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LOW-POLY ART

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hawken polycounter lvl 19
This is the sweet spot for your low-poly models. Post 'em if you've got 'em!

Low-poly hasn't really been a requirement in the games industry for a long while now. This thread is for low-poly art style appreciation, so please take note of these rough guidelines:
  • Keep models under 1,000 triangles.
  • Scenes are fine, if all models are low poly.
Some dedicated low-poly modelling tools now exist that make this art style a lot easier to produce; Crocotile3D & Blockbench

Here's a handy list of ways to make your art look right in mainstream 3D software: Low-Poly Art Style Guide

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  • ToothyMang
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    That's awesome! Makes me want to do some of my favorites from Group B.
  • A_GAME
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    A_GAME polycounter lvl 11
    Decided to remodel and remap. Polycount is now 376, texture is now 256x512.
    fire_stingraypc.png
  • elementrix
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    elementrix polycounter lvl 15
    little iphone mockup: 1467tris and a 256x256 texture for everything
    iphonemockup1.png
  • ayoub44
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    ayoub44 polycounter lvl 10
    @drelectro : i think he work on unity 3 for that
  • hawken
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    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    Ani wrote: »
    Thanks for all the comments and suggestions :)
    I think the control thing is based on what people are used to, so I'll keep this in mind next time!

    what people mean is that A & D should steer the car, W should be acceleration and S brake.
    ayoub44 wrote: »
    @drelectro : i think he work on unity 3 for that

    she

    and that's correct - dynamic shadows are a unity pro feature but if you are using the unity pro's trial (that is a limited 30 day trial) you can use shadows.
  • bASEL
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    @FreshDumbledore: Great car and great game ;)
    @Elementrix: Sweeeeeet! Keep it up! ga zo door ;)
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    elementrix wrote: »
    little iphone mockup: 1467tris and a 256x256 texture for everything
    iphonemockup1.png

    nice, you got those stencil shadows to work on the iphone?
  • krisCrash
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    krisCrash polycounter lvl 9
    Yea, i seem to have that issue with all my hand painted stuff, hopefully once its got some lighting on it ingame it'll help, i'l have a play with the AO and contrast though
    I have had this problem too, but I have figured out some tricks that I think will help you. First take your model and colour it by polygon:
    vivianbypolygon.png
    (displayed with "smooth+ highlights" viewport mode)
    just use a blinn shader or such, and abuse SELF ILLUMINATION to tone the shadows. I have given all her shadows a purple or dark blue tinge. You can also use coloured lights, just mess around with your scene until you get a good look. Skin tends to look nice if it's more yellow in the base and more pink in the shadows. Unwrap your model. And bake a complete map:
    vivianbake.png
    Now that's not a very pretty texture in terms of exact shadow placement, neither does it have any detail of course - but the shadows are already starting to give it form and it gives you lots of nice deep colours to use for painting!!!
    So mess around and paint on top of that:
    viviantext2.png
    (sorry for the horrible UV)
    Here is the model with the new texture - displayed in FLAT mode.
    viviantextured.png
    As you can see, the toned shadows from the bake was a big help. Even though your model is not as simple as this, I am sure it can help you.

    And since I meant to post her in the thread anyway - Vivian from Paper Mario TTYD, 470 triangles. WIP texture.
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    @KrisCrash - Thank you so much! im sure this will help alot, i never even considered using vert colours, i guess im just not old school enough :P will definately give this a shot. Your model looks great btw, looking foward to finished textures:)!
  • hawken
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    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    Ged wrote: »
    nice, you got those stencil shadows to work on the iphone?

    Yeah doesn't look likely does it.
  • leilei
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    leilei polycounter lvl 14
    hawken wrote: »
    Yeah doesn't look likely does it.

    I thought all PVR chipsets had a decent stencil buffer? Even in the early days of '3D acceleration' they had the upper hand in the stenciling department.
  • MissMaddyTaylor
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    MissMaddyTaylor greentooth
    Awesome krisCrash!
  • hawken
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    hawken polycounter lvl 19
    leilei wrote: »
    I thought all PVR chipsets had a decent stencil buffer? Even in the early days of '3D acceleration' they had the upper hand in the stenciling department.

    Unity engine doesn't yet support realtime shadows for iOS devices. (it's nothing to do with the hardware, I'm sure a custom engine could do it, just how fast is the question)

    (Maybe I'll change that to the thread title...)
  • Rapante
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    Rapante polygon
    hawken wrote: »
    Unity engine doesn't yet support realtime shadows for iOS devices. (it's nothing to do with the hardware, I'm sure a custom engine could do it, just how fast is the question)

    (Maybe I'll change that to the thread title...)

    yes, I can confirm, it's possible to do realtime shadows on iOS devices (got that in one of my own projects (custom engine) I am working on in my spare time) :)
  • OzMa
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    @Ani: What a cool game! Good begining :)

    Looooong time without posting. Here I go with some vegetables for a school project ^^

    verduras_3.jpg
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    Rapante wrote: »
    yes, I can confirm, it's possible to do realtime shadows on iOS devices (got that in one of my own projects (custom engine) I am working on in my spare time) :)

    I guess as long as you have enough processing power left over for it then stencil shadows should be possible. Its just interesting to see how other people tackle the challenge.
  • elementrix
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    elementrix polycounter lvl 15
    Ged wrote: »
    nice, you got those stencil shadows to work on the iphone?

