Low-poly character tuts?

[t3h m00kz]

Hey all,

I'm looking for some info on low-poly character design. I'm familiar with basic plane modeling, and am wanting to expand into characters.

The level I'm hoping to eventually achieve is at the very least, the quality of the character models in Unreal Tournament 2004. Low-poly, but with very effectively distributed geometry.

http://www.jackethead.com/kizza/junk/RomulusUT3/RomulusUT2004_400px.jpg

http://www.cheathappens.com/features/ut2004/graphics/skaarj.gif

http://media.moddb.com/cache/images/members/1/149/148607/thumb_620x2000/Sapphire_Facing_World_3_1.jpg

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/images/Unreal-Tournament-2004.jpg

At the moment, I don't have the required skills, and I would like to improve.

What I'm capable of at the moment:

http://i655.photobucket.com/albums/uu279/m00kz/shytcharacterlmodel.png

This is my first attempt at keeping things realistically proportional, using the UT3 skeleton as a base. The body is a bunch of extruded blocks, save for the face, which was modeled separately and then attached at the neck.

I know, I know, it's complete trash, you don't have to tell me. But at this point I don't know how I'd go about improving upon something so basic, IE adding in further details such as armor, muscle detail; basically, "sculpting" it effectively, without loosing control of all of the edges and verts and all that shit.

So bottom line, what I'm looking for in particular is a tutorial (preferably video) on the process of designing and modeling a low-poly characters, while making good, effective use of the tools.

[MetKiller Joe]

The volume of the character needs to be more obvious. What I'm seeing is a box in the rough shape of a body and not much else. Give yourself some leeway when defining the muscles.

Also, those shoulders are too square.

My two cents. Polycount has an entire thread for it (http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=41232).

[Phopojijo]

Yeah... you really shouldn't plane-model bipeds...

Plane modeling is designed for planar-symmetric objects.
Human body is mostly cylinders except for the head and hands...

Get two reference images... one front-on... one-side on... line them up perfectly.

Create the torso, arms, legs, and head (preferably under mirror instancing to cut your workload and keep both sides exactly coordinated).

START OUT VERY LOW POLY! Torso and arms should be hexagonal or octagonal cylinders... get you VERY lowpoly objects to COMPLETELY AND PERFECTLY follow your reference silhouettes.

If your models don't fit the silhouette -- adding more detail won't help... the fundamental geometry is wrong... splitting it and adding more detail will just have more wrong vertexes to deal with.

When you got it matching your silhouette -- combine the pieces -- compare with reference images for silhouette.

Slowly add detail uniformly amongst the entire model... and more and more and more until you're done.

[Dwood]

Plane modeling is designed for planar-symmetric objects.
Human body is mostly cylinders except for the head and hands...


Under that, does it mean that If I was not designing a map to be symmetrical, I shouldn't use plane modelling?

[Con]

Polycount has an entire thread for it (http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=41232).
The thread's best post:
http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=767258&postcount=514

[Maniac]

check your pm's

[Llama Juice]

The thread's best post:
http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=767258&postcount=514


^This.

When I saw this thread I immediately thought of the TF2 characters redone in low poly. The wireframe there shows off his tactics well. Learn from it. :P

[legionaire45]

Derp. (http://www.bakaneko.com/howto/computer/3d/character/page01.html)

My contribution.

[t3h m00kz]

Thanks for the positive responses guys. I'll study up on this from these links and see if I can't pop out something decent before too long.

Also that polycount thread is fucking awesome. Very inspirational.

[Pooky]

The thread's best post:
http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=767258&postcount=514

Whoa, those might be able to go in TFC. Now that would be epic.

[Phopojijo]

Under that, does it mean that If I was not designing a map to be symmetrical, I shouldn't use plane modelling?Symmetry means different things to different people... you're thinking reflection symmetric... that's not the type of symmetry I'm referring to.

BASICALLY what I mean is that it is related to the base geometry of (simple object). A box is typically cubic-symmetric because on the whole it's got 6 flat faces... it might have beveled edges and hinges and holes -- etc -- but you almost always want to start modeling it by taking a simple cube and distorting it.

If your object (or map) can be described almost entirely by 1 reference image -- then it makes sense to plane model it with a plane in that reference image's plane.

If your object CANNOT be describe by just 1 reference image -- like with a biped that needs front-on and side-on images (to know how wide the hips are AND how much the belly sticks out -- etc) then it doesn't make sense to plane model it.

You can, I've seen people do it... but it's BY FAR easier to start with objects that more closely resemble what you're attempting to make... then modifying them slowly and surely.

Hope that helps explain better.

[Limited]

Dont mean to sound like an ass, but shouldnt low-poly stuff be alot easier than high poly? I have trouble making stuff high poly personally.

Since your taught to low poly first THEN expand to high poly modeling, surely low-poly modelling is second nature to modelers.

My word of advice, whore out them textures, seriously use every byte to perfection, textures can be used to make a crap low poly look marvelous.

[Phopojijo]

That assumes that people build perfect low-poly models and then build on them... that's where you see the sloppy high-poly models that something just looks wrong with them... or their polycounts are about 3x what they should be (and something probably still looks wrong with them).

Also with low-poly models... you need to be a lot more innovative with textures and stuff to add detail that isn't there... and also make your models be able to accept those details.

[SnaFuBAR]

Hey all,

I'm looking for some info on low-poly character design. I'm familiar with basic plane modeling, and am wanting to expand into characters.

The level I'm hoping to eventually achieve is at the very least, the quality of the character models in Unreal Tournament 2004. Low-poly, but with very effectively distributed geometry.


At the moment, I don't have the required skills, and I would like to improve.

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/Unreal_tournament_tutorial/Unreal_tournament_tutorial_01.php

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/low_poly_character/low_poly_01.php

http://www.3dtotal.com/pages/tutorials/max/joanofarc/joanmenu.php

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/benmathis/benmathis_1.php

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_3/Clone_modelling/clone_modelling_01.php

you're welcome.

[t3h m00kz]

Found this, linked from the first link Snaf listed. It looks pretty promising. http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm