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LOW-POLY ART

polycounter lvl 19
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hawken 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:
  • Keep models under 1,000 triangles.
  • Scenes are fine, if all models are low poly.
Some dedicated low-poly modelling tools now exist that make this art style a lot easier to produce; Crocotile3D & Blockbench

Here's a handy list of ways to make your art look right in mainstream 3D software: Low-Poly Art Style Guide

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  • Orangeknight
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    Orangeknight polycounter lvl 5
    Ir says 542 tries it should be tris
  • 9skulls
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    9skulls polycounter lvl 13
    @GabrielP Animated? Could ya show them animations please? Seeing that your model lacks any extra joint loops whatsoever, I doubt this model will animate too well. Also, add more definition to his hands, they are like a pair of planks now – very fugly, tbh. And also the texture could benefit from extra contrast and detail. Add more, you know, fur to it.

    Otherwise the topo is pretty good to my eyes.
  • GabrielP
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    GabrielP polycounter lvl 7
    @Orangeknight Oops thanks for the heads up, its fixed now

    @9skulls
    Yeah, my budget was 500 tries so I was already going over that, but the client wanted the bell ect. I would have liked to do more with the hand if I could have. The animations didnt end up being drastic enough to be seriously effected by the lack of anim loops around the arm pits, shoulders, and legs. Ill get some gifs up of those anims later on. Thanks guys
  • ahtiandr
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    ahtiandr polycounter lvl 12
    Here is my hand painted wow style old axe =) 60 tris
    110506d1327779515-ahtiandr-hand-painted-stuff-axe.jpg
    110507d1327779515-ahtiandr-hand-painted-stuff-axewire.jpg
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    very nice, rather large textures to use on something so low poly?
  • ahtiandr
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    ahtiandr polycounter lvl 12
    Ged wrote: »
    very nice, rather large textures to use on something so low poly?


    It is just for preview here but the texture could be lowered at anytime if needed =)
  • S_ource
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    S_ource polycounter lvl 9
    ahtiandr wrote: »
    It is just for preview here but the texture could be lowered at anytime if needed =)
    I dont know how importing it is but i have learn that its better to work on the same resulution your going to use so you cane see easier what will be seen and what that just would be like noise, anyone else that agree on this point and have learnd and/or do it this way?
  • mospheric
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    mospheric polycounter lvl 11
    I dont know how importing it is but i have learn that its better to work on the same resulution your going to use so you cane see easier what will be seen and what that just would be like noise, anyone else that agree on this point and have learnd and/or do it this way?

    For lowpoly textures, this is what I learned too. Plus it just looks better to manually optimize your texture (while you paint it) than to size down the image in photoshop.
  • Mr_Drayton
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    Mr_Drayton polycounter lvl 14
    Some menu related stuff I worked on this night for my iOS game (Beach Marbles Racing):

    Class%20selection.jpg

    Cup%20selection.jpg

    Event%20selection.jpg

    Race%20ladder.jpg

    @osman: the new character model is absolutely lovely!
  • Saigo
    sahil wrote: »
    5e138d327e3a.jpg

    Is that Alex from A Clockwork Orange?
  • Leisure Centaur
    Sup all,

    Thanks @lean, @badcogg and @tigerfeet for your excellent feedback and tips for my last model, I now pretty much get asymmetrical texturing! So I had another idea for a character and would love a couple pointers for some techniques which are currently witchcraft to me.

    I've done a sketch of this little mage dude, want to 3D him up. In the little spheres there are supposed to be little beetle models that sit there as if frozen in amber.

    I plan on making a little beetle model, but how to I get the effect (cheaply and easily) of them being in a transparent sphere? Is it a case of having a poly sphere with a 50% opacity texture? Any way to make it look nice and glowy? I've not worked with alpha channels on textures yet, hoping it's not crazy complicated!

    scarab_mage_alt.jpg
  • 9skulls
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    9skulls polycounter lvl 13
    @Mr_Drayton From a design point of view, your UI is way too busy with colors. Your bg color is orange, your main buttons are orange, labels are orange. That makes it really, really difficult for your eyes to catch on the actual point of interest. See how the "race results" screen looks much more pleasant to your eyes than the actual main menu screen? I'd change the bg completelly and use the orange only for the really important stuff, like interactive elements such as those buttons you got. And even then it'd demand more refining in how to differentiate active and selected objects from non-active ones.

