Low Spec 3D - Chibi Man (first time)

[skeddles]

Does anyone even post here 

Model


Map


I've always wanted to try this, but just decided to today. I kind of wish it was more dynamic, less square, but I didn't know where to start, I'm afraid the pixels wont fit. So I made the map first, and then the model to match it. Was pretty easy. Photoshop CS5 / Maya 2012.


I kind of want to make a game in low res style where you fight monsters and stuff, but I don't really have the time, and it would require more people. So whatevs.

[RedKnight91]

Cool!! : D Is it easy to do something like that in maya?

[skeddles]

Cool!! : D Is it easy to do something like that in maya?

Yeah it was actually pretty easy, the program is definitely equipped for this sort of thing, even though it doesn't seem so at first.

[RedKnight91]

Oh okay, thank you ^^ I'm definitely gonna try some 3D program sooner or later!

[skeddles]

Oh okay, thank you ^^ I'm definitely gonna try some 3D program sooner or later!

Here, because I was feeling inspired, I created a tutorial / walk through of how I did it! 

http://skeddles.com/blog/low-spec-model-in-maya-tutorial

if not you, hopefully it helps someone out.

[RedKnight91]

Thanks a lot, it will help me for sure! : p

[skeddles]

now there's one problem I have yet to solve, if anyone knows the answer

because the model is made of tris, it calculates the texture strangely


I assume it would be fixed if the faces were just one solid four sided plane, but I'm not sure how that can be done.

[ptoing]

If the thing was all quads that would not change anything about it, because consumer 3D cards all turn stuff into tris afaik. So the only things you can do is add more polygons or have the UV be closer to the actual model polygons.

Also "strangely" is relative, what is done is mathematically correct.

[skeddles]

thanks for responding 


how does kenneth do it then?
you can tell in some of his works, that the pixels are stretched correctly


like in this robots shoulders

so are you saying you'd have to divide it up more like this?


doesn't adding more polygons to make it look better kind of defeat the purpose of lowpoly?


EDIT:
or maybe this would work? I'm not sure if/how I could change it, or how I could have created it like that (apart from creating the model 1 point at a time, I used cubes then attached them)

[ptoing]

Sometimes just flipping the middle edge (as in / or \) can improve things a lot.
In that kenneth robo the front of thr shoulder ( i guess this is what you mean) is not as deformed as your example. It still is quite close to a square. So it wont be as bad.

To illustrate my point:

[skeddles]

Hm, so I guess you really have to experiment and design your models around the limitations (making this a tougher endeavor than it seems...)

I wonder if there's a way to flip the middle edge as you said in Maya? I'll research it, though it wouldn't matter for this instance since I have an isosceles trapezoid, but would still be good to know.

I did some experimenting with adding more vertices to make the patterns show up better, dividing it vertically seems to be the best option for me, of course it's all situational.


I see that the inside lines will always be parallel with the outside edge, so you need to plan around that.

I'll keep working on mine, hopefully I can get something that I'm happy with 

[surt]

Kenneth's stuff looks good because it is mostly rectangular polys on the model mapped to rectangular polys on the uv. Where he does have a triangle or a deformed quad he either give it a solid fill (fit the whole poly into a single texel), or keeps quad close to rectangular.

You can get around this problem by matching the shape model and uv polys:

[skeddles]

Kenneth's stuff looks good because it is mostly rectangular polys on the model mapped to rectangular polys on the uv. Where he does have a triangle or a deformed quad he either give it a solid fill (fit the whole poly into a single texel), or keeps quad close to rectangular.

You can get around this problem by matching the shape model and uv polys:

Hm... thanks, I see what you mean, I think it would look bad if pixels were cut off, but I can see where you would want to do that, like if it was subtle or there was nothing important on the edges, in fact if you had like a circle inside a deformed quad, it would be better to do it that way.

Anyway, here's my progress, started over, fairly happy with the body for now, not sure if I should leave the head in it's current shape or play with it a little. All I did was bevel a cube. It feels lazy, and looks a bit too uniform imo, but it seems like a lot of low poly heads are like that (most are low poly spheres, but I didn't want it to be too circular since it might not match the style). I also don't want it to be too realistic, I want a cartoony chibiish look.  



EDIT:
After 800,000,000 hours, I'm finally done UV mapping.

I think that took longer than the modeling. Though I do like UV mapping, I actually know what I'm supposed to achieve, unlike modeling where I don't know what route to take. Next I shall transfer the texture, and hope it doesn't look like crap!

EDIT:

And here it is! Textured n all. I would have done a spinning animation, but I can't figure out how to get a nice render in maya.
Only a couple things need to be fixed. A couple planes on the bottom of the side of the head were skewed, but I just used a solid color to avoid it (even though they were perfect rectangles).  Now the only thing that's messed up is the butt. Maybe I can fix it.

Final Texture Map:

If you for some reason wanted to see how the map is layed out, here's a screen: http://i.imgur.com/yNoZT.png

Any crits?

I would like to do an animation, but I can't figure it out (well I can make a spinning animation, but I want to use bones and make a walk cycle), if anyone knows a good tutorial link me. I found a couple, but they were either really bad, or slightly too advanced. One series had a whole part on feet. My guy doesn't even have feet!