Low Poly Environment Assets

Rockman!

Hello!
I'm working on a some low poly assets for a large environment that will only be seen from high above (the player is flying over a canyon in a ship).

I'm new to making environment models, and new to low poly (most limited to 128 texture & 400 tris), any and all critiques or advice on how to model, texture, and be effecient (or anything else!) would be very greatly appreciated.

At the moment, this model/texture looks awful...

Snader

1- You're spending a bunch too much polies on the leaves/planes.
2- The stems are flat, I think 3 sides would nbe more appropriate
3 - how about reducing the leaf texture to 1/4th of it, and tiling, or at least mirror along the center line.

Shiraz

Just keep the diffuse, I cant imagine normal maps being crucial for such a tiny asset like this though.

Shouldn't really spend too much time on the small things.

But i don't know what scale this intends to be so I may be wrong *shrugs*

Baddcog

I agree, from way over head you wont notice too many details. Make the leaves a square, maybe 8 tris at most for a little bend. mirror the uv.kill the normal.

.morph3us

you dont need to model out the overall shape of the leaf, as you have an opacity map...

sprunghunt

xXm0RpH3usXx wrote: »

you dont need to model out the overall shape of the leaf, as you have an opacity map...

Actually it's quite a good idea to follow the shape of the leaf. It reduces overdraw. Which is a major performance hit on this kind of asset.

Rockman!

Thank you for all the advice!! I've probably spent way to much time on this tiny little asset, but i tried to follow everyone's advice, as well as the project manager's. I cut the leaf UV in half, and upped the sides of the stems to 4 (it was 3 in the original, but Snader confused them for planes so I tried to make em look less awful). I cut down on some unnessecary loops, so the size of the model is only 14 tris bigger than the original.

The project manager wants the shape of the leaves, so I'm leaving that in. I'm also keeping the normal map, just so we have the option to use it or drop it later.

I'll have a few trees later tonight to show (sorry, I know, boring). I really appreciate the feedback!!

Rockman!

Here's a tree I'm making. Most of the geometry will be cloned once I have a foliage/branch/vine texture on it and can see what I'm actually doing. (Please tell me if I'm doing it wrong!)