LOW-POLY ART
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:
Here's a handy list of ways to make your art look right in mainstream 3D software: Low-Poly Art Style Guide
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.
Here's a handy list of ways to make your art look right in mainstream 3D software: Low-Poly Art Style Guide
Replies
Awesome work!
The easiest way I see to align everything is by switching the side of the car around with the wheel circles, and X-shrinking the tire track.
Clouds are from an image online but the wood is my own texture. Sand was done myself after getting some colours set up. Everything else is hand painted or baked AO.
The composition is a bit weird too, but the models and textures aren't that bad (apart from what I mentioned)
If you see anything else wonky, do tell. What could I change with the composition? I agree it's weird. It's different than my initial concept.
Thanks!
for the sake of optimization due to size, i think this will save ~100 poly, texture space and still preserve detail needed
It will get trised again anyway, converting Tris into Quad will save nothing since in the game the model has to be 100% Tris.
Polygons would be saved on the headlights mostly. It's also an option to get rid of the insides of the wheels. This would save both polies and texture, while only sporadically affecting visuals (e.g. when the car is upside down).
I'd also try to straighten out the lines on the texture as much as possible, because a little bit of stretching is usually nicer than the stairstepping. A good example of this would be the rear window. Just make a rectangular gray gradient with 1 pixel wide black border. You'll hardly even see it tapering.
Thing is, with high-end models you can use a large texture and blur a tiny bit, and you'll no longer notice individual pixels. But at this size, every pixel counts. You can't afford to blur, and some engines don't even allow for texture filters. So stairstepping and any artifacts from blown-up pixels will be very visible.
Having a roofsupport shring in width 15% isn't.
The most important lines for you to straighten out are:
-door panels
-side guards + highlight
-windows
-rooftop (which currently moves over just about 0.7 pixel so that's really a wase and an AA mess)
The quad wedge was to convey the texture sample to get 5 spokes, it even says in blue the number "10" to explain it will cost 4 more polys in the circles (12 total for all 4 wheels without backs).
I have actually been around here for a while .. i think this is the first time i am insulted, certainly, because i gave the guy a solid paint over critique to help him, but now he might shrug it off as if it isn't efficient. (unless you are kidding around which i hope you are) so allow me to defend my limited experience.
1) the tire texture is bigger than the "real size" so it can be smaller anyway
2) the real way to optimize a circle is like this, which i didn't do intentionally
3) tire (presumably rotates) doesn't need lighting from 1 direction so there is no sense of top or bottom, so a single wedge of texture works perfect
4) I clearly estimated it would save ~100 (maybe more like 60 but there is no back wire shot to know for sure) polys by eliminating the needs for bumper/light polys to clarify Mr_Drayton's suggestion, to think i just pulled that out of my ass without thinking "oh but i have to add those 12 in the tires"
a bit insulting polycount, like seriously guys...
what was confusing, as it read as if you are saying your version is saving polygons - which i now see is pointed at the front stuff not the wheels and the texturespace was what you meant by the wheel op - which is totally fine
Odium, funny that you should say that. I believe I read somewhere that some uneven numbers actually work better, because they break the horizontal/vertical symmetry. But whatever you do, it's important to have the sides divisible by a fairly small number for the tiling-tire-trick to work:
8 -> 2 sides per tile
9 -> 3 sides per tile
10-> 2 sides per tile
12-> 3 sides per tile
15-> 3 or 5 sides per tile
7, 11, 13 and 14 sides are not nice shapes.
i don't understand, interference patterns based on FPS, RPM and #Sides makes this hard to evaluate.
here check this video i screened out (made with JING) i think it needs flash though
http://www.screencast.com/users/torbsnotch/folders/Jing/media/6f967e5d-fce4-4723-bf88-9ff4387a76ec
i understand primes wont work due to a remainder 7,11,13 but 14 at least is two 1/2's of 7
And yeah 14 is divisible by 7, but it doesn't save as much texture space as 12 or 15.
well it can, i mean, this depends on the # of repeats you want say 7 spokes or 14 spokes.
14 polys can't do 1/3,1/4 or 1/5...i mean, you get the idea.
Things still to do:
Light the scene
Make 2 more sprites (1 character and 1 enemy)
Make the interface
What I meant was, without motion. As in, a still 15 sided cylinder with 3 spokes should look nicer than a 16 sided cylinder with 4 spokes. Where I read it (can't for the life of me recall where) motion, especially fast motion, wasn't involved. It purely looked at the shape of an object.
