Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Kennethfejer on December 17, 2006, 04:18:25 am

Title: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Kennethfejer on December 17, 2006, 04:18:25 am
hi all,
heres a little thing I've been working on today.
before people get upset, i have to say, yes its 3d, but the texture is still pixel art, so hopefully its still useful/interesting for people to check out.
I've just finished another 3d project at work, so I've kind of gotten into low poly 3d again, its fun :)

anyway here it is:
(http://www.kennethfejer.dk/images/lowpoly_ship.gif)

its inspired by a wireless game i did a year ago or so, called alpha wing 2, so if you've ever played that game, you'll notice it :)


oh and i made a gif as well
(http://www.kennethfejer.dk/images/spaceship_anim.gif)

Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: sharprm on December 17, 2006, 04:57:39 am
I like the pallete. It looks good from most angles, but I don't like it from the back. Would it look better with the back of the tails being grey?
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: commodore on December 17, 2006, 08:51:43 am
Pixeling a texture for 3d is lol. Anyways it rocks! Don't change a thing.
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Skull on December 17, 2006, 10:50:16 am
God damn, that model is awesome.  :y:
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Rox on December 17, 2006, 02:32:00 pm
HELLO I love you.

Heh, I actually pixelled a 128x128 texture for a nearly cubic robot at school recently, just to try it out. It's a TON of fun. I've got a whole series of ugly SNES/N64 crossover spaceships going on now... Maybe I should pixel the textures for those? They're all between 30 and 100 polygons.
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: pkmays on December 17, 2006, 03:47:12 pm
I love this. I agree with sharprm on the weirdness of the light little jaggies on the rear of the vertical stabilizers. Also, I think the exhaust would work better with a black vent and couple fiery yellow triangular prisms for the afterburners. If the triangles are separate objects from the ship, they could easily have a cheesy jerky scaling animation applied too.
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: AdamAtomic on December 17, 2006, 05:58:41 pm
Nice one ken!  I love to do these too :)  A couple of tips:

1 - gradient on the side of the windshield is wasted IMO, lot of colors there that aren't contributing much

2 - the box with 2 glowy circles in it is a really boring look for your rear engine - if your rear fins were planes (or maybe just the front edges were planes) you would have a few extra quads left over to dress up those engines!

3 - give the back of the rear fins a little bit more UV space - not much, but a slight change should have the light edges rendering out a lot better even at small resolutions.  Doesn't need much!

4 - I assume the ship will never be seen from the bottom ;)  A little less space given to the largely flat and featureless windshield could have meant a detailed bottom for fancy in-game animations like barrel rolls.

That said, your shading in general is pretty inspired and spot on - great edge highlights and plane lighting, the white windshield front is bold and works perfectly.  the yellow tint to the highlights works great, and most of the detail work really does the job, especially the hinge-type thing for the windshield.  You should run this bad boy through Pepakura Designer!
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Rynen10K on December 17, 2006, 06:04:57 pm
Kenneth, you always make the best stuff! I love your style :D

I tried pixelling a 64x64 texture and tried putting it onto a cube just to test it out, but for some reason the pixels kept overlapping the edges on the cube by about 1 pixel... I don't get it :\ (I'm using Maya 7, btw).

I have my UVs set up perfectly (http://img476.imageshack.us/img476/1333/3dstuff1jl8.png), yet the results are are all messed up. (http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/2808/3dstuff2md2.png)

What gives? Are there any important settings I should turn on before rendering? Or are 3d programs/UVs not supposed to be pixel-perfect?
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Andy Tran on December 18, 2006, 05:45:45 am
 Perfect  pink! I can't believe my eyes...this is so beautiful! I got no crits at all, but how did you rotate it?
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Faceless on December 18, 2006, 10:48:07 am
Looks good. :y:
It'd be cool to see other people pixelling textures and them getting mapped to the model.
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Ryan Cordel on December 18, 2006, 12:55:51 pm
Perfect  pink! I can't believe my eyes...this is so beautiful! I got no crits at all, but how did you rotate it?

Well, he did say it was a 3d model, so it's not very hard to turn one around, really.
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: EyeCraft on December 18, 2006, 04:27:20 pm
It almost hurts, how cool this is. I agree with AdamAtomic's crits. Everything is just excellent, well done.
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: pi on December 18, 2006, 06:19:23 pm
Man, that's pretty much the coolest low poly spaceship ever.

What program did you use to make the 3D model?
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Kennethfejer on December 18, 2006, 10:37:44 pm
thanks for the comments :)

Rox: cool, you should post them somewhere, they could be fun to have a look at :)

AdamAtomic:
thanks ,appreciate the comments :)

2 -true the back is a bit boring, but thats how the original looks and i would probably add a couple of flames, if it were ever to go into a real game.

4 - im actually using most of the texture space and i cant really change the uv's for the wings, before it'll start looking really messy. i also want to make somewhat sure, the pixels roughly stays the same size.

the bottom has a little bit of shading, but its mostly just gradients, so yeah, im not super happy about how that turned out.
hehe might give the Pepakura designer a go.

Rynen10K:
do you have snapping on ? because thats the only way i can be sure its perfect in 3dsmax.
i cant tell you how its done in maya, but it should be able to do it pixel perfect.

pi:
3d studio max
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Rynen10K on December 19, 2006, 09:35:48 am
Yes, I have Pixel Snapping on, made sure the grid was aligned pixel perfect, etc... I just don't get it, though...

Must be a Maya thing... I'm hoping it's just a render issue, because I'm almost positive it's not the UVs'...maybe I have to set the units to pixels? Who knows.

Guess this is just another reason to re-learn Max again...

I'm so tired of switching between the 2 programs... @_@ Everything i know how to do in on program i don't know how to do in the other.

Anyway, thanks!
Title: Re: spaceship
Post by: Kennethfejer on December 19, 2006, 10:07:28 pm
here's a house i did today

(http://www.kennethfejer.dk/images/lowpoly_house.gif)

(http://www.kennethfejer.dk/images/lowpoly_house_anim.gif)


Rynen10K :
hehe yeah you are probably better off learning one program at the time :)
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: fil_razorback on December 19, 2006, 10:47:38 pm
WOW, this is stunning !
No crits from me, it's even more impressive than your regular pixel works.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Lick on December 19, 2006, 10:49:17 pm
BUNNY-FUCKING-AWESOME!

They look cute. Animal Crossing-ish cute. Take a zoom at 2x (or even 3x) and they still looks nice. Good job. Make them publicly available .. please.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: am_pm on December 19, 2006, 11:46:12 pm
Hey, that's pretty cool. I like low poly work, it has a nice feel to it.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: AdamAtomic on December 20, 2006, 12:16:06 am
excellent!  very nice man!  the display quality to texture size ratio is fantastic, excellent stuff!
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: sharprm on December 20, 2006, 01:21:30 am
The house looks great. Well done. I'm going to have to try doing this sometime.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: skeddles on December 20, 2006, 01:38:20 am
those came out awesome! they even look hand pixeled, but that would take months
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: .TakaM on December 20, 2006, 02:18:37 am
this stuff is pretty neat, Im not a huge fan of the spaceship, mainly because they've never really interested me much but I really like the house, its so simple but it looks so awesome. great work again ken.

edit-
I like how you textured the chimney so it gets atleast a little subtle AA as the angle changes- was this intentional?
I always wondered why developers never seem to do this with 3d on the DS
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Kable on December 21, 2006, 04:08:28 am
I don't know about you, but low poly modeling and texturing feels a lot like the 3d equivalent of pixelart in 2d. Great stuff.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: pkmays on December 21, 2006, 04:44:51 am
I don't know about you, but low poly modeling and texturing feels a lot like the 3d equivalent of pixelart in 2d. Great stuff.