    Looking forward to see updates on that :)
  • Leisure Centaur
    @Mr_Drayton Have to agree with 9skulls there, nothing stands out - the go button needs to scream, "Touch me!". Check out this blog crammed with mobile GUI designs http://playpeep.tumblr.com/


    The common themes among the better ones are contrast and a clear hierarchy of what you want the player to interact with and in what order. Hope it helps!
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    Mr Drayton, get more neutral colours in your background and brighter keep the bright colours for buttons/logo, also the white text with black stroke is hard to read so I would recommend just black writing for most stuff that rests on those bright colours. ui on ios can be a pain in the ass.
  • Baddcog
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    Baddcog polycounter lvl 9
    @Leisure,

    You can do alpha in the alpha channel, or another texture pass. But one tex is easiest, PNG is a good way to go and just give the sphere uv area a grey color (darker is more transparent) and everything solid white).

    For a good glow you need an illum stage. Basically another texture with your alpha channel would work.
    You can also paint some glow onto surrounding materials so they are catching the light. But it would really only effect the hat a little, so you definitely need an illum mask.
    You may even want to just have a seperate texture for the globs. Then you don't need a mask for the glow, in 3d or game engine you can just make that material illuminated.

    I'd just do a sphere. But if yoou wanted a glass bowl effect you can just use a smaller sphere inside the outside one with same tex, and invert the normals to give you the 'inside of the glass'.
  • kio
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    kio polycounter lvl 15
    i built a small casual game - its pretty simple acutally. more an exercise to code something and finishing it than reinventing the wheel and i did graphics too ;)

    its quite not finished - playermodel is still placeholder, need of a proper introduction screen, maybe give a try at gamecenter/openfeint etc.


    gameplay is really simple - the coin with the faces has to stay in the screen - while all the blocks move upwards all the time. difficulty increases over time (speed increases and different blocks appear too) once the playercoin is out of screen, gameover. try again.

    BlockCoinPanic.JPG
  • Mr_Drayton
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    Mr_Drayton polycounter lvl 14
    @9Skulls @Leisure_Centaur @Ged
    This is for sure precious help and feedback! Thanks guys! :)
    I admit, the GUI style I have now is the same identical GUI style I used at the very beginning of the project. I liked it before, I still like it somehow, but you are right on all the points: it doesn't stand out... And shame on me, I'm noticing it only now!
    Looking at that PlayPeep website makes me want to redesign the whole GUI from the scratch. And probably I will do it, my GUI is way below the average! D:

    @Kio
    Hey, it looks lovely!
  • Leisure Centaur
    @Baddcog

    Seriously, thanks so much, I feel like you should be getting a consultancy fee here, so helpful!

    I shall look into getting the orbs nice and glassy, minimum number of tris for a lowpoly sphere? ;)
  • Baddcog
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    Baddcog polycounter lvl 9
    Here's my paypal :)

    I wouldn't say there's any set number, just make it look even with your model.
  • lean
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    lean polycounter lvl 5
    @Leisure if you're keeping the style you've been doing, I'd say you could get away with about 20-30 tris.
  • 9skulls
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    9skulls polycounter lvl 13
    Wow, I just read that the original Crash Bandicoot model was as much as 512 tris total and was animated purely with vertices instead of bones. Also the original game engine was able to show around 1800 tris per frame.

    What does this have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. Carry on. Great stuff here!
  • Tigerfeet
    @Leisure Centaur Might I suggest a geodesic sphere? I think you'll get a more regular round look with that even if you have to cut polies enough that you get some sharp edges in the silhouette.

    Also if you REALLY want to save polies you could not model the scarab at all, just put a couple planes in there with the scarab on as an alpha texture.
  • 9skulls
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    9skulls polycounter lvl 13
    Tigerfeet wrote: »
    Also if you REALLY want to save polies you could not model the scarab at all, just put a couple planes in there with the scarab on as an alpha texture.
    Or if you can afford the extra texture space instead, you could make the "orb" of just a plane with circular alpha map and spend all the extra tris in the critter inside. You would then make the "orb" plane face the camera at all times so that it'd appear as an actual orb.

    Though you really need to sacrifice big chunk of your texture for the orb just to make sure the orb's edges won't look all jagged up when viewed at close range. And to make sure that the critter won't clip through the plane.

