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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

Replies

  • Leisure Centaur
    Woah, this page is crazy good!

    @terri Can't believe you're a beginner, nice work! You've got rigging and animation down too? Amazing!
  • scavian
    FuzzYspo0N wrote: »
    Finished this up and made a non-stupid lighting render, still 414 tri's 512x texture.

    iFd6ofp3GWML2.gif

    Here is the current list of ships, all sub 1000 tris 512x textures

    iF960X9LG2NMS.png

    Crit/feedback welcome!


    Very nice work my friend. I especially like the lights on the ships. They really came out well. It looks as though you have been watching some Star Trek and Star Wars. the white ship looks like a Ramulan ship. Aside from that i like what i see. I watched the video and the game is coming along. What are you using to make the ships?
  • FuzzYspo0N
    scavian wrote: »
    What are you using to make the ships?

    I spent a lot of time browsing http://conceptships.blogspot.com/ for reference haha.

    I use modo for modelling and baking mostly (blender otherwise), zbrush to sketch details to bake , along with photoshop obviously. As you can see some are older and were still experimenting with getting the style right - the newer ones have a bunch more style and lights. Sometimes I try to use dDo as well sometimes (the big white ship was an experiment with it).

    Thanks for the kind words :)
  • poopinmymouth
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    poopinmymouth polycounter lvl 19
    Noors wrote: »
    Hey Poop. Do you start from a highpoly model to help getting the light right or is it totally 2d handpainted ? or using bodypaint maybe ? Really dig those tiny ships.

    All handpainted using bodypaint for all but the seam lines, which are all photoshop since bodypaint doesn´t have the 'constrain to vertical/horizontal' that photoshop does when holding shift. Glad you like em!
    Moltazia wrote: »
    Pack deer!deerw.jpg

    This came out nice, though I think the greenish/cyan cast you gave the highlights isn´t quite as nice as the more whitish pink you had going on it in the classroom.
  • scavian
    FuzzYspo0N wrote: »
    I spent a lot of time browsing http://conceptships.blogspot.com/ for reference haha.

    I use modo for modelling and baking mostly (blender otherwise), zbrush to sketch details to bake , along with photoshop obviously. As you can see some are older and were still experimenting with getting the style right - the newer ones have a bunch more style and lights. Sometimes I try to use dDo as well sometimes (the big white ship was an experiment with it).

    Thanks for the kind words :)

    Great site. Would i be remiss if i thought that all those lego planes looked an awful lot like pod racers?
  • lean
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    lean polycounter lvl 5
    terri: seriously, great animation! your models are the some of the coolest 3d stuff i've seen in a while. have you got a blog or something where we can follow your work(besides polycount)?
  • terri
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    terri polycounter lvl 4
    awesome, thanks everyone for the encouraging words

    I love the colors on the pack deer
    lean wrote: »
    terri: seriously, great animation! you're models are the some of the coolest 3d stuff i've seen in a while. have you got a blog or something where we can follow your work(besides polycount)?

    hey thanks a lot man, I started one recently at http://terrivellmann.tumblr.com/
  • lean
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    lean polycounter lvl 5
    hey terri, i just checked your chicken in p3d and i think that the normals aren't consistent (some faces are facing the outside and other the inside). usually you want all the normals facing outside. ideally you should be able to select al the faces in the model and use a function called make normals consistent (or similar name, depending on your software).

    in the textured model it's unnoticable because you may have checked a "two-sided" checkbox. but you can tell if you look at the smooth, x-ray, and wire versions.
  • terri
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    terri polycounter lvl 4
    lean wrote: »
    hey terri, i just checked your chicken in p3d and i think that the normals aren't consistent (some faces are facing the outside and other the inside). usually you want all the normals facing outside. ideally you should be able to select al the faces in the model and use a function called make normals consistent (or similar name, depending on your software).

    in the textured model it's unnoticable because you may have checked a "two-sided" checkbox. but you can tell if you look at the smooth, x-ray, and wire versions.

    yes, I only noticed it on P3d, but had no idea what it was. thanks the explanation, I tried googling it but it was too vague

    I'm using blender, I'm going to try to fix it! I'm wonder what I'm doing that causes it
  • Moltazia
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    Moltazia polycounter lvl 5
    ill go over it again :D
  • FuzzYspo0N
    @Tennis what are you making these for? They look really cool. I love the palette choice.