Kinda, but what I really want is a 3D program that can create 3D objects using voxels. As far as I know, no such program exists. House is looking great. I hope to see more.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Akira on December 21, 2006, 07:31:57 am
Kinda, but what I really want is a 3D program that can create 3D objects using voxels. As far as I know, no such program exists.
http://www.tibed.net/voxel :)
it's pretty low tech. very low tech. but you can create 3d objects using voxels.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Kennethfejer on December 21, 2006, 07:26:34 pm
thanks for the comments.

okay last one, i guess this has more to do with 3d then pixelart, so i'll stop posting them here.

anyway heres a helicopter i made today:
(http://www.kennethfejer.dk/images/lowpoly_helicopter.gif)

(http://www.kennethfejer.dk/images/helicopter.gif)


.TakaM:
yes the fake AA on the chimney is intentionally, if you have enough space on the texture, its a good way of making the models look less square.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Stwelin on December 21, 2006, 07:34:14 pm
you made 3d look good. no crits whatsoever. the house is my favourite.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: 8bitty on December 21, 2006, 07:36:54 pm
ohmygod keneth they are sooo sweet - if you carry on pleeeeease show

i'm amazed at the helicopter most, and do you know any useful pixel-3d tutorials for 3dsmax? or did you just pick it up?

 :y: :y: :y:

Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Akzidenz on December 21, 2006, 07:45:10 pm
The helicopter looks great, but I don't think it has nearly as much life as the other two. I feel like the deformed plane/house have more of a unique stamp on them, they feel more like the pixel work of yours that I've seen. But the helicopter? It's well modeled, but I feel like other people could've modeled the same thing.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: AlexHW on December 21, 2006, 08:20:47 pm
kenneth, im intrigued by all this, and am wondering about how the texture mapping process goes. is it a fast and quick process? When I use to try to texture map models it was so frustrating.. these look amazing by the way..

edit: also, seeing some pics of the models without textures would be educational..
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: AdamAtomic on December 21, 2006, 08:37:08 pm
choppers are a pain aren't they!!  I did one at very similar specs, but ended up going for a chunkier look, I just couldn't get the windshield area to read.  Yours does very nicely in that regard.  One thing I noticed when I was doing mine was that once the blades started to spin I had to make the ends of them very wide to read well at high speeds - though really I bet that could be done procedurally - like only widen the blades once they get up to a certain speed?  anyways neat stuff as usual :)
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: snader on December 21, 2006, 09:00:33 pm
could you please, pleasy try to make the chopper in a style like the plane?
i realise that'd be hard, what with rotors eating up much more polygons then simple wings, but i'd love to see it, just stylewise
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Froli on December 21, 2006, 09:08:48 pm
This is freaking awesome! 3d and pixel art combined ....that's just beautiful...
 is it  possible that you can make vids/pics on how this is done?  <I doubt that it will be simple though, and it's just a wishful thinking>.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: PoV (aka DrgnMaX) on December 21, 2006, 10:44:10 pm
Wow... that house.  Wow.  The rest are pretty cool, but wow, that house!  :D
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: InvaderLupus on December 21, 2006, 10:53:33 pm
mmm...I <3 low poly models. Reminds me of a robot a member did a good while ago (AdamAtomic?). That house is seriously awesome (by far my favorite, although they all look great).
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Tinygiant on December 22, 2006, 09:12:18 am
Coolest think I've seen in ages, wish I knew a 3D package would love to have a go at making something like these. Will have to learn in the new year I guess.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: skeddles on December 22, 2006, 06:26:21 pm
can you please do a screen record of you doing this? i would love to see how its done. I barley know how to posen 3dstudio, nevermind use it!
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Dusty on December 22, 2006, 06:38:20 pm
Question though... if you used this technique, texturing 3-D models and so on, would it be considered pixel-art? At least if you do it in this way.
Say I make an RPG, I pixel some textures, build some models, then angle the camera down at 45 degrees and start taking screenshots for different directions and posted it, would it be allowed?
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: skeddles on December 22, 2006, 06:40:55 pm
Question though... if you used this technique, texturing 3-D models and so on, would it be considered pixel-art? At least if you do it in this way.
Say I make an RPG, I pixel some textures, build some models, then angle the camera down at 45 degrees and start taking screenshots for different directions and posted it, would it be allowed?
now that you told us.....no.


