Low Poly Char - Need Help

Applinator

http://imgur.com/ppWzGDe

I hope this is an okay place to display my horrible noob skills. I'm an animator, but I'm trying to model a low poly char template to build some RTS style characters. The limbs are okay but the shoulder and hips are all horrible and I'm not sure how to proceed. Looking at reference has only gotten me so far... Help?

Thanks in advance.

Brian "Panda" Choi

What reference have you been using?

lotet

Looking pretty solid to me!
I would maybe ad a triangle to the shoulder just like you did on the leg, or have a polygon for the shoulder with 2 triangles on each side for movement support.

and I would maybe remove the loop I highlighted in red, at he moment it just ads unnecessary triangles.  if you really want to have more detail there just use a complete loop.

Good luck!

Applinator

Brian "Panda" Choi said:

What reference have you been using?

I've been scouring the web for low poly character reference - so not one specific source. That's what got me this far - but with low poly it seems to make a big difference whether you have 4,5,6,8 sides on your limbs, torso etc. for how the edge flow works and I couldn't find anything exactly like what I've got that didn't use floating shoulders or obscuring clothing.

Applinator

lotet said:

Looking pretty solid to me!
I would maybe ad a triangle to the shoulder just like you did on the leg, or have a polygon for the shoulder with 2 triangles on each side for movement support.

and I would maybe remove the loop I highlighted in red, at he moment it just ads unnecessary triangles.  if you really want to have more detail there just use a complete loop.

Good luck!

Thanks! Actually, it doesn't look as bad as it did last night when I'd been staring at it for such a long time. I'll try what you suggested and see if I can get the form I want. Aside from the weirdly flat bit across the bottom, is the crotch/hips area looking okay? I feel like that starburst right on the hip might cause problems...

Eric Chadwick

A good way to judge the flow is to rig it to a skeleton, and do some simple range-of-motion rotations. This will show you where it falls apart. After a while you'll develop a visual understanding of which kind of edge flow works well, and which doesn't. Nothing teaches like experience.

We have some examples here
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Topology#Realtime_Topology_Examples

Also check the page links at the bottom, like LimbTopology, BaseMesh, etc. For example this image might help: