Low Polymodel

[viral_zaveri]

This is viral n am newcomer in 3dgame art...............

Have made a lowpoly model with 3026 polygons. Please do guide me n criticisms are welcome...............

Model with mesh
http://www.viral.biz.ly/cgi-bin/i/images/cap_wire.jpg

http://www.viral.biz.ly/cgi-bin/i/images/captn_smoothgroup.jpg


Plz do let me know.........whts are the mistakes ...........

[satan]

Smooth Groups:-

Since you're using a character, your smoothing group needs to be a bit more advanced. Ie, partial blending among different smoothing groups.

Anatomy:-

You need to work slightly more on the anatomy I guess. Though a dedicated character modeler can tell you more specifically how you can improve it.

Polygon Budgeting:-

Your Polygonal budgeting seems not that optimized. You should try reducing polys at places which won't be affected by the rigging that much; and instead put some more polys at places which would be vital joints, eg the shoulder which is the most troublesome part of a human body in terms of rigging and animation.

These are my personal opinion though. :)

[canndis]

You can check BoBOtheseal work to learn Game modeling . there are some amazing works .

http://www.bobotheseal.com/personal_art.htm

[iluvblender]

Hello Viral. Nice start. Read Bay Raitts character modeling tutorial. Good theory to model great characters. FYI, Bay Raitt is the dude who modeled Gollum (of LOTR fame).

http://cube.phlatt.net/home/spiraloid/tutorial/index.html

Keep up the good work.

Greetings,
Satish.

[viral_zaveri]

Hey thanks everyone for the opinions.........The links are amazing n specially
http://www.bobotheseal.com/personal_art.htm its cool..............
Thanks satan for your opinin n would definitely work out as u said, i am new person here n just started to model lowploy by looking at the images n mesh....... i tried to learn myself n in this way started to make models.
1 question was how much polygons are needed to make a lowpoly n how should we use smoothing groups more efficiently........i started to make lowply at 500 to 600 polys but then it exceeded to almost 3000. In industry do ppl make such polys or its very low...............also i tried to keep quads rather than triangles so whether i am on right track or no its the question tht comes many times........


thanks again..........
viral :)

[satan]

how should we use smoothing groups more efficiently....

It seems you're using 3dsmax. Anyways so smoothing group is an important thing many artists ignore even if they're making a low polygonal model. But AGAIN, it also depends on the format the game engine is going to use. There are lots of formats which puts a single smoothing group automatically as you export it to that format from 3dsmax. Whereas there are few formats which doesn't export with multiple smoothing groups.

HOW ...... Many people put a smooth group on a polygon on either 'this' side or 'that' side. But few people declare polygons using smooth groups of 'this' as well as 'that' side. It's usually a method to blend things in. There are times you could even have to use 3 smoothing groups for a polygon only because it might be in a critical position. But it all ends up to 'what the engine you are targeting supports'.

....i started to make lowply at 500 to 600 polys but then it exceeded to almost 3000. In industry do ppl make such polys or its very low...............also i tried to keep quads rather than triangles so whether i am on right track or no its the question tht comes many times........

It's very subjective what polycount you should target on. There are a lot of 'factors' it's based on:-
- The limitation of the engine
- The Art direction
- The target hardware the game is going for
- The number of characters to be shown in the screen at a time
- The technological age of the game; ie current-gen or next-gen
- And maybe there are a few more I missed out.

So you ask yourself what you wanna go for. :)

[viral_zaveri]

Hey thanks for the efforts............
yah i use 3dmax, i tried out smoothing groups from some of the references which i took from net.
(HOW ...... Many people put a smooth group on a polygon on either 'this' side or 'that' side. But few people declare polygons using smooth groups of 'this' as well as 'that' side.) I was not able to get this thing.
Now i got ke all it depends upon the engine........
But is there any purpose to use triangles insted of quads, or it also depends upon the engine. Using polygon counter i saw ke triangle are more than quads, and in many references there are more of triangles.
Is it ke after making model u convert to editable patch\mesh to make model lighter.
The model which i have done, is the mesh proper ? i know i have to improve on anatomy n detailing.

Viral.....:)

[satan]

(HOW ...... Many people put a smooth group on a polygon on either 'this' side or 'that' side. But few people declare polygons using smooth groups of 'this' as well as 'that' side.) I was not able to get this thing.

Say you have two seperate strips of polygons coming together in the same direction with a common edge within them forming a 90 degree angle. You give one strip of polygons the SG of "1" and the other a SG of "2" just so the edge between them is very distinct. Now as it comes down to a point when it slowly fades in to become 'co-planar', you start giving polygons of those regions SG of both "1" and "2". This will make the transition much more realizable without making the effort of adding any extra polygons. But again the game engine has to support it.

But is there any purpose to use triangles insted of quads, or it also depends upon the engine.

ALL GAME ENGINE till date calculates in triangles only. So even if you make a model with quads, before rendering, the engine will break it down to triangle-level only. It's more or less like how the "Edit Mesh" modifier handles the meshes. You might not be able to see triangles, but actually all polygons of an object in "edit mesh" is manipulated in triangle level only.

Using polygon counter i saw ke triangle are more than quads, and in many references there are more of triangles.

I didn't understand.

Is it ke after making model u convert to editable patch\mesh to make model lighter.

Not always. If the format you're exporting is a game-friendly format, it'll collapse unused information itself when it's exporting. But yeah it's a good practice to deal things in "Editable mesh". As you know where you are going etc and if you'll face any problem, you'll face it from before and that would allow you to correct the problem before going into further complexities.

[canndis]

Purpose for using Triangles is that the engine always reads your model in triangles.If we dont make them then the engine will do it on its own,Some times this affects the model,which will give a dark shading. which is not good and also, there are some issues with normal maps when the triangle is done by the engine (This does'nt happen all the time) .

Hope thats usefull.

[viral_zaveri]

Hey thanks satan n candis.........Most of the question are being solved n got to know some unknown facts........are there any 3dgaming company in mumbai? where i can start out.....also i have 1and half yr experience in inflight games.
I will definately work out and post again as u ppl said..........
Thanks a lot and m happy atleast some one replied to the thread..........


Regards,
Viral :)

[Hardboiledart]

BOBo the seal..is one hell of a artist....i learned a bit of digital painting from his video tuts

[canndis]

ya he is awesom . you can check josh work also Awesome game artist

http://www.joshsingh.net/

Theres a forum for game artist . some tutorials there are good.Lots of helpful ppl out there.
http://www.game-artist.net/

[viral_zaveri]

Yah BOBO is awesome game artist, saw his work .........Hey last spartan i saw your portfolio, its good. U are doing B.F.A from Big apple institute from mumbai, is it a new institute?
Hey canndis thanks once again, joshsingh is also an awesome artist, has done lots of good work. Do u know unwarapping, can u tell me how to unwrape lowpoly models, i wanna learn unwraping..........