My first low poly model
Here's a low poly character I made. This is my first attempt at making low poly character. I'd be much grateful if someone could help me regrading this model or what to remember while making low-poly and texturing it. What program do modeler use when making texture? Do they paint directly or on photoshop?
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Your model looks a bit flat. See if you can tweak a few verts or just add some polys to get it looking a little nicer.
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they're my fav tutorials online. you'll be character modelling in no time
you needs to make him more rounded. dont worry about texturing yet. practice modelling, sculpting and uv unwrapping. texturing will be the cherry on top at the end
most people use mudbox and zbrush to sculpt and texture. i recommend you start in Mudbox and learn about brushes
Here's the pic
and i'm using maya 2010..
I don't recommend learning Mudbox or zBrush at this point. Learn to be fairly good at low poly modeling with just Maya and Photoshop for textures.
Unwrapping UVW's is a total pain and is pretty much everyone's least favorite part. I use 3DS Max so can't help ya there. But for characters, you usually draw seams and pelt map. Youtube should have plenty of tutorials for that. If not, Lynda.com has a lot of Maya tutorials at a decent price.
Anyway, can you tell me what do you actually do when you think about unwrapping a 3d model as in the steps/precautions you take?
@ BorisK: Thnanks for the youtube video. They are really helpful.
Your unwraps on the right of your last image look fine, those are all using one texture image right?. Mirroring the UV coordinates to save space is always good. On the chest piece, what I'd do is straighted the left and right edges vertically without stretching too much. It'll make for better packing in your texture and it will be a bit easier to texture if the map is flat and not skewed. Same with the legs.
Also, if you aren't away of this shortcut yet, shift+RMB (hold) brings up a context menu where you can quickly flick the mouse down and extrude a surface. After a while of using Maya I finally found that out
I tried to make the leg rounder. So how is it now? And is this how the face is supposed to be made? Is there any way I can reduce the poly count?
And I made this Ace Ac low poly model. Happy with the poly count. Though should be smaller than this. Was stuck with texturing it. Is there any tutorials available in the net that might be useful regarding how to make a texture?
Unwrapping is always gonna be a bitch..
Sorry, unfortunately I've never come across any good basic texturing tutorials.
I mainly learn from checking out the Low Poly thread which has a lot of good work and tips. Also, I look at sites like this: http://www.textures-resource.com/
It's got a lot of texture rips from video games.
The texture itself is all just art. The only way to get good at it is to get good at drawing and coloring in Photoshop, which their are plenty of tutorials on DeviantArt.
Also, don't be so obsessed with poly counts. I think you're forcing yourself too much. Just keep your low poly around 500 and keep pumpin' out models. Being able to do more with less polys mainly comes naturally with experience.
Check it out here: http://jasongordy.com/pages/tutorial/page1.html
first one is do a highpoly sculpt and paint it in zbrush. but that wont look 100% well..
or secondly do the normal thing everyone else here suggested !
id go for the second ! just sayng there are other options, but results.. wont be as good !
And thanks for the tutorials. Those were a loads of help..
I think you're already at a micro poly stage...the only benefit you would have is to redistribute your optimized polys to the silhouette to make it smoother. Also, joints need support loops to bend properly.
Assign a 100% black material on the mesh and check the silhouette from all angles. If you have edges within the silhouette that contribute nothing to its shape, you can remove them or move them around to modify the silhouette / make it smoother.
Some examples:
-You could get rid of the edge on the top of the skull that serves no purpose or make the profile of the skull rounder.
-You could get rid of the center edge in the back, doing so means UV shell can't be mirrored, that'll make the profile blocky too.
-Edges on the tibia are running close together, could possibly be removed or placed more efficiently.
-You have edges on the feet that aren't doing anything for the silhouette, move them around so you don't have box feet.
And here's a new character I made. It's a cowboy. I'm good with the way I have cut his UV. Was making his texture but it looked crappy so left it.
Only a nintendo DS would use such low poly stuff and they'd probably be heavily stylized to get around the hardware limitations. The anatomy on the man looks bad and it would be a huge pain to animate.
this is GREAT lowpoly reference, and you can download them: http://tomtallian.com/pages/tf2.html
Its not really constructive to say he's trying to make it look bad on purpose is it? Low poly modelling is an important skill and for someone who is new its a good place to start.
What I would recommend Komalrajsingh is looking at the smoothing groups, there are so many limitations with low poly that your smoothing groups could help you avoid stuff that might be unessential.
Is low poly modelling something you are looking for a career in? You would be surprised how many small companies are setting up out there to take advantage of the hand held market. For many its a lost art but there's no better way to get disciplined with optimisation.
There are a few places, notably hands and feet where you could save yourself a few tris. Think about what you'll actually be able to see at the resolution that a character this low is going to be displayed. lose the index finger and thumb from the hands and the poly down the middle of foot.
Consider whether you want to save polys versus texture space. If you're going for DS then polys are more valuable as you've got a very small hard limit on how many you can display on screen at a time. With this in mind, you can get rid of some polys around that centre line. You won't be able to mirror the mesh on the texture there any more, but you'll have a lower poly mesh.
Use a silhouette mode (flat textures, no wireframes, no shading) to check if you're spending triangles on the most important areas.
Here's a model in the same polygon range (267 tris) which might be of help:
I think what fonfa meant to say was 'you are using so few polygons there's not much wiggling room' and that you should use a bit higher polycount. I sort of agree. I've been screwing around with lowpoly for quite a bit and I've notices that if you go below 300 triangles, stuff gets very similar very fast. Using about 400-500 triangles you can have quite some different shapes though.
But what's most important is that you learn how to use triangles effectively and efficiently. Not the final polycount, but how much detail you get per triangle. And that involves a lot of learning how and where to prioritize.
edit: i'd go back to this version and build from there. The polycount is properly lowpoly (402 is okay for PSP, PS1, flash {and even for DS games if there's only 2-3 chars on screen} and iPhone games) but you could add a bit more detail.
-head can be much rounder if you shape it more like a geosphere.
-adjust cylinder sides to the thickness. ankles don't need 6 sides, but the shoulder could use more than 4)
-if it's an (almost) straight line that's in the middle, you could get rid of the symmetry line (see the prince's chest and crotch)
Good luck.