jklol, i dont think so though. pixel art is every pixel placed by hand.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Akzidenz on December 22, 2006, 06:42:36 pm
I think that the moment you have a 3D engine rendering out your frames, it stops being pixel art in the "pure" sense - seems like the definition of pixel art is "placing every single pixel down yourself," and if you're just texturing a model that's being rendered later, then.. it breaks that rule.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Terley on December 22, 2006, 06:51:51 pm
ahem, the texture is pure pixel art.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Ryumaru on December 22, 2006, 07:47:56 pm
terley, what hes saying is that the 3d engine renders and distorts the textures on the model. once this is done, thats when it stops being pixelart.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: progFX on December 23, 2006, 03:52:13 am
If your all going to complain about pure pixel art then look at the Texture and ignore the 3d. Jesus, don't put so many boundaries or you wont accomplish anything.

BTW, Like I said on MSN Kenneth the look sweet, also like the latest addition.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Ryumaru on December 23, 2006, 04:19:58 am
were not complaining, just thinking about where the line would be drawn between this and pure pixelart.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Helm on December 23, 2006, 04:33:06 am
the talk about pixel art for me ends when what you've made is put on a surface which is rendered in 3d. A polygon on something. When the pixels are stretched, skewed and so on, it's over. Of course this doesn't mean anything, discussion can go on, the process can be scrutinized, whatever. I'm just saying that's where the benefits of pixel art stop applying for the art, when you mess with the atom of the universe (the size and shape of the singluar pixel)
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: pkmays on December 23, 2006, 05:27:36 am
I really don't care if it's considered True Pixel Art or not. What I do care about, is that this retains the things about pixel art that I find aesthetically pleasing. Low res, pixelated, minimalist, economic, effective. Those are the things I love about pixel art, and these examples hold true to my ideals.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Dusty on December 23, 2006, 06:03:23 am
Oh, I love the look of this stuff. It's smooth and crisp, and has an unexplainable appeal to it.
I was just wondering what's considered what when you start working with this stuff. (Since it may be easier to make a model and texture it and grab the sprite captures from that instead of actually pixeling each sprite seperately.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: commodore on December 23, 2006, 04:41:25 pm
If I'll map a sprite on a polygon that doesn't skew, rotate, scale the sprite in any way, it's not pixelart anymore (it looks the same as in the app you made it with)? This technique of making 2d games in 3d is often used because of the modern hardware rendering 3d so fast.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Pawige on December 23, 2006, 05:00:38 pm
Uhhh, I think you missed the point, Commodore. It's only when it does stretch, skew or rotate that it becomes something that isn't pixel art. (As long as the polygon you've got the sprite on moves one full pixels at a time!)

Edit: Kenneth, these really appeal to the 3D modeler in me. Nice work!
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: crab2selout.png on December 23, 2006, 05:37:59 pm
Looks pretty, but I could see this looking pretty awful if you started changing the angle/distance of camera to less nice positions that you would find in a game. Right now you dont see it when it would start skipping random pixels from odd resizes. Like on your first iamge we only see for a fraction of a second when some lines, like the orange rectangle of the thruster have pixels missing. But in a game we could have instances of this where this happens and stays taht way for multiple seconds at a time.

Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Aleiav on December 23, 2006, 06:46:45 pm
Your ability for rendering 3D objects is astounding! I love the color choices as well.
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Rynen10K on December 23, 2006, 07:10:21 pm
I wasn't very interested in 3D until I saw AdamAtomic and kennethFejer's stuff... :)

To me, this lo-poly models with lo-res textures is like pixel art for 3D (not counting voxels, I guess).

It might not be pixel art once it is put to a plane, stretched and skewed, but I still consider it "pixel art" at least for the texture, and "low poly" for the model.

Anyway, I love this kinda stuff, and it's rekindled my recently waning interest in 3D programs...
Title: Re: spaceship and house
Post by: Kennethfejer on December 30, 2006, 04:23:21 am
wow, thanks the the comments, sorry for not replying back before now, been on holiday.

8bitty:
no sorry, i don't know about any useful tutorials for this.
i've actually done a lot of 3d, but i haven't touched it for about 4-5 years  :-[

Alex Hanson-White:
yeah they are pretty quick to map, as long as you keep them this low poly.
i pretty much just map them bit by bit, there's no reason to map the whole object straight away, as long as you make sure, you keep enough space left for the rest of the object.

sure, i'll post some pics of them without the texture later :)

AdamAtomic:
yeah that blades definitely looks much better at high speed, if you make them wider.
i just kept them normal width, so they wouldn't look weird, if they weren't rotating.
i guess an easy solution for this, would be to have to copies of the blades and just not render the ones you aren't using.

Froli:
making a video of how i create these, seems like a lot of work :(

Dusty:
not sure i understand your question :/


to make up for my late reply, here's a wip of a character im working on at the moment.

(http://kennethfejer.dk/images/lowpoly_girl.png)

still need to optimize her a little bit and texture her hair, i still have lots of space left on the texture.
she's meant to be a rpg type character, similar to the ones in the final fantasy DS games(they look amazing btw,
check out the chronicles trailer, if you get the chance), so i might give her a sword or something... will have to see.





Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: .TakaM on December 30, 2006, 04:50:36 am
looks good, be sure to make a spin anim when you're done... or even a walk cycle  :angel:

and on the subject of you recording how you make your stuff, I'd like to watch a video of yours, but more-so of traditional pixelart/sprites
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: snader on December 30, 2006, 06:09:07 am
you're working in 3dsmax right? are you counting triangles or polygons?
edit: allso, how do you set it so the pixels dont get blurry on the model?
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Kennethfejer on December 30, 2006, 07:12:20 pm
.TakaM:
not sure if people wants to see how i do my art, i don't sketch or anything and i never really know, what im going to draw, before spending some time doodling. i've been meaning to do a video though, i've even started recording a couple of times, but i usually give up half way through, im too lazy :/

snader:
its 3dsmax, if you dont want it to blurry the textures, you just untick the AA option in the render and set filtering to none, under the bitmap options, in the material editor. that should do it.

good point, it's triangles.




btw, i promised to post the mesh pics, so here they are:
(http://www.kennethfejer.dk/images/mesh01.png)
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Lick on December 30, 2006, 10:21:58 pm
I'll give you a suggestion: make backgrounds for them! I've been playing Final Fantasy 9 and I am still amazed by the graphics (mainly the backdrops and FMVs). They use low poly 3D characters for important stuff only. It would be nice to see these objects you've made in a similar-styled game.

Too much tease, too much! :(
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Kable on December 31, 2006, 02:31:43 am
gah.. dang you kenneth, I tried to do a low poly character and i ended up around 500 triangles or so, yours is genius.. I must try to reduce!

(http://www.planetthinktanks.com/dan/pixelart/walkfront.gif)
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: snader on December 31, 2006, 02:42:34 am
some love back from me as well:
(http://www.pixelsnader.nl/images/3d/MiniVan.gif)(http://www.pixelsnader.nl/images/3d/MiniVanUV.png)

exactly 100 triangles. of which 80 go to the wheels. -sigh-
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: cave on December 31, 2006, 02:56:09 am
Tutorial please!

I tried messing with 3d programs on and off, and figured out how to do some basic modeling and rendering,  but I never figured out how to do proper UV unwrapping. Or how to render a light-less scene with flat pixels :/
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Kable on December 31, 2006, 03:46:13 am
The difficulty of making a tutorial is that there's no one way to do it, every tool does it a little differently and seeing a tutorial in 3DStudio is probably not going to help you because you probably don't have 3DStudio and other tools while they may be similar can also be totally different.  Personally I use Silo for modeling ($100), Ultimate Unwrap for UV mapping (35$ ish), and PaceMaker for animation  (24 GBP).  You could substitute Wings3d for the modeler since it's free, I've used it but I prefer silo's interface.

