College Assignment Help, 60 Poly capped tree, any tips appreciated.
polycounter lvl 5
So I'm on a Games Development course in College and part of my assignment is I have to make a tree, using less than 60 polys.
I was given the theme 'Goth' to use when designing and creating the models, so I was going to go with a Nightmare Before Christmas/general Tim Burton feel.
I've only been using 3DS Max for a couple of weeks and I'm finding it difficult to keep it under 60 polys while making it look good, any tips would be appreciated, cheers!
I was given the theme 'Goth' to use when designing and creating the models, so I was going to go with a Nightmare Before Christmas/general Tim Burton feel.
I've only been using 3DS Max for a couple of weeks and I'm finding it difficult to keep it under 60 polys while making it look good, any tips would be appreciated, cheers!
Replies
Also 60 poly seems insanely low for even low spec games there days.
Yeah, the actual brief says 2 types of vegetation, but my problem is what kind of vegetation would be seen as 'gothic' or at least would fit in with a gothic theme. The only other thing I could come up with, other than a dead tree, would be a pumpkin, but that's going to be just as hard.
I just mainly need tips on how to keep the poly count down, but keep the model looking decent, in general.
Some 80 poly trees.
Seriously though, your professor is smoking crack. No one goes that low, unless they are only seen from a long distance. 600 to 3000 is more like it.
Anyways, I usually approach this kind of thing by building my base asset without regards for poly count (obviously not going over board though) and then cut anything that doesn't directly contribute to silhouette. eg, a Triangular Prism standing upright with smooth normals can be a convincing Cylinder from a distance. And yeah, if its a tree the foliage should just be planes.
As for gothic, guess you can reference the Undead starting areas and surrounding ares of Undercity (in World of Warcraft). They will have some awesome ref for dead/gothic looking trees. If they havent redone that area (yet), then they will be damn low poly as well.
As for gothic stuff...
a dead tree trunk with a lot of dead branches. you model the trunk and some very rudimentary thick branches, and then add a lot of small stuff in with planes.
A weeping willow might work well from a top-ish view. Have a couple of bulges, 8 or 10 tris per bulge, one for the top, a pyramid for the trunk. Use the remaining tris as floaters to give more depth with the curtains, maybe 2 or 3 big tree branch planes.
Thistles are kinda gothic too, and those can be done with just planes. Same goes for dead grass. A bunch of grass with poppies (simple pyramid for the poppy leaves) might be cool too.
Mushrooms? Geodesic hemisphere + cylinder. Or inverted cone + cylinder.
A pumpkin: take a 9 sided cylinder, add 2 cuts. Turn the top and bottom from 9 sided in to 6 sided. Add leaf/vine/stem planes.
This guy:
Some sort of Alo
It's pretty different for mobile or handheld devices though, but probably still not 60.
You are going to learn a lot about polygon distribution, importance of silhouette, maximizing UV layout, and optimal modelling.
Good luck!
That's a great idea! Thanks man.
607 tri
Could have easily gone to 400 and fixed some things without much loss of quality but I was doing this quickly between things
Edit: Disclaimer this is showing what 600 can do not 60 incase anyone was wondering
I gave it a 5 minute shot on my lunch just now - I decided to avoid planes entirely, given that restrictions like this imply the hardware wouldn't deal too well with overdraw either - so its pure geometry and therefore quite simple.
Exactly 50 polygons (50 triangles is a whole other challenge i don't want to do right now haha)
Edit: OH! its *60* polys?! I went for 50 hahahaha. Well, I guess I'd just stick couple of flat branches maybe.
Robomega: that's a good 530-something too many tris :P
There's some horrid pinched twisty polygons in the trunk that I should fix but I don't have the time sadly, but nice challenge either way - thanks
Throw 3-4 alpha plains on there and you're done at 60!
That's freaking sweet dude! :O
Lazerus Reborn: yeah I will probably do that tonight!
This method may be pushing the rules of the assignment some, and think you handled it great with your tree