Fundamentals of High-Poly Modeling

antonyj

Hi guys, not sure where else this could be posted, so here it is.

I created this guide for my students last year, and they seem to really engage with it. It's meant to be a quick (albeit 71 pages) tour of some principles of high-poly modeling and the process of baking simple normal maps using 3Ds Max.

Do you guys think there's anything else that needs to be in there for a foundation understanding? Please bear in mind that the students are usually within their first year when learning this for the first time, so I've tried to keep everything relatively simple and step by step.

Critiques welcome, just note that it was never supposed to be the only resource they can use, simply a starting point.

Cheers.

Fundamentals of High-Poly Modeling

Bek

Hey,

Had a quick glance through, seems like your students are lucky to have someone willing to put in this much effort. A few things I noticed was that the font is a bit odd (could be easier to read), and some words seem to be underlined for no apparent reason (I noticed this more towards the end of the doc, but that's a pretty minor thing). Also this bit jumped out at me:

Through this process, we have effectively delivered 1 million triangles worth of detail into a single texture map.

Not exactly true... you're just getting the normals. Silhouette obviously doesn't change. Another minor point though.

Also the examples used seemed to have fairly tight/sharp edges; perhaps you could include your own example of how softer, more exaggerated edges bake out with better results than tighter, more realistic looking edges.

Dave3d

The only thing I could really suggest is having an extra page at the bottom with a few links to more advanced tutorials. I understand that its only for a foundation however pointing students who understand the fundamentals in the right direction towards the end could help them go even further in their spare time.


e.g. the polycount wiki http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Subdivision_Surface_Modeling
Eat 3d dozer video
http://eat3d.com/dozer_part1
or 3d motives intro to high poly modeling in 3ds max

The document itself seems to cover all the essentials from my glance at it.

antonyj

Hey Bek, thanks for the feedback.

The words that are highlighted are actually referring to parts of an accompanying powerpoint presentation that I created, they do seem a little odd on their own!

Good call regarding the edges, I just wanted to show good edge retention for simple meshes before they move on to more complex assets and avoid neglecting good edge loop placement.

Agreed that the silhouette doesn't change at all, again just making it easier for the students to understand. A lot of what they have been taught up to now has been retention of silhouette so I guess I could change that sentence up some.

Thanks again for the great feedback!

Edit: Thanks Dave, I'll bear that in mind.

Ott

Your UV / smoothing information needs some amendments. You need to have UV and smoothing group splits where there are 90 degree angles in the 3d geometry. This is why there are black lines along the edges in your final renders at the bottom.

antonyj

Thanks Don, I'll get that cleared up! Initially I wanted to show the faces individually on the UVs to show per face baking for the students, kind of like how you'd show principles of texturing on individual faces using separate UV info.

Thanks for the feedback

Envart

I think you could also mention that swiftloop is much improved by binding it to a hotkey, this can save tons of time!

Good writeup!

Bmikes1988

Awesome, thanks!