As far as UV mapping, rigging, animating.. all that stuff goes there's no real way to know if what your doing is going to work without going thought he full process several times. It's just like any other art, there's no better way to learn it then to bang your head against the wall repeatedly for hours. The tools get more complex and as a result so does the learning curve. It could take you a week or two to get comfortable in whatever 3d modeling package you use, and at least a few days to get a basic grasp of UV mapping, rigging, and animating.
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: robotriot on December 31, 2006, 08:43:39 am
I really like the look of pixeled textures on lowpoly models, despite what a lot of hardcore pixelers say. Great models here :)
Also a good occasion to repost my old mech which was never finished and thus looks a little crappy ^^

(http://omr.planet-d.net/img/michi4.png)
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: sharprm on December 31, 2006, 11:42:07 am
So with the textures do you make the light source from above and in front always? I think thats what you're doing. My only crit is for
the girl's face maybe there shouldn't be the darker shade above her eyebrows, becuase eyebrows are the bit that sticks out greatest.
Keep posting these they are great!  :D
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: snake on December 31, 2006, 04:16:26 pm
Very impressive. I've been wanting to try this for a long time, I just got other assignments. Hard not to get inspired by the new low poly DS games. The newest one reminds me of the models for Rival Schools on the shading. But maybe she's a little modern to be in a classic RPG? I guess it's the uniform tags that give me that impression.

On the issue of triangles. I know that when you make a four edged plain, there will be a line visible to show where the square bends. However, if you actually split/cut it, you end up with triangles, or quads which are hard to texture. Looking at the mesh you posted, I'm not sure if you have made your squares into quads or not. If you have, wouldn't that be unnecessary?

Another thing. Do you animate in vertexes or do you use some sort of biped or skeleton?

The rest would just be praise I guess.  :y:
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: AdamAtomic on December 31, 2006, 04:49:29 pm
Very impressive. I've been wanting to try this for a long time, I just got other assignments. Hard not to get inspired by the new low poly DS games. The newest one reminds me of the models for Rival Schools on the shading. But maybe she's a little modern to be in a classic RPG? I guess it's the uniform tags that give me that impression.

On the issue of triangles. I know that when you make a four edged plain, there will be a line visible to show where the square bends. However, if you actually split/cut it, you end up with triangles, or quads which are hard to texture. Looking at the mesh you posted, I'm not sure if you have made your squares into quads or not. If you have, wouldn't that be unnecessary?

Another thing. Do you animate in vertexes or do you use some sort of biped or skeleton?

The rest would just be praise I guess.  :y:

I can answer your triangles question - you will only be able to see the line dividing a quad if the quad is nonplanar.  Also, when you are modeling, especially at this resolution, you rarely turn triangles into squares - most everything is a quad unless it really does need three sides, and then you force it to triangles for the final mesh (unless its going on the DS - then you can keep your quads as long as they are basically planar and won't be deforming).  Finally, working with triangles or oddly shaped quads on your UV map isn't too bad, you just have to plan ahead - is it ok to distort this quad so that I can texture its edges to be straight, or will it wrap around and I have to simply place it in such a way that it doesn't deform BUT i can still get some straight edges out of the deal.

Hope that helps!

Awesome new stuff Kenneth, the FFIII models are REALLY inspiring aren't they!?
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Scuba Steve on December 31, 2006, 06:50:51 pm
I don't think I can express just how much I love these pieces, Kenneth.  It was said a while back, but these really do feel like 3D pixel art.  The low poly count and the sharp, crisp texturing blend so well.  I can see the argument that these are not "pixel art" but I don't care, I adore the work here and would love to see more of it.  I fact, I'll take it one step farther.  I would love to see a game made in this style, brilliant 2d backgrounds melded with your adorable 3d pixel textured models (I suppose it might look a bit like New Super Mario woudln't it).  As long as the textures continue to be pixeled, I see no reason for this not to be here.  Art is about expanding and exploring new ideas and concepts.... this is just taking pixel art and modelling, and seeing what the attempt looks like, strangely, a lot like a voxel piece.  I love this Kenneth, I've always adored your work, the flat, brilliant colours always look so nice.
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Kable on January 01, 2007, 08:53:58 pm
I decided to model the 2nd pixelart I ever posted to pixelation, 256 polys. I'm doing the UV mapping now, it seems to me in doing this Kenneth that you must be doing the texture map and the UV mapping at the same time. Or are you really just thinking ahead much further then I am capable of?

