Robot concept
This one started out as a quick concept sketch as I learn my way around my new Intuos 4 tablet, and then into a speed modeling practice. Took me 1 hour to get to the stage shown on the 3D model. My process was to start out with a cube for the head and neck. Another cube for the body. Another cube and cylinder for the arm and a 4th cube for the bottom part of the body, the robotic thigh. I plan on taking this further to a final stage and I set myself a low poly budget of 1000 tris. Counting 660 so far. Inspired by the Myr, a set of cards from the CCG Magic the Gathering, from the block set of Mirrodin.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/...r_1024x768.jpg
http://www.evocacion.com/magic-the-g...erador-myr.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/magic/images/...r_1024x768.jpg
http://www.evocacion.com/magic-the-g...erador-myr.jpg
Replies
As for the poly count, the smoothed out version just like in my concept was for after I make the blocky one. I just wanted to do something low poly, beneath 1000 for practice and to learn to control my mesh flow.
slipsius - telling him to double his budget on a personal learning piece is just odd.
exevalon - on a low poly piece like this you have to make sure each vertex is pulling it's weight. if it isn't affecting the silhouette, get rid of it. look at the center line down his chest. that entire loop is pointless, as he stands. pull back those points on either side to help round out his chest - this aught to help get rid of some of his obvious box origins. same goes for his head and arms. lots of cuts that slacking off.
i would also make his arms separate objects from his torso - there's no reason to have it one contiguous mesh, it will just eat up your poly budget and make rigging him a pain in the ass.
Yes you should move the verts around to reduce the boxiness but, you do have the overall shape of the robot down. Keep going, looking forward to seeing the updates.
I kept the shoulder as a n-gon cause its supposed to be round though I could make it six sided and keep my numbers pair but again its a little refining I will do after I have the entire model ready. I did the arms separately but then added it into the body, I guess I wasn't thinking of rigging lol. I'll have to end up just taking it apart from the body, create a nice little entry of where it was supposed to go as to maintain the illusion it is connected. Like a hole where all the compartments are to make the arm rotate. I also have to add in another cylinder in the area where the forearm will bend, an elbow if you will. But im not sure how im supposed to go about it in an efficient manner and without having it look fugly. Making the lower arm separate from the upper arm? Anyways, enough of this long post, here is an update, and the legs are on the way. Thanks for the replies guys. O yeah, Polycount so far is 583 tris.
update: Did the legs and separated the arms from the torso. They may look as if they are together but they are seperate objects with a temporary combine. Im at 915 tris. Im sure I can do a little bit of refining now but Im unsure of how to tackle adequately the joints so that when I rig it will look good and not screwed up as they rotate. I was thinking of seperating the arms and legs into 2 sections and the ankle joint apart from the leg and foot. But I dont want to just have that cylinder there floating, I want it to be justified. Advice please.
Here's a decent Low poly Limb Deformation guide by poopinmymouth. I'd recommend using the dual edge loops in the center, doesn't add too many polygons and the extra points can further define the joints.
Refine the feet more, the edge loop running around them on the x-axis adds nothing to its shape, removing it and sharpening the front of the foot to match your reference would be better. Since you're limited to 1000 tris, think more in terms of triangles and how they can define shapes, instead of thinking in quads.
Now I know most of you don't read much when the comments are long but I need some tips on rigging.
I have weighted each joint to the corresponding area on the model to 100% on each joint, for example the joint in the head will control completely the head while the next joint beneath it will only control the torso. The arms, legs, torso, lower body and head are seperate pieces. The torso can rotate with the arms and the lower body can rotate with the legs. Now, how do I go about constraining the rotation to a specific axis? For example the arms at the shoulders and the legs at the hip can only rotate forward or backward. But how do I constrain the axis to do only that? Also, it seems I can only rotate the skeleton and model but I cannot move, as for example lower the body and raise it to simulate a walk cycle. When I do try, only the skeleton moves while the model itself stays the same. What did I do wrong?
your legs and arms don't seem to have caps - they need those, i'd imagine.
still have useless loops on his pelvis, on the side. nix 'em.
feet also has cuts along the side that aren't serving a purpose.
looks like you've still got his arm/pivot/torso as a contiguous mesh. this is bad for animation of a robot and wastes a lot of polys. they should be three separate pieces: his torso, his arm, and a cylinder stuck between them.
I think I can do away with the edges on the side of the cylinder on the foot, thanks for the heads up. However those on the pelvis if deleted will mess up the faces on the model. I tried it already. The face starts to go a bit dark at a certain angle. Same with the feet. I'll try normalizing them just to check. And as I mentioned earlier the Torso is one seperate piece, and the arm is another seperate piece. I just have them close together to avoid having a floating arm. The shoulder joint is part of the arm though, why should it be seperate? I don't see where the difficulty in animating it lies. Also, I didn't intend to take it that far, maybe just for the heck of it but this is just a low poly practice. As for the caps, I did already think of putting them in, but only if I gain extra polys.
ok, first red box, on the leg, pelvis area. What i personally would do is merge those middle verts that are just kind of hanging there to the vert closest to them, in the center. it finishes the edge loop and will actually reduce your tri count.
next, the two red boxes at the right side. just add an edge connecting the front and back. right now you have an edge on the back and an edge on the front. but on the sides, its a 6 sided face. This wont increase your tris at all, and it will make for a cleaner model.
and next, i would say the feet. you have an edge loop straight through the middle of the foot. but it really doesnt seem like its there for any reason. you have pushed out he heel a tiny bit, and the toe a tiny bit, probably for a more rounded look. The problem i see is that you havent pushed it enough for it to really make a difference. either push it more, or drop the edge loops so you can use the tris somewhere else. add the rounded look in your next step (2k tris).
keep it up! I wanna see how this turns out. i love the design of it.
if you ever wanna find your n-gons, in maya, you can use the clean up tool. under the mesh drop down (polygon menu set), the tool is called "clean up....." select your object and use it.
just, under operation at the top, make sure you change it to select matching polygons, or it could really screw up your model. it will highlight all faces that are more than 4 sides if you use the settings i have there. and to fix them, just use the split polygon tool. remember, using that tool, if connecting two verts that are already there, will NOT increase the tri count. but it will take some practice to split them in the right now. just keep at it though! you`re doing well
EDIT: if you dont have any 5+ sided faces, your object will deselect all together.
edit: Nevermind saw what you meant when I used the clean up tool. But its lighting up other faces which obviously only have 4 sides and I fixing them adds to my poly count. Other faces light up becuase they have edges above them on nearby faces but they themselves lack the continuation. Since they are not corners, if I use the split poly, it will add to the count. As so happens on the thigh area and the bottom of the head. But I don't think it will be a problem since its a practice model and not a final production. By the way, what is the problem with 5 sided ngons?
5 sided faces can cause lighting and smoothing flaws. also, when you export the model, for games at least, you have to triangulate the model, and when there are 5 sides, iits hard to triangulate it. can screw it up and make it appear to have flaws in game. least, thats my understanding of it.
Here are the shots:
That way, when you get to a point where you are ready to learn to bake a high poly into a low poly, you have a nice base for the low.