    I guess it all depends on how close will the viewer get to the orb. It'd also require the orb to be a perfect circle all around.. And it might still end up looking horrible.

    Meh, just follow what Tiger said :baby:
  • D4V1DC
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    D4V1DC polycounter lvl 18
    Tysho wrote: »
    stanrender1.jpg

    This guy looks like so much f-ing fun congrats, if I were you I'd expand on this idea.

    Awesome work everyone!:thumbup:
  • GabrielP
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    GabrielP polycounter lvl 7
    Dang that demons is rockin Tysho!

    Anyways here is my good friend, Nibbles:
    Nibbles.png
    thoughts?
  • Seyhk
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    Seyhk polycounter lvl 11
    Nice Gabriel, maybe you should high light some more parts that are supposed to have shadows, but i'm not the best person to criticize, he looks really good ^^

    Here's the guy i'm praticing hand painting on, still wip
    MoblinUP.png
    1000 tris - 512 texture, Sorry if the image is too big, i don't know how to size down here on polycount.
  • Tigerfeet
    @Seyhk Is he a moblin? That silhouette looks really familiar. I like the trick you did with the skulls, modeling two and putting the other two on the texture. I'l have to remember that!

    @GabrielP I agree with Seyhk, I think the texture (specifically in the hoodie) needs more contrast, more highs and lows. Right now it all kind of blends together into a blob. That evil face, is that just a replacement texture or is it extra geometry that you bring forward? Either way, I like it, reminds me of Annie in LoL :D
  • GabrielP
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    GabrielP polycounter lvl 7
    Thanks guys for the complements! Ill start playing with contrasting it more now.
    @Tigerfeet The evil face is just a plane behind the head, the head and the hood/plane have two separate bones rigged to them, so the head can sink back into the darkness to reveal the evil face.
  • Daaark
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    Daaark polycounter lvl 17
    GabrielP wrote: »
    Dang that demons is rockin Tysho!

    Anyways here is my good friend, Nibbles:
    Nibbles.png
    thoughts?
    The model is getting completely swallowed up in the gradient texture!
  • felipefrango
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    felipefrango polycounter lvl 9
    GabrielP, I think it desperately needs some ambient occlusion or at least some contrast and color variation. I can barely read her facial features, and it's really popping even though it's under a big hood.
  • GabrielP
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    GabrielP polycounter lvl 7
    Alright all, thank you so much for all the advice! Spent a bit of time with the texture and I think its about finished, thoughts?
    Nibbles-1.png
  • Seyhk
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    Seyhk polycounter lvl 11
    @Tigerfeet I thought he were a moblin too, but i've just learned that the correct name is bulblin, lolz
    I miss my zelda games..
  • felipefrango
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    felipefrango polycounter lvl 9
    @GabrielP Hmm, I'll have to be completely honest here, IMHO it looks worse. By painting light and shadow in what looks like cloth folds you kinda killed the flat style you had going on. I think you can enhance it without worrying about small details at all.

    This is a quick paint over with a suggestion of what I mean, I don't know if it differs much from the style you're aiming but whatever.

    abLsr.gif

    All I did was add some levels/brightness/contrast/curves adjustment layers, pain in some highlights in the eyes (some blue in the normal eyes and some oranges in the evil eyes), add in some fake ambient occlusion (which I tinted purple, you don't wanna just add black shadows, it'll look dull) and that was it.

    Baking an AO from your low poly is easy no matter the program you're using and there are plenty of tutorials out there, I can help ya if you can't find any. Just add the AO bake in a layer on top of it all in Multiply mode, colorize it with a hue/saturation adjustment toa nice purpleish tint or something and you've got yourself a good starting point.
  • GabrielP
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    GabrielP polycounter lvl 7
    Wow, I had done some stuff with AO maps before but I had no idea the effect it could have on a low poly models texture. Thanks so much felipefrango for the heads up. Here is what she came out as. Nibbles-3.png
    Personally Im a fan of the bit more detail I added with the wrinkles so I decided to keep that :)
  • felipefrango
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    felipefrango polycounter lvl 9
    Cool, it has popped a bit more now. As for the wrinkles don't worry it's all a matter of visual direction, I thought you wanted a flatter look but this works just as well. Overall I personally think it's still a bit pale and unsaturated but again, it could fit depending on the visual direction you're following. Either way congratulations, it's improved a lot. :D
  • Baddcog
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    Baddcog polycounter lvl 9
    Nibbles is looking pretty sweet now.
    The only thing I would nitpick is the teeth. You basically used that many tris to make them on an alpha plane, and they are only triangles anyway.