The gist of the story was something like, because you can't XandY mirror a 3-pointed object (only XorY) it should look a lot more natural.
DOG-GY
Yeah. Aside from just learning other tricks, or sometimes learning that you're blatantly wrong, it does a lot more. It tells you to consider other approachers, that different≠wrong and that there's more to learn. I love learning.
Blekdar:
Is that a placeholder sprite, or will the final game use sprites? Because I think currently it looks a bit weird with both feet on the same visual plane. Maybe if you pull up his left foot a few pixels, it will trick the mind into seeing depth.
This might give some weird effects if the camera angle changes a lot, but from what I recall your last mockup had the same angle so I assume it'll be fixed? Also, see the image below.
-changed feet
-changed walltile to get rid of long line
-added water
-swapped around 2 floor stones to not to have clean row, broken row, clean row, broken etc.
You wanna put a bit more water behind the grating, slowly fading out. You might also want to vary your tiles a bit, because it's currently really repetitive. I'd suggest using 1 clean square and then a couple broken variations. If that's not a feasible solution due to constraints, at least modify the current tile from it's current state to a checkerboard thing.
Red vertex can be removed because it belongs to a straight edge.
I don't think that purple vertex gives much detail, it can be removed too.
Think about collapsing come nearby vertices (green ones).
WIP low poly dungeon, still got quite a few place holder texs here and there.
The glowing ring is the brightest, biggest, most contrasting element in the scene, and it sticks out because it's too polygonal. You can smooth out the intersection with the floor 2x, as in you can fake it having double as much polies as it does now without any extra cost.
-grab the bottom vertices
-pull them down, rotate them half a side (360degrees/13sides/2= about 14 degrees)
-scale them in to realign with that glowing circle texture.
-adjust the UV map to put some random rows of pixels on the hidden/underground part of the mesh
-enjoy.
It should look somewhat like this(the semitransparent plane intersecting the inset):
The pentagram can be easily and fairly cheaply optimized with a texture that looks sorta like this: Just put a glowing border texture on 5 triangles and arrange them in a pentagram, and then use 5 triangles as sprites for the symbols. Should give you about 3 times the texel density and you can align the triangles sides so you don't have any stairstepping.
Also, about texel density. You have some inconsistencies, for instance, try comparing the wall-brick with the floortiles, or the pentagram with the skulls.
I do think it's nicely moody though, and you've got some nice lighting going on. Maybe push the light coming through the door a bit further? Via a ray of light or some flying particles or by increasing the brightness on the floor, perhaps?
I think I will optimize the stairstepping and try to clean any artifacts and make new texture for the wheel. The shading, it just doesn't feels right when it rotates. I want to keep the headlights mesh just the way it is, because it feel more detailed when the car is rotated. I will try all the optimizing technique that you guys mentioned. Thank you very much guys,
i guess you'd just say chassis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chassis
Bottom of the car is often called the Undercarriage.
Undercarriage.jpg"]this picture[/url] of an pontiac GTO 2004 apparently, I made an edit:
use the yellow line.
alternatively, you could use the pink line, but that'll look very symmetrical and less nice.
Right now you'd have to cram the entire part in one piece on the texture, which would become stretchy.
I also still think you should make the front window straighter. Not the bottom and top lines, but the sides.
Lastly, you could save a few tris by getting rid of the polies on the rear bumper, which hardly do anything. Oh, I just noticed: you can save an extra 32 triangles when you make the inside polygon of the wheelcasings (correct word?) 4 sided instead of 7 sided. And since the inside is a flat grey, it won't affect the visuals at all.
Meet Klif. He is a 400 tri monkey that likes to eat anything and everything.
http://www.26pm.com/
On that note for snader: The sprite is what I'm gonna use as the character. Thanks for the tips on him, but I havn't gotten to fixing him yet. Also, you said you fixed a line in the wall tiles...I can't see this line you were speaking of.
Have you made any progress on baking vertex AO/lighting? That'd do a lot to make things pop more, the bright blue of the brick washes out a lot of the perceived depth.
Fockin' ace, mate! Looks absolutely brilliant
thanks) i'm too lazy to rig it)
Snader
i don't want to touch his texture anymore, next time i'll try to make it better)
Would you mind posting the texture?
Dude, that's dope
Thanks for the feedback on my last post much appreciated Snader!
Small update
old version
http://www.bigredmonsta.co.uk/old.jpg
Gotta do a few more texs still and tweak some geometry.