

ZacD

Alpha masks everywhere.

Also 60 poly seems insanely low for even low spec games there days.

Ratman

ZacD wrote: »

Alpha masks everywhere.

Also 60 poly seems insanely low for even low spec games there days.

Yeah, the actual brief says 2 types of vegetation, but my problem is what kind of vegetation would be seen as 'gothic' or at least would fit in with a gothic theme. The only other thing I could come up with, other than a dead tree, would be a pumpkin, but that's going to be just as hard.

Ratman

slipsius wrote: »

You need to post wireframe pictures of what you have. otherwise we have no idea what kind of tips you need.

I just mainly need tips on how to keep the poly count down, but keep the model looking decent, in general.

Eric Chadwick

6 polys... done!


Some 80 poly trees.



Seriously though, your professor is smoking crack. No one goes that low, unless they are only seen from a long distance. 600 to 3000 is more like it.

TheFear

Are they defining 'polys' as Tris or Quads? 'cause 60 tris is crazy low, even for a lowpoly modelling exercise.

Anyways, I usually approach this kind of thing by building my base asset without regards for poly count (obviously not going over board though) and then cut anything that doesn't directly contribute to silhouette. eg, a Triangular Prism standing upright with smooth normals can be a convincing Cylinder from a distance. And yeah, if its a tree the foliage should just be planes.

Add3r

Even for mobile these days, 60-80 is low for a tree. Guess its all circumstantial, but with it being that low, I am guessing mobile... in which case even the alpha cards are going to be rough on performance. Either way, its going to be a pretty basic trunk of the tree, and then using alpha cards for branches/leaves with a cut or two in the cards to get some sort of variation.

As for gothic, guess you can reference the Undead starting areas and surrounding ares of Undercity (in World of Warcraft). They will have some awesome ref for dead/gothic looking trees. If they havent redone that area (yet), then they will be damn low poly as well.

Clark Coots

for those saying 60 polys is too low, low is completely relative. Depends on where your camera is, how many trees, render distance, art style, target platform, what your Lead or in this case Professor says the target polycount is, etc.

Snader

Making trees at 60 triangles is definitely possible. These ones range from (IIRC) 6 to 75 or so triangles.

As for gothic stuff...

a dead tree trunk with a lot of dead branches. you model the trunk and some very rudimentary thick branches, and then add a lot of small stuff in with planes.

A weeping willow might work well from a top-ish view. Have a couple of bulges, 8 or 10 tris per bulge, one for the top, a pyramid for the trunk. Use the remaining tris as floaters to give more depth with the curtains, maybe 2 or 3 big tree branch planes.

Thistles are kinda gothic too, and those can be done with just planes. Same goes for dead grass. A bunch of grass with poppies (simple pyramid for the poppy leaves) might be cool too.

Mushrooms? Geodesic hemisphere + cylinder. Or inverted cone + cylinder.

A pumpkin: take a 9 sided cylinder, add 2 cuts. Turn the top and bottom from 9 sided in to 6 sided. Add leaf/vine/stem planes.

This guy:


Some sort of Alo

Ratman

Thanks for all the help guys, will get straight back onto it.

Xoliul

People saying 60 is not low: depends on the platform, but for modern graphics card and consoles there's a certain number of polygons for a single drawcall below which the costs of rendering don't decrease anymore. I'm not sure but I think i heard 600 or so, it's definitely more than 60 though.

It's pretty different for mobile or handheld devices though, but probably still not 60.

JacqueChoi

This is a fantastic challenge.


You are going to learn a lot about polygon distribution, importance of silhouette, maximizing UV layout, and optimal modelling.

Waterbear

First thing I thought of are the thorns from Sleepy Beauty (the Disney one)

Good luck!

Ratman

Waterbear wrote: »

First thing I thought of are the thorns from Sleepy Beauty (the Disney one)

Good luck!

That's a great idea! Thanks man.

RobeOmega

607 tri

Could have easily gone to 400 and fixed some things without much loss of quality but I was doing this quickly between things

Edit: Disclaimer this is showing what 600 can do not 60 incase anyone was wondering

Chimp

interesting challenge indeed, to those mocking his tutor - work like this makes you think rather than splurge a million polygons, you know? regardless of whether it applies to current technology, it makes you look at how you spend your polygons.

I gave it a 5 minute shot on my lunch just now - I decided to avoid planes entirely, given that restrictions like this imply the hardware wouldn't deal too well with overdraw either - so its pure geometry and therefore quite simple.

Exactly 50 polygons (50 triangles is a whole other challenge i don't want to do right now haha)



Edit: OH! its *60* polys?! I went for 50 hahahaha. Well, I guess I'd just stick couple of flat branches maybe.

Robomega: that's a good 530-something too many tris :P

Chimp

Snuck in an additional 15 mins:



There's some horrid pinched twisty polygons in the trunk that I should fix but I don't have the time sadly, but nice challenge either way - thanks

Lazerus Reborn

Chimp wrote: »

Snuck in an additional 15 mins:



There's some horrid pinched twisty polygons in the trunk that I should fix but I don't have the time sadly, but nice challenge either way - thanks

Throw 3-4 alpha plains on there and you're done at 60!

Ratman

Chimp wrote: »

Snuck in an additional 15 mins:



There's some horrid pinched twisty polygons in the trunk that I should fix but I don't have the time sadly, but nice challenge either way - thanks

That's freaking sweet dude! :O

Blond

Now that's what I call help. The guy simply came for assistance and you guys really brought some interesting results.:D

Chimp

Thanks

Lazerus Reborn: yeah I will probably do that tonight!

Envart

Nice work!

moose

Could also approach it like the trees in Diablo 3, which are 3d, but since you cannot rotate the camera, they are only 3d on one side. Technically, they're 2.5d... but the model still exists in 3d space, you just get all of the tree detail by painting.

This method may be pushing the rules of the assignment some, and think you handled it great with your tree

.Wiki

moose wrote: »

Could also approach it like the trees in Diablo 3, which are 3d, but since you cannot rotate the camera, they are only 3d on one side. Technically, they're 2.5d... but the model still exists in 3d space, you just get all of the tree detail by painting.

This method may be pushing the rules of the assignment some, and think you handled it great with your tree

Here´s some more of this http://simonschreibt.de/gat/diablo-3-trees/