    So just make them out of tris, save the alpha (expensive). It would also bake a bit more tooth detail in the ao that way. (right now you can see a very straight poly created line across her head (would you see that in game, probable not but...).

    I like the toes pointed in when she is a girl and pointed out when she's a monster, it is a very minor detail but gives a really strong passive/aggressive vibe.
    Details like that take 10% effort and give 100% gain imo. (don't know if you planned that or not but it works)
  • GabrielP
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    GabrielP polycounter lvl 7
    Thanks every from the complements and advice on Nibbles!

    Well, another day, another lowpoly character, meet RYAN! the lion slayer.
    LionSlayer.png
  • felipefrango
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    felipefrango polycounter lvl 9
    Interesting but lacks high frequency details, and your texture resolution could support it easily. If it's supposed to be this blurry texture size could be squished to a 128 with little loss of detail.
  • lean
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    lean polycounter lvl 5
    if you feel like improving him maybe you could use some harder shadows, adding a little detail to the body. I mean, like shading the body in the same way you did with the face.

    Also, the texture doesn't line up in his inner arm.
  • Tigerfeet
    GabrielP, here's a trick. When you're looking at your model and texture sheet kind of cross your eyes so everything gets blurry. Can you still pick out where the different pieces are? When I do that to the lion tamer he all kind of blends into a single color His skin and clothing and trophy hat are so close in hue, value, and saturation that it's hard to tell where one stops and the other begins. A quick way to fix this would be to make him black :)

    Also, that doesn't look like any lion nose I've ever seen, kinda like a cow or horse nose I'm afraid.

    I do really like his face, lots of character there :)
  • ChristianB
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    ChristianB polycounter lvl 11
    256x256 texture on it, prob gonna put more work in the diffuse

    Rat.jpg
  • Seyhk
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    Seyhk polycounter lvl 11
    Cool character gabriel!
    I Also need some advice on this
    Goblin.png

    Ps: i didn't get the crossing eyes thing Tigerfeet.. can you explain more clearly for me? :)
  • lean
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    lean polycounter lvl 5
    ChristianB - I love it!
    Seyhk - Tigerfeet meant unfocus your eyes and see if you can distinguish the parts of your character.

    had this going for a while, I don't think that I'll be improving it:
    badd.png
  • Tysho
    Thanks for the kind words, people- I'm currently working on a pal to go with the demon dude- the little green guy in the middle of this pic I did... Absolutely loving the stuff in here so far (I've actually gone through the entire thread)- really inspirational.
    heckcharacters2.jpg
  • ad456m
    This is one of my favorite threads on the internet just now. Loads of epic stuff.

    I'm learning blender with a view to use my models in unity and thought this would b a good place to find out what rookie mistakes I'm making.

    screenxok.jpg


    Blender says this is about 560 ish so need to get rid of a few polys to get under a thousand as the model is mostly quads.
  • Tigerfeet
    ad456, I have no idea if any of the other artists do this, but I've just started thinking in tris, especially for low-poly models. The project I'm working on now has a tri limit for characters between 2-300, so I use a lot of them.
  • funkdelic
    @lean : awesome style mate, reminded me of Madworld for Wii. =]
  • GabrielP
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    GabrielP polycounter lvl 7
    Neat style Leon

    Tysho, Im so freaking stoked to see what you come up with, I dig the style.

    Im in the same boat Tigerfeet, it makes more sense for low-poly models anyways. Of course tries do not animate well,s o Its not a terrible idea to keep some quads around areas that will see a lot of movement.
    ad456m, if your planning on animating him your going to create some joints.
    Here are a couple options for that:
    download.jpg
    or "more tris in this one"
    images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTQN20eDokDiC8o1aUvEQYhUzijlR80F02auZts5fRlRNTzrqjX3g

    Or my personal preference:
    lowpolyleganimation.png
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    Made something low spec few days ago for a change of pace between highpoly shenanigans.

    scaled.php?server=826&filename=birdlamp.png&res=medium
  • lean
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    lean polycounter lvl 5
    GabrielP, funkdelic: thanks. I really like Madworld's style, but I don't own a Wii so I've never played it myself

    Tysho: Awesome painting.
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