LOW-POLY ART

hawken

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

urgaffel

[SF]Three9, why no colours? Feels like you could make it pop a bit by using either blocks of colour or lines or decals like Snader suggested. Look at the ship Hatsya posted at the top, it's got some sections using different colours to make certain bits pop, giving it more volume and it breaks up the forms too. You've got cool ships but the texturing make them look a bit flat

Oleg

Snader , Shit man , you have no idea how long I taught about it how I could fix the texture the right way ! Thank you so much for explaining the right way and showing the example ! It saved me a lot of time. And I like what you working on , the shape is lovely done.

Here some weirdo plant , for the scene..I think I went to much back in time with it. In my eye's it looks to old school..

Wendy de Boer

@ Hatsya: Pretty boy or not, I think you are going too girly with the proportions. I would slim down the pelvis a little bit, and add a lot more volume to the upper body.

Here's a paintover with all the proportion tweaks I would do:

[SF]Three9

Thanks for the comments guys

I'm going to get color worked in there for sure, but that's why it's work in progress

Right now I'm still designing the game and trying to plan ahead for how the environments are going to look. That's going to really affect how I color it; I wouldn't want certain parts being hard to see

@Snader I never thought of having set modular textures...I don't really have experience doing that to an extreme degree, so I'm not sure how I would distinguish certain parts with more detail than more plain areas. Right now I can get the texture to 512x512...since there won't be tons of ships on screen at once I don't really see it being an issue having set textures. This isn't going to be something that's REALLY HUGE that you are flying around.

Here's an update, but I haven't addressed the color issues that has been stated; don't worry I'll get to that




Once again here is kind of a mock scene environment



I'd like to emphasize that everything seen here is made by me, except the planets. Just did a search for Red Planet and grabbed that. It will be replaced, just used it for test renders


I'm still not sure how the game is going to be handled on a shader side. I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up using spec maps on it, so I don't want to make it too bright to completely blow out the specular. I plan to work on it a bit more this weekend, so I'll update again once I get it to a better point

ToothyMang

Three9: Really cool ships. The ingame shot makes the second ship look even more wicked. My one critique is on your stars. You used the photoshop noise technique, right? Well they look great, but the dull noise left over that covers the entirety of the screen is kind of ruining the contrast to the rest of the stars. If you get rid of that I think your stars will feel more realistic.

Hatsya

Gradually putting up proportion and volume. Also, now with the head.

Sunsetrider

School assignment, max 500 tris, 128*128 diffuse.

Hatsya

The female one might need alterations (note to self: Use Sakura Kinomoto's head as a base for Bishoujo body types)

9skulls

@lean That is very inspirational. It's a bit like a mix of Loco Roco, Katamari, and everything NES Great job!

@Moesly That presentation looks marvelous! The idea itself is very neat. And it's very neatly executed! I'd love to see more stuff like that around here. About your model itself, I would listen to what tigerfeet said earlier. Just modify the measurements a bit because currently he does look kinda stump. Give more length to his legs and maybe even bump up his muscles a bit to give his silhouette more that super hero -look.

Leisure Centaur

@lean I could watch him dance forever, lovely stuff!

Little bit of Disgaea/Cave Story fan art here...



560 Tris, 512x512 texture. Any texturing tips very welcome! Trying to make sure he has an even amount of detail!

Based on this lovely illustration (Artist unknown) http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/193536-Cave.jpg

Leisure Centaur

Oh, VERY work in progress by the way.

Leisure Centaur

A little more progress...



Going to attempt to rig him up tomorrow and do some animations.

lean

wow, awesome texture work! I suck at faking shadows and giving that idea of volume haha.

I'm curious about how the wings/arms work.

Leisure Centaur

Cheers! I'm curious about the arms too in all honesty U_U

I was following this pic maybe too closely...



Guess I'll find out how it goes when I try riggin him!

hawken

Been working on some new items for the next release of my app (iBath). Various tricks to make variations in the models with randomly chosen textures and parts.