    @Moltazia That is a really nice model/texture



    I made a space container!

    iomBCpujL4nyW.jpg
  • Lord Waffles
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    Lord Waffles polycounter lvl 10
    Just finished the first class in my android game.

    I'm new to this kind of low poly modeling so give me the benefit of the doubt ;)

    Templar.jpg

    Cross Post
  • Kaine123
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    Kaine123 polycounter lvl 10
    Reminds me a bit of Quake 1.
  • minorthreat
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    minorthreat polycounter lvl 7
    Finn from Adventure Time!
    low_poly_finn_turntable_gif_by_nightflarer-d5shdcj.gif
    That's perfect! The shape, the texture, and even the cell shading are just right. I'd love to see a low poly jake.
  • Free_Fall
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    Free_Fall polycounter lvl 8
    I'll just put this here

    bIdFp.jpg
  • vikingfunk
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    vikingfunk polycounter lvl 5
    Free_Fall wrote: »
    I'll just put this here

    bIdFp.jpg


    These look great! Such clean, well presented models. What's the poly count, and any chance you could post your wireframes?
  • walterlow
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    walterlow polycounter lvl 8
    here's a plane i did for my school game project.

    99be2302a1.png
  • irloading
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    irloading polycounter lvl 17
    recreating my friend's daihatsu charade, makes me want to rework my corolla's texture the more i go along :P

    rTtRj2B.jpg

    getting lazy with all his decalzZZzz
  • fos4o
    This is my first post in this great forum :)
    Here are some houses I made for a game I'm working on. Tower defense called "Defender of light"

    You can try the demo here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fos4o.defoflight

    deserthouses.jpg

    deserthousess1.jpg
  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    cross posting from wyawo;

    finished up the first of a few swords in a custom Torchlight 2 weapon set, called Enteaters. I have no idea how this will hold up in game, probably went too far with detailing/contrast, patiently awaiting for the TL2 editor :)

    Haven't done/finished something like this in years, feels good, i miss it! There are some bits on the texture that are still rough that I'd like to touch up, but want to walk away from it for now.

    614 Triangles
    512 Texture

    meshes
    (older shot, have optimized and added some additional shapes since this shot)
    Enteater_Swords_mesh.png

    Enteater_Sword01_F.jpg
    T_Enteater_Sword01_D.jpg
  • FuzzYspo0N
    Wow @moose , I love the details being painterly but also still mechanical and realistic at the same time. If that even makes sense. It looks great!
  • D4V1DC
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    D4V1DC polycounter lvl 18
    Loving them moose, do they all use the same texture map?
  • moose
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    moose polycount sponsor
    thanks guys! D4V1DC, i had planned on it, but they just share the hilt/handle bits. I may go back in and get them all onto one sheet, but not stressing it too much. Right now there are 4 textures, but could probably get that down to 2 i think. Didn't plan well enough adhead of time :)
  • Armageddon
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    Armageddon polycounter lvl 5
    My first serious model project, first time rendering an animation too.
    GlassOJuice01.gif
  • irloading
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    irloading polycounter lvl 17
    finished my friend's daihatsu charade and threw in a little base for him with signage to his fav hangout hehe

    WicyyYE.jpg

    the car sits in at 948 triangles with 1 512x512 diffuse texture
  • Mr_Drayton
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    Mr_Drayton polycounter lvl 14
    Spacey wrote: »
    terri: You're going places, kid; I can feel it in my bones. Really fun models, keep them coming!

    and a little something from me...fem Link?
    linka_zps2a314831.png

    40px-Love_Heart_SVG.svg.png

    I'm afraid I felt in love with her and may want to ask you to post the diffuse map.
  • Fomori
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    Fomori polycounter lvl 12
    Messing around in Unity. This guy is modular so I can swap out heads, arms and feet to create different animals and different clothing.
    Head is built for expression so I can use morphs to change his mood.

