Student - Art help :)

Trixxster

Hello everyone! This is my first post on Polycount. The path I am following is to become a level designer. I really enjoy that aspect of game development. I have a lot of awesome resources in my life, but nothing as helpful as what Polycount appears to be. I don't want anyone to be polite with me. If my stuff sucks - I want you to say, "This sucks, this is why". I am looking for every bit of knowledge I can soak up. I just turned 22 years old an I am really eager to pump out quality work.

In my spare time I am constantly reading books and socializing with people in the industry. I consistantly fill up my notebook with puzzle ideas, level ideas, and game design ideas.

Currently I am continuing to go to school and work on mini games with friends. I enjoy making terrain environments(Because Choco's tutorial got me hooked) and other related projects.

My modeling skills are my weakest skill and I would love to hear some advice from you guys. I constantly have been reading polycount posts and learning from others mistakes and from their successes.

So without further wall of text - I started this humvee and was hoping to make it more realistic. I know there are way too many polys in the wheels - those are just placeholders. Any tips on making the edges not so hard on the vehicle. I wanted to smooth out a lot of the edges but I am not quite sure how, other than chamfering which is causing a lot of issues on large edges.

Thanks in advance for your critique.

Trixxster

Any help with making the edges not so hard are appreciated. If I attempt to use Chamfer it causes some issues. I am not at home right but but was thinking maybe adding some edge loops around those major edges to smooth out the corners, etc.

cdevens

It is hard to tell what workflow you are going for. You said you want to soften the edges which would typically be done working in a smoothed mode for your high poly, but you said you realize there are too many polys on your tires which would indicate this was a low poly. You also have lots of n-gons that need to be fixed if this is a low poly. I would suggest you make a high poly model with a smooth modifier and throw some support edges on your model. You need to fix your topology though or you will have lots of problems when you smooth this. I think you will get more advice if you make your goal for this piece a little clearer.

Trixxster

Thank you for the advice! I am very beginner when it comes to modeling. My goal with this project was just to create something to learn the tips and tricks of modeling, which tools to use when, etc. I totally understand everything you said and I will do more research on topology. I agree that I notice the topology does not seem very consistent or fluid at all.

This took me >30 minutes to make by using the reference plane with the object on X-ray.

I am going to start fresh when I get home and do some more research and attempt a high poly model with more support loops. Thanks again

Tiraldric

If your going to use this as a low poly object, you've got quite a few n-gons.



Quick paintover... there are probably more, but I'm on my way out the door.

Look into hard surface high poly modelling if your after a rounder, and more vehicle like appearance.

You'll want to keep your mesh more quadrified if your going to be turning it into a high poly.

Trixxster

I really appreciate you taking the time to do that paint over for me. I completely understand what you are saying about the n-gons. I am going to search the PC-Wiki and online for tips on hard surface modeling! As soon as I get home from work tonight I will try to re-work this. Thanks again both of you for replying.

When you say it should be more quadrified.. what exactly does that mean? I am assuming that you mean the polys should all have 4 edges but I just want to clarify to make sure I understand.

Tiraldric

Trixxster wrote: »

When you say it should be more quadrified.. what exactly does that mean? I am assuming that you mean the polys should all have 4 edges but I just want to clarify to make sure I understand.

Hey, student here too! I'll try to explain more, and if I'm wrong on anything hopefully someone will chime in and correct me. I think 3D is a fairly personal thing, and as long as YOU can produce the desired/functional results, most of it's about finding your own workflow. I've got max open, so I'll give an example.

When you turbo smooth an object, it subdivides it - and depending on what the desired result is, keeping the object in quads (yeah, 4 sided polys) helps me a ton. When you model something in high-poly to be baked via normal map really sharp (90) degree angles really don't read well at all. As I understand it, normal maps are good at showing gradual changes in angle.

Here's 4 cubes.
From left to right, we have the standard cube shape. Then one with all edge chamfered/bevelled, then one with fairly tight control edges, then one with looser control edges.



Here's what they look like in wire frame with turbo smooth on:



And without turbo smooth:



So the reason keeping my mesh to mostly quads helps me is that when I go to support an edge to bake it, all I need to do is ring/loop it, and then use connect/chamfer/extrude to create a new shape.



Wire frame again,



Hopefully that's not too confusing. As someone new to modelling you'll probably get into high/low poly workflow fairly quickly, I know I did.

I'm sure there are plenty of better guides kicking around on here about it, just search around a bit. Some of the pro's here have written some incredibly useful literature =p.

I recommend this thread whole heartedly, it's helped me a ton just reading it.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56014

Trixxster

Amazing explanation. The pictures completely helped. I fully understand support loops now and how they are used! Thanks for taking the time to send me such a detailed reply.

After reading your post I watched this video which also helped a lot ->

http://vimeo.com/11052708

I am going to dive in to the thread that you linked right now!

Thanks again

Tiraldric

Thanks for the link, haven't seen that video yet - 2 hour drive home and I know what I'll be watching on my playbook =p. Very welcome.

z0ltan

Another video that might be helpful for hard surface stuff:

http://vimeo.com/10941211