Wind up frog (546 tris, 1 x 256/256) these little dudes look funny swimming about



Apple (564 tris, 2 x 256/128 )

willy-wilson

Delko

Still need to make it a cool head.

lean

Delko: it really transforms?!! cool, make an animation, please!

Leisure Centaur

willy-wilson wrote: »

Love this, is it for an explorable world, ala Animal Crossing DS? Or is it a Crash Bandicoot style linear path sorta thing?

Delko: Very nice indeed, reminds me of those mini Transformers fomr the early 90s

Hatsya

Wild54Pe: We don't see the pics...

Tigerfeet

willy-wilson wrote: »

I want this rendered out as super high res to put on my desktop xD

Leisure Centaur

My first textured, rigged and posed model, woop! God, it's a complete faff isn't it, ah well, gunna stick with it.

ikonane

I am doing my first low poly character and it will have a 512x512 map. I have seen people in the thread making a symmetry on the map to use more space in the unwrap. How do I do this in 3ds max?

Is it simply to detach the parts of the mesh that you want symmetry on and delete half the mesh and unwrap that part and then take symmetry on it? Will that work and is that they way you guys are doing it?

Thanks!

Ged

ikonane wrote: »

Is it simply to detach the parts of the mesh that you want symmetry on and delete half the mesh and unwrap that part and then take symmetry on it? Will that work and is that they way you guys are doing it?

that should work yeah.

Snader

Yes, deleting half your mesh and then unwrapping the remaining half is awesome. It saves you 50% of the unwrapping time, and 50% of the texture space.

Delko

lean wrote: »

Delko: it really transforms?!! cool, make an animation, please!

Yup, it actually transforms. no scaling or other voodoo, just moving and rotating pieces. Ill try and make some animations for it this week now that I have the design finalized.

Samuraigun7

This is my first post on this thread i was thinking of making a little avatar for myself here is the character so far

Mercury

Here's a low poly model of Fox Soldier( inspired by "Pocket Legends" ) :

ikonane

Thanks, I will try that.

Another question, when you unwrap a plane will it automatically be "2-sided"? I mean will the same texture be visible on the other side of the plane?
i hope that you understand what I mean.

Hatsya

^ Upload your pics on http://bb.xieke.com or Photobucket. Can't see 'em.

Icarox

Hi folks!

I'm currently working on a lowpoly school project for this friday, and I've based it on some sketches and an amateur painting I've done;

And this is what the mesh is looking like right now;

I would love to get some feedback/tips regarding the mesh.
Right now I'm struggling with a tiling grass texture, I've saved tris to make alpha planes and turn them into grass later on. But right now I'm struggling with creating a good looking tiling grass texture, since it just feels off to have grass being flat!

The restrictions I have are: 1500 tris and a 256 diffuse(alpha).

imaethan

Well this is the first human I've modelled. Aimed for 600 tri's. Yet to texture it. I've only been using 3ds Max since September. Any feedback would be much appreciated





Edit:

I've changed it a bit and added a CAT rig.

fabio brasilien

imaethan: imaethan: Try to avoid those quads faced the way you did on arms and legs, check those samples below to see what I mean. You can use four sides for those low poly characters, but if you turn them, your character will look less "blocky" (not sure if this word exist...hehe)
http://imageshack.us/f/201/tf2snislgr02eo4.jpg/
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/wootmonkey/Art/tf2scout.jpg

Also you have some unecessary polys on the head and torso that don´t realy change the silhouette. Keep in mind: Only leave a poly if its change the silhouette and if it will be noticeable ingame. (e.g, your nose is too small and noone can notice its silhouete in a small character)

Does it make sense?

imaethan

fabio brasilien wrote: »

imaethan: imaethan: Try to avoid those quads faced the way you did on arms and legs, check those samples below to see what I mean. You can use four sides for those low poly characters, but if you turn them, your character will look less "blocky" (not sure if this word exist...hehe)
http://imageshack.us/f/201/tf2snislgr02eo4.jpg/
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/wootmonkey/Art/tf2scout.jpg

Also you have some unecessary polys on the head and torso that don´t realy change the silhouette. Keep in mind: Only leave a poly if its change the silhouette and if it will be noticeable ingame. (e.g, your nose is too small and noone can notice its silhouete in a small character)

Does it make sense?