    Aiming for iOS spec.
    Diffuse only.
    Currently at 689 triangles.

    dxSLAJM.png

    Wanting to experiment, so going to totally re-do him and creating the texture from a high poly using Max's render to texture.
    See which workflow I prefer.

    Any tips for improvement?
  • NotExactly
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    NotExactly polycounter lvl 4
    Just started texturing my first model. At the moment it has normals (which were a nightmare to bake in Blender) and a diffuse, but no specular, so that's the next step. While I'm doing it I'll add some dirt and rust and stuff into the diffuse, and maybe sculpt a few dents into the high-poly. Also going to add a cap on top, and see if I can get the rust to look a bit, er, rustier.

    It's 800 tris, which is far more than it should need, but it's the only way I can get the normals to come out anything other than a horrifying mess.

    hcbhlUj.png
  • CloudChiller
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    CloudChiller polycounter lvl 8
    So, just started out on modeling. I made a (what is supposed to be) a Co2-powered sniper rifle but never made a scope nor a Co2 cartridge thingie whateveritiscalled. Probably scrapping it though considering it's, well, shitty.

    View it's glorious 213 faces on this page.
    LUlf74x.png
  • mcunha98
  • vikingfunk
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    vikingfunk polycounter lvl 5
    NotExactly wrote: »
    Just started texturing my first model. At the moment it has normals (which were a nightmare to bake in Blender) and a diffuse, but no specular, so that's the next step. While I'm doing it I'll add some dirt and rust and stuff into the diffuse, and maybe sculpt a few dents into the high-poly. Also going to add a cap on top, and see if I can get the rust to look a bit, er, rustier.

    It's 800 tris, which is far more than it should need, but it's the only way I can get the normals to come out anything other than a horrifying mess.

    hcbhlUj.png

    Looking much cleaner, nice job.
  • Fashoomp
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    Fashoomp polycounter lvl 10
    Long time lurker on the low poly thread, first time poster. There's some great inspiration in this thread, and I really like all the work of everyone who contributes. I decided I wanted to make a low poly model to add.

    Here is my arcade game cabinet. 474 tris.

    xH1nkgQ.jpg

    I've started playing around with textures, and I can't seem to get that crisp look I've seen around here. I'm trying to work with a 128x diffuse, and I've tried to maximize my UV space efficiently, but my textures show up very blurry. I've checked for stretching with a checkered pattern, and there isn't any.

    Would love some feedback and assistance.
  • FuzzYspo0N
    Could it be linear filtering on the texture import settings in your 3D app? You want it on nearest/unfiltered.. You might also look how to turn off the mip maps cos they look blurry when you move a bit away from the mesh.

    Other than that, try just doing pixel lines, and get those lines not to be blurry (^ like these things) and then go from there?
  • ngw
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    ngw polycounter lvl 5
    Fashoomp: You want to disable texture filtering. Process is different depending what software you're using.
  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    If you're using 3D max (looks like you do) then go BLUE, GREEN, RED.
    ViewportTextureRes.jpg
  • Fashoomp
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    Fashoomp polycounter lvl 10
    Thank you to everyone who replied! I really appreciate the picture assistance Snader, that worked great.

    Another issue I realized was the renderer also had a filter on it which made it blurry. Finished up the textures, but I'd appreciate some C&C because I know there are areas that could use improvements.

    Here is my final render (with AO pass).

    yx7Lldh.png
  • Free_Fall
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    Free_Fall polycounter lvl 8
    Why are the buttons so big compared to the other parts of the arcade?
  • Fashoomp
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    Fashoomp polycounter lvl 10
    Free_Fall wrote: »
    Why are the buttons so big compared to the other parts of the arcade?


    If you mean the UV space, I just realized this and will go back and optimize it.

    For the actual arcade cabinet, I wanted it to be comical proportions to add interest.
  • 9skulls
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    9skulls polycounter lvl 13
    Fashoomp wrote: »
    Thank you to everyone who replied! I really appreciate the picture assistance Snader, that worked great.

    Another issue I realized was the renderer also had a filter on it which made it blurry. Finished up the textures, but I'd appreciate some C&C because I know there are areas that could use improvements.

    Here is my final render (with AO pass).

    yx7Lldh.png
    Looks brilliant mate! I love the shape of the arcade and the slightly cartoonish touch with the oversized controls :poly124:

    I would, however, work on the texture a bit more by adding some interesting detail to it. Maybe some games running on it? Vinyls in the sides of it? Also I'd reconsider the color palette to make it more harmonic, y'know?

    I also made an arcade cabin a while back. I decided to make it a little more interesting by adding huge cooling fans on the sides of it. Texture style is a mashup of Pokemon meets Tron meets Duke Nukem. Just to give you a glimpse on how to make stuff a bit more intersting:
    Zfp0XRP.gif
  • Free_Fall
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    Free_Fall polycounter lvl 8
    I got nothing to say, so here's a text telling I got nothing to say

    X79Lryy.png
  • MrRik
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    MrRik polycounter lvl 7
    @9Skulls I love the glow you added too it :)
  • jairo0182
  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    Jairo - I think if you rearrange your UVs a bit, you have enough space to make the face asymmetrical/un-mirrored. Your texture could do with a bit more baked shadowing on the main body, I think. Like a sort of skylight AO bake.


    FreeFall - nice smooth style (though perhaps using more texture space than necessary?) but you seem to be missing quite a few details here. I can understand leaving out the grille logo because of © issues, but you're also missing the ridges on the hood and roof, and things like blinkerlights, proper doorhandles and windshield wipers.


    9Skulls - is that AA in your spinnygif from rendering or is that a clever texture trick? My initial thought was you used something like this to mimic AA at skewed render angles:
    FakeAA_9Skulls.png

    But it looks like the AA 'animates' as in it's rendered per frame, and the AA pixel colors are also different colors.


    Fashoomp - your texture could be much more efficient and interesting indeed. (the model could be optimized a bit too, but I should have mentioned that sooner, I guess) Mostly I think you need to be more aware of the limitations that such a small texture give you. You can't really do a lot of smooth curves or angled lines because you'll get stairstepping, and it's probably better to do shading in 'straight' gradients than with a fall-of circle.

    Look at how your detail lines around the coin area look compared to the shading on the base. Because the lines are the same color, it looks like a design choice, whereas the base shadow just looks like lowres. Stylization is a powerful tool, the tree trunks in this image use only 4x16 pixels per tree, but still look mostly sharp and crispy.

    And yes, your UV map is a bit unbalanced. The buttons don't need more than about 16x16 pixels combined. The logo and screen could do with a few more pixels, but the rear of the cabinet doesn't need as many. You could also try to use a technique I'm hereby dubbing 'pixeldoubling' where you make some detailed parts at exactly twice the resolution of the rest of the model. This way you won't notice any texel-size skips. (You can see that in the tree image too, look at the faces: they're 4x the resolution of the trunk) But it's a bit tricky to keep everything in mind when modeling and UV-ing.


    Mcunha98 - you really aught to look into mirroring textures, you're wasting a lot of texture space by having the sides on the texture twice.


    Fomori - you can probably make the feet as a single block. The space between the toes is minimal, and would be rendered as just a single pixel on an iPhone. (assuming that your character is 25% of the screen height, or 120 pixels tall)
  • Fashoomp
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    Fashoomp polycounter lvl 10
    Snader - I really appreciate the critique! I think a problem I had right from the start is laying out my UVs like I would for a higher poly object. I'm thinking in the future, I should put a 128x128 pixel grid in the background while I do my layout and make sure it all sits nicely? I was trying to add a detailed trim to some sections of the cabinet and it sit horribly on the mesh.

    9skulls - Really like your arcade machine! It has exactly that cartoony look I was going for. I'm looking mine over again and I think the silhouette could use some improvement on the side. I'm going to start from scratch again on this one with all my new-found knowledge of low-res.
  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    If I understand what you're trying to say, then yes. I always put a temporary texture in the background, so I can see how large my texels will end up and what kind of 'lines' they have going on. I try to make my UV layouts as rectangular as possible, so that I can use gradiented 1-pixel-wide strips to great effect. For example in this selfportrait the (unwraps of the) shadow of the shirt sleeves, all the shirt seams, the belt, most of the pants, and even the shoes and hands are straight lines. Along these lines are the places where you can have super crisp (and high-contrast) detail without making it blocky.