For those curious.. this is my 2nd contribution to pixelation way  back in the tsugumo days :)

(http://www.planetthinktanks.com/dan/pixelart/2707.gif)
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: ZoSo on January 01, 2007, 11:46:58 pm
I love the girl, reminds me of Chrono Cross, which is one of my favorite games.. :O.. And i hate FF games. Keep up the good work  :y:
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Lawrence on January 03, 2007, 04:58:08 pm
some love back from me as well:
exactly 100 triangles. of which 80 go to the wheels. -sigh-
For the flat, side surface of the wheels have you tried using just a 1 (or 2) triangle surface with a transparency map around the edge? I've seen that trick in a lot of games, especially low-poly ones.

Btw these are really great Kenneth :)
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: AdamAtomic on January 03, 2007, 06:01:35 pm
some love back from me as well:
exactly 100 triangles. of which 80 go to the wheels. -sigh-
For the flat, side surface of the wheels have you tried using just a 1 (or 2) triangle surface with a transparency map around the edge? I've seen that trick in a lot of games, especially low-poly ones.

Btw these are really great Kenneth :)

Something I used on a recent cell phone game was simply removing the interior face of the wheel - the side that you basically never see even once in any normal game.  This would save you 16 triangles with 4 hex wheels, and 24 triangles with 4 oct wheels :)
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: snader on January 03, 2007, 09:29:02 pm
i got rid of the 2 triangles that are inside of the vanbox, lef the ones that are sticking out from below, thinking, i might just show it all. if the game really couldnt handle it i'd replace the wheels with 6 triangled octagons. but meh. i'm finished with it. trying my hand at a character now.  now focus on ken.

Ken - finish that character so i know what you're gonna do with the empty space =P
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Scuba Steve on January 05, 2007, 07:23:42 am
Oh my!  I remember that figure, Kable, back on the old pixelation board.  Incidently, nice avatar ;)
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Rynen10K on January 06, 2007, 08:24:35 pm
Any other Maya users out there?
I think all i haveto do is turn off anti-aliasing in the Maya Hardware Render settings... but as stupid as it sounds, i can't figure out how to do it! :(
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: robotriot on January 06, 2007, 09:15:07 pm
Don't render with Maya Hardware, use Software instead. You can set AA-quality right there as the first option. Also disable any texture filtering.
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Rynen10K on January 07, 2007, 01:51:51 am
I'm having trouble rendering with the Maya Software option (as you can see in my earlier post (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=2760.msg33988#msg33988)), otherwise i'd just use that...

When I turn the AAing off in the main window, it seems to line everything up perfect, though. When i render, however, the Software Render messes things up, and I can't turn off the AAing in Hardware Renders....

Maybe Maya's just not the program to do this kind of stuff in...?
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Vertigo-zero on January 07, 2007, 08:02:25 pm
Wow kenneth I should do something like that as well, mainly because I can haha  :) great idea  :y:
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: eobet on January 08, 2007, 04:07:43 pm
I absolutely love this style! It feels like three dimensional pixels, because of the extreme low-poly models.

I always thought that bilinear filtering was a gift from the heavens, but I'm not so sure anymore. Though I suspect that the scene these models would be placed it might have to contain many flat or gradient shaded polygons to make them pop and prevent everything from getting grainy and messy.

I would love to see more (even if it bends the forum rules a bit)!
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: SCiDT on February 11, 2007, 01:16:58 am
Honestly wow! I would love to do one or two of these?

Is there any tutorials you'd recommend?
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: Jhelle on February 11, 2007, 12:04:19 pm
I had lessons in texturing stuff in 3dmax at school :) I don't have the reader for you but probably these links will help you out.

http://world-editor-tutorials.thehelper.net/unwrap.php
http://waylon-art.com/uvw_tutorial/uvwtut_01.html
http://www.oman3d.com/tutorials/3ds/unwrap_uvw_mapping/

 :y: , good luck.
Title: Re: spaceship, house and more...
Post by: SCiDT on February 11, 2007, 05:17:13 pm
Thanks, Those are pretty cool. I will probably use blender since I don't have any commercial packages :(