    No that mockup is in the maya viewport=) We are not using unity so I have no idea if it will be actually possible to do this on the iphone itself, and otherwise we'll find a workaround.
  • shaka
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    shaka polycounter lvl 7
    sooo....i'm working on this at the moment. Hope to finish it in a couple of hours.

    I think i should post the whole set of caricatures and idiotic VIPs i'm working on.
    This one i call "Spooki"

    spooki_wip_01.jpg
  • Slaught
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    Slaught polycounter lvl 18
    It´s a Jersey thing...
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    Happy Rabbit is happy

    Boredom in class resulted in this.....thing... it has some issues with timing but oh well :D

    happyrabbit.gif
  • Veko
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    those flowers are hypnotic when you stare at them xD
  • drelectro
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    drelectro polycounter lvl 8
    shaka wrote: »
    This one i call "Spooki"

    and i call it a "strong silhouette" ;-)
  • whats_true
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    whats_true polycounter lvl 15
    Happy Rabbit is happy

    Boredom in class resulted in this.....thing... it has some issues with timing but oh well :D

    happyrabbit.gif


    The flowers are going the wrong direction.....no wait, now they arnt o_O

    *BRAIN HURTS*
  • premium
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    premium polycounter lvl 13
    gilesruscoe: lol that's funny :D
  • ToothyMang
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    Probably be a few weeks until I can get back to this and texture it, so I figured I'd post it.
    Mk22.png

    I'm still pretty new to low poly, and any critiques would be appreciated.
  • kiril0t
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    kiril0t polycounter lvl 12
    Comp1.gif

    awesome stuff in here as always!
  • Buppy
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    ToothyMang wrote: »
    Probably be a few weeks until I can get back to this and texture it, so I figured I'd post it.
    Mk22.png

    I'm still pretty new to low poly, and any critiques would be appreciated.

    Depending on how low you want to go, some of that stuff could be textured in. That yellow thing on the side and the grey bump on the handle for instance. Also, the detail on the front of the gun around the recess, as well as the purpley bit at the back of the gun could be lower. Watch out for 5 sided polys too, I guess its just good practice but I can see a few (in the recess, maybe by the trigger where it meets the gun), though I'm not sure if this matters. I guess if you converted it to be put in a game, it'd auto triangulate.

    It's pretty cool though. It'll be nice to see it textured.
  • RAWTalent
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    Part of a level for a game

    snowpeakwirejpg.jpg
    snowypeak2.jpg
    snowypeak1.jpg
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    kiril0t wrote: »
    Comp1.gif

    awesome stuff in here as always!

    I LOVE that model, its got some real character to it, however i cant help thinking the run cycle from behind looks a little odd how his legs move out sideways so much? either way, keep it up :)
  • paradise.engineering
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    paradise.engineering polycounter lvl 11
    Vespa (used by Gintoki from Gintama)
    vespa+promo.jpg
    vespa+blueprints.jpg

    500 tri
    1 texture 512x512
  • Komalrajsingh
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    Alto 1981

    99711745.png

    critic welcome.. :)
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    what texture size are you using and how many tri's? you seem to have some diagonal lines that could be avoided with a squarer unwrap
  • brandoom
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    brandoom polycounter lvl 13
    39964995.jpg
    diffuse.jpg

    This was an art test I did a little while backl. 378 tris and 2x64 textures.
  • premium
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    premium polycounter lvl 13
    From the last airbender?
  • kiril0t
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    kiril0t polycounter lvl 12
    Thanks gilesruscoe, im still crankin on him. cheers!
  • Komalrajsingh
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    Here's the pic with wireframe
    28915365.png

    texture size is 2*512
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    two 512's? o_O thats alot of texture space for such little a large amount of flat colours
  • Heartless
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    Heartless polycounter lvl 8
    Here's the pic with wireframe
    28915365.png

    texture size is 2*512

    Your uv mapping still hasn't improved much since your last posts. Your modeling is pretty good, but you really need to work on utilizing texture space properly. Remember, on most, almost always with non-character models, you want to use one texture map. Mirror symmetrical parts and overlap them, and if a large area is going to be a single, flat color, like on your car, you don't need it to be taking up much room in your UV map.

    Post your texture maps and me and probably a few others will do a quick fix.
  • Komalrajsingh
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    Here's the texture map. I used two texture maps, one for texture and other for the alpha(it basically covered the window parts).

    alto1981copy.png
  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    Make straighter UV shells. If you align the windows so they're square on the texture, you'll get rid of the stairstepping, even if you only use 1 pixel wide black lines.
    Look at some of Tennis's work to see what I mean: http://www.kennethfejer.com/lowpoly.html
  • Heartless
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    Heartless polycounter lvl 8
    16gbtwp.jpg

    You could accomplish the same amount of detail in 128x128px or maybe even 64x64px.

