[Light]

Here is low poly plane I made, untextured. I may do another smoothed+textured+raytrace version lateron.

It weighs in around 590 faces but its not optimized. It could be reduced to around 500 faces or so with no loss of detail (maybe 450). And with more block shapes probably half that.

I plan to go ahead and start on another model first.



Oh.. and btw if any game artist here know any good tricks or techinques for texturing objects email me. I've a good idea how to texture it but any information would be appreciated (right now, Im thinking to cut several textures and fit them to each section of the plane or use a projection map). - oh and refs used.

[Ben Barker]

Heh, I made a plane too. It was pretty hard to texture.



Bah Dum, Tshh!

[edit]
Umm, I guess I should seriously respond. I would cut the plane in half, map one side, then mirror it.
Do a cylindrical map on the body (or half of the body if texture space is an issue), then planar map one wing and mirror it. Same for the engine and the tail.

[This message has been edited by Ben Barker (edited January 13, 2001).]

[samdragon]

Not sure what app your using, so it depends alot on that as far as texture placement.
If you're using Maya, I can help you out with the texturing problems.
I just finished modeling something very close to what your working on.
http://pennygraphics.com/samdragon/misc/texturetest.htm

I did a test texture to get a general Idea of how I was going to lay out the final map. This will help me later on when I'm ready to make the final texture. I think it was 256x256 (pixels) so it's blurred all to hell because of the resizing I did. That's a good way to start out, keep it simple so you can move things around. It may get confusing your first time around when planar mapping polys.
Also, try rendering out wireframes from your side, front, top views. these are flat views(orthographic) and make great templates for when you want to make the final texture.
Remember, your textures can do alot of the work for you. As far as cylindrical body shapes go, you can usually get by with a 6 to 8 sided cylinder. The texture can hide alot of the facets or mistakes you make when the final version is rendered.
Good examples of great texture use and modeling is the unreal tournament models and textures. I think you can still download them, along with the weapons from here http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/resources/unreal/tools.shtml
have fun!

[Light]

Ok.. here is my new original character. I'm pretty happy with it but I think the creatures back needs a little work. Around 300 polys but not optimized.

Hmm.. will be fun to texture.

[Infinity]

Light: about that plane.. you ever thought about a complex mesh... not just an collection of cylinders and some simple boxlike things?

------------------
Why are you looking at me? I'm just a Signature.

[Light]

Inf: I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I designed it to not use many polygons using box modeling (ie extrude out faces, weld vertices, etc). If I hadn't used box modeling I probably would have used curves and created surfaces from them (nurbs). In low poly objects most of the detail comes from the texture and they are used in real time apps so it doesn't hurt them so much.

[surferboi]

you say low polys get their detail from textures.. fine.. then show them textured. but the models look very primitive.. like not much time was spent modeling. p.s. i would refrain from raytracing this.. i see no need.. use enviroment maps instead.

[natec]

Ok, so first...its best to post numerous views of your model with the edges showing, give us a reg top,right,front etc. The overly large perps you have right now does show as much...

Anyways...the fuselage and engines can be cylindrically mapped and the rest can be planar mapped. but, before that, go get some referane of some jetliners, maybe someblueprints

You'll want to blend the engines into the wings more as well as the wings and tail into the fuselage...

good start

-n

[shahar2k]

I'm really sorry about doing this, but here is the first charecter I have EVER made
this was made in milkshape, and as you can see I never finished it, but it took me nearly 2 months just to get that (while learning 3D modeling)

my point being.... those things the plane and the charecter?, seem very simplistic, just extruded and lofted shapes, with perhaps the wing being the one real strong point of the airplane.

I dunno, maybe it's cus I'm not real good at anything else but modeling... but hey, I'd reccomend that if you want to *learn* low poly, you start out with milkshape, where you get the weakest set of tools, and there is no tool there that can make a model look smooth except your own skill.

[This message has been edited by shahar2k (edited January 19, 2001).]

[Light]

Looks good but I like mine better. Hmm, I didn't exactly want it too look smooth -- thats why I set the surface normals to hard. So I could see exactly what I was doing.

Hmm, the plane I modeled should look 100% realistic if it was properly textured+smoothed OR if reduced+optimized it should work in a demo or game.

The only thing about the plane that is unrealistic is the back of the wing is sorta angeled where it should be more flat -- makes it look more like a bird. Also, the main body is constructed like a jumbo jet but the nose is more like a fighter plane. It would have taken quite a few more polys to get a jumbo jet nose.

Oh and those are some of my first low polys too.

[Light]

Actually.. I'll give you something for the bump. This is my latest low poly modeling. Its only around 100 and some faces per fish.

This is a test render and is not finished/planned for distro. I just cut and pasted the rendering screen shot into photoshop. I like it quite a bit. I'm not exactly sure how a finished pic with it will look -- maybe the same -- maybe tottally different.

But the model wont change a ton.




Oh and I think i know why the plane wasnt well received.. I put the perspective at a distortion where it doesnt register PLANE to most people (ie painterly style) but I made it really simple. Had it been shaded then the painters would have liked it or had I made it where you could "see" it then the drawers would have liked it. I went for simple style. =)

[Light]

Actually some people wanted to see some other views of the model.. heres another quik cut+paste job.. Looks like a plane to me. =)

[shahar2k]

my problem is not the plane itself, I mean it's nice and all, it just seems that you don't really explore the possibilities of modeling with your models, it seems like you take a few primitives, and then proceed to minimaly modify them without really changing the geometry significantly.

now I know that's not a very usefull complaint, but here's an excercise you should try,
take a simple cube, and use Edit mesh to make it into a humanoid. or a fish, or a plane or whatever you want.

it's not easy, and probably not the best way either, but it teaches you to create geometry as opposed to just manipulating it.

again, feel free to whack me over the head if somehow I'm not aware of your true intents and purposes.

[samdragon]

while you're using maya, hit the F1 key. This will bring up the online help. Use this to learn how the polygon tools work. It doesn't have much in the way of tutorials (if you're using version 3) but it does explain alot about the new tools. there are also plenty of books out there now for maya. You can order the using maya 3 book from alias if you want to. And here is a link to some great tutorials to help dive into more complex aspects...
http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/Tmpl/Maya/html/index.jhtml?page=/en/Community/Learn/learn_m.html&style=normal

Everyone starts out with primitives and goes from there. It looks like you have a good grip working the primative shapes, so maybe it is time to move on to something a little more challenging.
LIke shahar2k said start with a polycube and see what you can make. All the weapons I modeled on my site where made from a single cube. Extruding faces and pushing and pulling vertices and edges is what did the rest.
have fun with it, who cares if it doesn't look exactly right, you're learning, and in the process of learning, you're going to make mistakes, if not...you're not learning.


I hope to start on that mapping tutorial tomorrow. After that, I'm planning on doing a tutorial on modeling game characters in maya, depends on how much help and input I can get from others.
good luck

[Light]

Sam: I'm looking forward to the tutorial.

I usually start with a geosphere reduced to a few polygons. For the plane I started with a cylinder because it fit the shape quite well. FOr the wowzer I started with an elongated geosphere -- it should be reduced more.

Hmm for the fish I started with a simple box-like structure too.

I always model in 3d (ie not building out of invividual polys) so that I know it will look properly from all sides. I use the split poly tool, merge edges, set normals to face, extrude, scale, and move tools the most.

After I get the details in the areas I wont them (ie the most vertices concentrated in the needed areas) then I will go in and move individual vertices to form the shapes I need.