New to LowPoly Objects... many questions

zach

Hey everybody. I'm new to the whole lowpoly modeling thing. I'm looking for a general idea of what i need to be shooting for when modeling environments, characters, props, etc.

If anyone has the time to reel off a list of what's appropriate regarding the objects above and what texture resolutions need to be at I'd be very greatful. Also, what is counted as a poly in a model? Is it triangles, quads, ngons?

I'm looking for some freelance work to supplement my current job. I work in maya doing non-game models during the day but would like to use my XSI lic at home doing lowpoly objects at night. I've been using XSI and ZBrush at home and I'm really digging it.

Here's something I've been working on but it's at 5k polys (quads. It's twice that in in tri's) already and I'm not even done yet. I'm not actually modeling it for low poly. I'm going to be using it for a project I started a long time ago, but I think it could translate well to a lowPoly game character if I can get the polycount down to something reasonable (at which point I'm not sure what reasonable is).

hawken

you might want to re-direct your call to pimping and previews or 2d 3d disscussion.

press 9 to hear these instructions in Japanese

todman

Hey Zach,
I'm no professional but I might be able to help. You don't have to worry so much about low poly anymore. Your body already looks low poly but the head is still too high. Sometimes it's easier to start over, however you can just optimize the head and then straighten out the polys. They count polys as triangles. Right now I'm building a character that's at 2200 polys. But now that's getting too low. Everyone's switching to normal mapping which is a whole new process (look at Doom 3) that wrinkly look. I think it's more about utilizing all your polys. Like in your legs, there's some that are wasted and could be distributed some where else. I like his biceps, though, they look weighty. His hands need to be reduced as well. Look around here at polycount, there's lots of tutorials on building low poly. good luck, looks good so far...
todd
www.todd3d.com

ElysiumGX

What to shoot for?
I'm currently modeling Q3 characters at an average of 2200 polygons, that's only because of current hardware standards.

I shoot for 3000 - 4500 for UT200X style character.

If you wanna push your limits to the engines on the horizon, aim for 5000 - 8000 with normal maps from unlimited high polygon sources.

You character above would probably work in a game environement if you remove the head polygons down to half what it currently is.

Sage

Low poly is a very lose term these days. A company might say they want low poly models of 5000 poly(tris) and another will want an entire human with all it's gear with 600 polys. If you can do both and make them look realistic then you are all set. The hard part is the texturing phase. You need to be able to paint textures by hand to a high degree, so if you have to use photo source material they blend together. Polys refer to tris not quads and don't leave ngons in your models, makes you look bad.

You should be able to get a job making normal maps so I suggest you make a reel showing that off, since there is a higher demand for that now. Now that you have your 10k plus model made, make a low res version of it from scratch between 2000 and 3000 tris and use the hi res model to generate the normal maps. Later.

Alex