    UV mapping takes a piece of an image and stretches it over a poly. All that grey in your texture only only has a single unique pixel. You're using about 25% of your texture to repeat that same pixel over and over. Stretching a 25x25px area of a single color over an object has the same effect as stretching 4000x4000px of that same color over an object.

    Also, make note of the symmetrical pieces. Each part of that tire is the same if split into fourths. You could probably split it into eighths.

    There are more things I didn't point out, but you should be able to figure it out on your own.
  • Baddcog
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    Baddcog polycounter lvl 9
    That back window/back wheel geometry is weird. It can't be flat and in a render above you can see the back seat clipping through it.

    Looks like you have tris going up to roof from wheel, but also have a poly for the window ? really can't tell what you got going there.
  • Buppy
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    Heartless wrote: »
    16gbtwp.jpg

    You could accomplish the same amount of detail in 128x128px or maybe even 64x64px.

    UV mapping takes a piece of an image and stretches it over a poly. All that grey in your texture only only has a single unique pixel. You're using about 25% of your texture to repeat that same pixel over and over. Stretching a 25x25px area of a single color over an object has the same effect as stretching 4000x4000px of that same color over an object.

    Also, make note of the symmetrical pieces. Each part of that tire is the same if split into fourths. You could probably split it into eighths.

    There are more things I didn't point out, but you should be able to figure it out on your own.

    I think this is good advice. Definitely try to cut corners as much as you can. Personally, I find it easier to draw out the texture first, then move the UV's, instead of snapshotting something and trying to draw in it.

    Doing the texture first might help you see where you can overlap UVs. Especially the windows. You don't even need another UV map for alphas, and if they're at that transparency, you could probably do it tiny, like 16x16.

    I'm not sure if the detail is all there in the car, which is why you've left so much grey, if so, fair enough, but you could really cut it down a lot. Can't wait to see what you come up with.
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    More "Gilbert!" stuff to bore you all with, this time its the Lizard boss!

    Check out the rest of the game (so far) at: http://www.indiedb.com/games/gilbert
    LizardBossFinal.png

    lizardbossmodelsheet.png
  • jondo22
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    one quick doodle

    kilik.jpg
  • ToothyMang
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    Whoa cool Jondo, I like it
  • Hatsya
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    @Jondo: What an extremely nice and chibi rendition of Kilik of Soul Calibur. Say, can you do a chibi God Eater character, or a Monster Hunter one?
  • Harry
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    Harry polycounter lvl 13
    Buppy wrote: »
    Depending on how low you want to go, some of that stuff could be textured in. That yellow thing on the side and the grey bump on the handle for instance. Also, the detail on the front of the gun around the recess, as well as the purpley bit at the back of the gun could be lower. Watch out for 5 sided polys too, I guess its just good practice but I can see a few (in the recess, maybe by the trigger where it meets the gun), though I'm not sure if this matters. I guess if you converted it to be put in a game, it'd auto triangulate.

    It's pretty cool though. It'll be nice to see it textured.


    depending how he wants to use it, the "yellow thing" will probably need to stay as a separate mesh, maybe alpha plane?
    I'm assuming it's a slide lock which prevents the slide from snapping back and making sound during firing, as with suppressed weapons the movement of the slide can sometimes be as loud as the sound from firing. So, in a first person view, you'd easilly notice that lever twitching with each shot.
    However, he doesnt seem to have a suppressor on his mk22, so it's a little redundant anyway ;)

    Harry, what's the average rendered polycount per frame in your game?

    I'm not totally sure, I'll have to ask hernan. Right now our terrain has no LOD provisions which will be upping the tri count quite a bit. It also depends on how many clouds and trees are placed in the maps, and we're yet to shift those onto the vertex buffer, or more importantly, use instancing. To give a general idea, the terrain is 256x256 quads, currently with no LOD optimisation (something we definitely need to look into) the clouds are about 18 tris each, and planes are all under 1000 with flywires, whch are turned off at most ingame distances, leaving planes at an average of about 600-700 though this really varies with different wing designs and stuff. I imagine a city to be 1500-2000 tris but i'd consider that a high estimate. Trees are 2 tris each but all ground objects become invisible at distance. There would be about 20-30 tris worth of smoke in the air per plane at any one time. The killer at the moment is the terrain, but next time Hernan is working on it, i'll ask him for some averages.
  • gilesruscoe
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    gilesruscoe polycounter lvl 10
    Really nice Jondo, diggin his face!
    45 min play about, some wierd looking fat kid :)

    64x32 texture

    fatboy.jpg
  • Buppy
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    Really nice Jondo, diggin his face!
    45 min play about, some wierd looking fat kid :)

    64x32 texture

    fatboy.jpg

    I love it.
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