Yeah, I understand. I did rework it a bit and took out some of the poly's on the face and such. I just need to get a little more used to working on 3d models. I seem to put some polys where they shouldn't be. Thanks for the advice

JR

Leisure Centaur wrote: »

My first textured, rigged and posed model, woop! God, it's a complete faff isn't it, ah well, gunna stick with it.

This is so lovely. Could post him from other angles? And maybe wires and texture?

tucho

Some models more for the tower defense game

CuddlyColin

Hey everybady! I finally have something "low poly" that I think looks good enough to share.



It's not SUPER low, but it's pretty low by today's standards, so I hope it's okay to post here?

I'm thinking about making a character to go with the gun, but I'm super intimidated by character work, so I'm not sure yet, especially since everyone else's characters have been so awesome!

EDIT: Also, I know it doesn't look EXACTLY like an mp41, I took some liberty with the design to make it more cartoony and hopefully more interesting

EDIT: Made a few adjustments per a friends advice, as well as tested a 128 texture
[IMG][/img]

ikonane

Any tips how to texture to get it to look "realistic" in a 512x512 resolution? Thanks

Leisure Centaur

jramauri wrote: »

This is so lovely. Could post him from other angles? And maybe wires and texture?

Sure thing, I'll rustle something up

Baddcog

More awesome from Tucho.

@Colin, looks pretty good. Though I think you could probably get by with a 128x128 just fine. And you could fix the smoothing groups on the clip, it has round shading as is. But they style/proportions are really good.

CuddlyColin

Baddcog wrote: »

@Colin, looks pretty good. Though I think you could probably get by with a 128x128 just fine. And you could fix the smoothing groups on the clip, it has round shading as is. But they style/proportions are really good.

Thanks for the feedback! I also got some feedback about the colors, so I updated that a little bit.

I rendered with a 128x128, and you're right, I think I could make it work, but I feel like I might as well poly reduce it further if I was going to go that route. Like I feel that the tri-count to texture size ratio is pretty good currently, does that make sense? Or am I mistaken?

Also, I'm going to go back and scour this thread for examples of characters and their poly flow and rigging, but any tutorials or great examples you guys know of right off the bat would be super helpful

_Ace_

I'm a Game Art student and this is my first textured model. I've only been moddeling for a few weeks, so please dont be too harsh guys

shaka

I couldn't post these until now, so here they go. All of them use 128 or 256 diffuse textures, but here they have the 512x512 one, for iphone 4 and ipad.

The tank and armored vehicle are 446 and 420 triangles and 256x256 textures in the screen grabs bellow.

ikonane

^ Really nice! Impressive

Baddcog

@Colin, yeah, makes sense and 256 isn't that big anyway. You should post the uv's/texture sheet though. That can go long ways when judging the used space. The only thing i really notice in the smaller tex is the wood grain being pixelated, Possible you could just crunch the uv's a lot on the metal and save most of the space for the wood.

i wouldn't worry about it too much though. Nice prop> onto the next.

imaethan

Well I've finished my model of Brad. His model is 600 tri's. The full scene including the 3 items came up to 840 tri's.

Again, any feedback would be great.

Hatsya

^ Wires please. Say, where do you intend to make your RE fan game anyway? If on mobile, you don't have to include the trigger, 'cuz to begin with, you may not likely to see your character too close...

paradise.engineering

shaka that Hulk is so cool I had to save it.

shaka

thanks,

here's another model i can finally post.
Not to be boring i'll be posting one model from the set, and 2 texture versions. If anyone wants to see more of them and wires for every model i'll be glad to post, because i have like 5 cars with 6 skins, and tons of exhausts, wheels, lights bla bla, for in game customization.

924 triangles without the wheels, and a 512x512 texture. In game it used a 256 or 128 version. This size was used only for the garage part. All other textures like the lights, spoiler, neons, exhausts are small 16, 32, 64 textures.

SimonT

willy-wilson wrote: »

I want this as wallpaper too!