Newbie question regarding modeling

Tzur_H

Hey guys!

I'm new in this forum and to 3D art. I hope I'll be able to learn a lot from all of the amazing artist over here :thumbup::)

To my question..I started this very simple model of a toy car and I've been working on it for maybe a day or two in total so far, this is my first model ever so I've picked something that (I think) will suit my level. It's a high polygon version right now, I want to do the whole process from high poly to low poly version. I'm very interested in modeling for games :poly121:

When modeling, I'm having a big problem to decide whether to model from a single mesh or multiple meshes.

Some pictures to give a better idea of what I'm talking about. I didn't have any specific reference for this..I've just viewed some pictures on Google and "went with the flow" :poly122:
In this part, that connects the wheels to the body of the car I had my 1st problem. I didn't know if I should extrude the shape from the base of the car or start a new mesh..I went with the latter at the end, also I've modeled the shafts separate from that boxy shape.


Here, I tried to give a sense of battery pack, I didn't know if I should make a hole in the base mesh of the car and then start a new mesh for it or not :poly136:


And last, the spoiler..same thing, I couldn't decide if I should just model it with extrusion from the base mesh of the car or not


And here's a picture of the car and the controller at the state I've got to so far, I had the same issue when modeling the controller haha:


Any kind of help on this problem is appreciated! Also if you've got tips n tricks for starting artists, critiques or whatever I'd love to hear :]

Thank you!

Nosslak

Generally you want to build your model like it would be built in reality. So in other words if the parts are separate on the real model you should make them separate on the model as well. The reason behind this is that it often makes it easier to model things convincingly (panel lines between object for example) and it'll support animation a lot better.

Take a look at this thread for some solutions to common problems with complex intersections between objects.

Good job on the model so far! It's a lot better than my first model, that's for sure.

Tzur_H

Nosslak wrote: »

Generally you want to build your model like it would be built in reality. So in other words if the parts are separate on the real model you should make them separate on the model as well. The reason behind this is that it often makes it easier to model things convincingly (panel lines between object for example) and it'll support animation a lot better.

Does this stand for the game resolution mesh as well? When I'll be doing the retopology of this, it doesn't have to be modeled from 1 mesh?

Nosslak wrote: »

Take a look at this thread for some solutions to common problems with complex intersections between objects.

Thanks, I'll go over it.

Nosslak wrote: »

Good job on the model so far! It's a lot better than my first model, that's for sure.

Thank you very much! :poly121:

Nosslak

Tzur_H wrote: »

Does this stand for the game resolution mesh as well? When I'll be doing the retopology of this, it doesn't have to be modeled from 1 mesh?

For the lowpoly it doesn't really matter and it's a lot more subjective. There's not really any rules regarding it, but just go first with whatever looks the best and secondly is the cheapest. On the lowpoly I'd make the battery door part of the surrounding mesh. However before you do this you'll need to think about what kind of animations you'd want as it won't be possible to open the battery door if it's part of the surrounding mesh.
Hopefully that makes sense to you, I'm not the best at explaining.

Lastly if you're going to bake this down you'll want to exaggerate the smoothness of the edges of the model as they'll be picked up a lot better on the bake that way. The red part on the first image is a good example of a part that needs to be a bit smoother.

Tzur_H

I've got many design flaws in the high poly mesh now that I understand how it should be modeled. Next time I'll do better :]

Thanks Nosslak, you've been very helpful :thumbup::thumbup:

AdvisableRobin

For highpoly work I generally try to keep it as close to how it is constructed in reality, unless there is some part that is particularly frustrating or if I decide to use floater geometry. So say you have a ton of small screw holes with screws in them, often times that geometry will be modeled separately and just 'floated' on the surface of the piece.

Lowpoly work is really up to you and eventually after doing it enough you'll learn to pick out which pieces should all one mesh and which it would be easier/better to have multiple meshes making up the object. Definitely check out and post in the thread Nosslak linked if you are struggling or just want to see how someone else might do it.

SuperFranky

It's a good idea to model things like they are in real life. But you gotta keep the final low poly and all the rules of normal map baking in mind too and adjust your model to suit your needs. It's all gonna take a lot of practice before you're able to think about that stuff.

Tzur_H

Regarding the normal map baking.. I've read that the low poly need to match the high poly in the silhouette and have enough geometry to support all of the details, after I'm done baking the map, can I remove any unnecessary geometry from that mesh to optimize for game engine use? In other words, the process is high poly > med poly (baking maps) > low poly? I'm a bit confused :S

One more question, right now I'm learning from Youtube videos, do you guys think Digital Tutors learning paths are a good place to start? Or maybe some other site? I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Nosslak

Tzur_H wrote: »

Regarding the normal map baking.. I've read that the low poly need to match the high poly in the silhouette and have enough geometry to support all of the details, after I'm done baking the map, can I remove any unnecessary geometry from that mesh to optimize for game engine use? In other words, the process is high poly > med poly (baking maps) > low poly? I'm a bit confused :S

You can bake to a mid poly version if you bake object space normals and covert those with an app like Handplane, but it's pretty much a waste of time in my opinion. Just add some supporting geometry wherever necessary on your lowpoly instead as geometry nowadays is pretty cheap. In a best practice scenario you should never change the lowpoly after you've baked it as then the normalmap won't be accurate anymore.

Tzur_H wrote: »

One more question, right now I'm learning from Youtube videos, do you guys think Digital Tutors learning paths are a good place to start? Or maybe some other site? I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Digital Tutors are pretty okay for learning the basics, but in my experience 3DMotive or Eat3D is a lot better (at least for more intermediate or advanced tutorials).

AdvisableRobin

The Polycount wiki has a pretty big selection of links to small and large tutorials. Eat3D is a good resource and I definitely recommend it, however Youtube can be extremely useful if you can find people who know what they are doing and aren't just using weird hacky solutions to modeling, baking or texturing issues.

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Tutorials

Tzur_H

Hey guys!
So..I've finally finished the high poly model and have almost finished re-topology the low poly..I'm left with 2 objects only and kind of clueless on how to deal with them. The tire (knobs) and the springs. How am I suppose to do these as a low poly? Is it just a big enough cylinder to capture the details and then bake onto the normal map? I'm afraid it will make the objects very flat and dull, especially the tires...