    Good places to have lines in the case of a arcade cabinet are the bottom of the cabinet so you can add a nice floor-mold, the top edges of the 'button platform' and so on. What you want to have is that when a pixel ends, the polygon ends, so you don't have triangularly cut pixels slowly sloping away into the ground.

    Here are two of my test-textures:
    TempTex128_by_PixelSnader.pngTempTex512_by_PixelSnader.png

    The first one has a large checkerboard to quickly check texel sizes of different parts so you can divvy up the texture evenly, a gradient which makes it a bit easier to figure out which UV island is which part, and some noise so you can pixel-perfectly align your 'lines' in case you want to have detail crossing several texture islands (for example, the t-shirt collar)

    The second one has 3 'layers' of checkerboards, so you can easily compare texel sizes of vastly different scale objects. If you're looking at buildings look at the giant green/white, if you're looking at characters look at the blue/white, and if you're looking at a pistol, look at the 1-pixel grids.

    {note to self: create a cohesive and workflow-friendly set someday}


    At the same time, though, you want to have as little stretching as possible, so you can't just go and map the entire side to a rectangle because one side is significantly taller than the other. One thing you could do, is treat the thing as a sort of 'roll of paper'

    supercade.jpg

    If you look at the red lines of the sidepanels, you can see they go all around the machine at the same thickness, and the machine is just as wide at the front as at the back. If you'd take a roll of wallpaper you could roll it out nicely along those red lines. What this means is that if you treat the top of the cabinet, the lighted 'supercade', the screen and so on as sides of a cylinder you will get perfectly rectangular rectangles, and you can thus texture those red lines all around using a single pixel strip. Then you would have stark detail on the edges, which makes it look fairly interesting already. You could then completely forego any detail on the sides and make it a single color OR you could planarly map the sides - giving you perfectly straight pixels for a nice decal.

    Similarly, you could planarly map the grey button panels and treat the black/red sides as a half-cylinder.

    I have one test/challenge/request for you: make your next arcade machine using 250 or less triangles. I'm positive you can do it.
  • Fashoomp
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    Fashoomp polycounter lvl 10
    Snader - I can't thank you enough for the time you've taken to help me. I truly appreciate it. I'll definitely be saving those mapping patterns.

    I started from scratch on a new model, trying to take everything new I've learned into account. This new one weighs in at 180 tris, far lower than my old one. I've improved the silhouette so it's appealing from the front and the side (I think). Taking a small break from it for now, and I'll tackle unwrapping at some point tonight.

    8fGr3HP.jpg
  • Jeff Parrott
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    Jeff Parrott polycounter lvl 19
    Here's my Dishonored Art Jam piece. 343 polygons 1 512x512 map used 3D Coat for 99.3% of the texturing.

    iheartyou_004.jpg
  • deadpixl
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    deadpixl polycounter lvl 9
    9skulls wrote: »
    Zfp0XRP.gif

    Lens flares are awesome!
  • 9skulls
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    9skulls polycounter lvl 13
    @jairo0182: That texture looks really good! I'd add some more bright/highlights to his back area (those green bumps) to make them appear more 3-dimensional and round.

    @Snader: Yah, it's merely a renderer thing. No fancy AA-techniques used. (check it here for more cleaner, realtime render: http://p3d.in/KYLBD/shadeless (don't mind the texture spills))

    @Fashoomp: that's quite an improvement in the silhouette! Also take a note on what Snader says about the texture! Layout UVs as rectangular as possible when working on extra low poly.
  • Uncle_Gun
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    Uncle_Gun polycounter lvl 6
    Hey All,

    I was having some fun at work today. Made a low poly pixel art version of a train featured in a game currently in development called Tumbleweed Express:

    Train_Lowpoly.gif

    Here is the 128X128 texture:
    Train_Lowpoly_128.png

    For some reason the animation became a bit slower when creating the GIF in Photoshop. If you would like to check out the game in progress here is the link to our development blog:
    http://dirigiballers.blogspot.com/
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