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LOW-POLY ART

polycounter lvl 19
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hawken polycounter lvl 19
This is the sweet spot for your low-poly models. Post 'em if you've got 'em!

Low-poly hasn't really been a requirement in the games industry for a long while now. This thread is for low-poly art style appreciation, so please take note of these rough guidelines:
  • Keep models under 1,000 triangles.
  • Scenes are fine, if all models are low poly.
Some dedicated low-poly modelling tools now exist that make this art style a lot easier to produce; Crocotile3D & Blockbench

Here's a handy list of ways to make your art look right in mainstream 3D software: Low-Poly Art Style Guide

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  • Cdore
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    Cdore polycounter lvl 6
    How are most of you guys painting these things intuitively? Do you do it the Photoshop method of painting the texture or do you use something like mudbox or zbrush to let you paint directly on the model as you go? Cause the latter seems more natural for me. Photoshop is like guessing everything.
  • nightz
    Delzhand wrote: »
    [SKETCHFAB]mFRYlcIsbX6ZoO1AEy8o0omJtje[/SKETCHFAB]

    Just playing around with Sketchfab - does anyone know how to export diffuse maps only from Blender? The model looks awful with those glaring speculars.

    Edit: Wait, it has to be in the material setttings, because her hair (which is a separate untextured object) doesn't have them...

    Under the materials tab (considering you are using 2.6x), there is a section that says "Specular". Just reduce the intensity to whatever you want :) You can also change hardness to adjust the look and feel.

    materials-specular-shaders.png
  • free-willy_PB
    JGcount: love the style of her, big fan of the colourfull cartoon style you have with the subway surfers game. Just wondering how you do the eye highlight, looking on the subway surfers characters in particular, it doesnt move when the iris moves so it actually feels like a proper highlight, rather than one painted on the diffuse
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    I'd imagine the highlight itself might be modeled separately as a small white rounded plane that fits over the eye placed just in front, but that's just a guess!
  • nightz
    My newest class model, the knight:
    yR3NJVX.png
    ImTakRp.gif

    Lots of room for improvements, mainly on the UV and the texture itself, but since he will be small inside the game I guess I won't trouble with that right now.

    EDIT: Forgot the ingame shots
    Pii6lw5.jpg
    74UDHyC.jpg
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Yes, go on nightz! Looks great and the run anim is a lot of fun. I'm currently learning animation myself and its always fun to watch people experimenting with it. Have you been working with anims long?

    I'm not an animation pro by any means, but the head seems very stiff - I'd say a subtle twist to the left and right during the run would really help sell it better.
  • gamerjanne
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    gamerjanne polycounter lvl 6
    Work in progress. My own handpainted textures.

    rka2.jpg
  • nightz
    Torch wrote: »
    Yes, go on nightz! Looks great and the run anim is a lot of fun. I'm currently learning animation myself and its always fun to watch people experimenting with it. Have you been working with anims long?

    I'm not an animation pro by any means, but the head seems very stiff - I'd say a subtle twist to the left and right during the run would really help sell it better.

    Thanks :)
    Actually my friend (thedaemon) worked on the anims but they were designed for another character (I just reused the skeleton 'cause the meshes were similar). He plans to work on new anims soon, and maybe a new rig :) What are you using to animate?
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Janne - nice work man :)

    nightz - Cool, its a nice run cycle with a lot of style! Using Maya, still trying to learn good timing and pose, etc. Think its just a case of practice makes perfect :D
  • gamerjanne
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    gamerjanne polycounter lvl 6
    Torch wrote: »
    Janne - nice work man :)
    Thanks :)
  • Andy H
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    Andy H polycounter lvl 8
    [SKETCHFAB]uw5FLs2EOAfUHTiFpjlN0828Ojb[/SKETCHFAB]
    AndyHansenFloatingCrystal.png
    Floating Crystals - 92 Tris - 512x512 Diffuse
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    Cdore wrote: »
    How are most of you guys painting these things intuitively? Do you do it the Photoshop method of painting the texture or do you use something like mudbox or zbrush to let you paint directly on the model as you go? Cause the latter seems more natural for me. Photoshop is like guessing everything.

    I swap between 3Dcoat to do my basic color lay in, and Photoshop and Marmoset Toolbag to do the final texturing, assuming your UV's are laid out in a reasonable fashion.
  • 3DCharlie
    Pr9UKoa.jpg

    Troy is a character I have developed for my game IOS/Android app called 'Trolley Troy'. The character is the main playable character for the game. Textures are handpainted and flat lit in the engine.
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Hi! Almost four months I posted here it seems, project has a working name now, I'll soon be able to show more of this :)

    I have made a rocket launcher today:

    detached_001.jpg
    the texture, 128

    detached_002.jpg
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Allods fanart - Goblin repairman, 910 tris and a 512 map

    crshVZf.jpg

    Still some muddy areas, need to sharpen stuff up :)
  • Graphicalgeek
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    Graphicalgeek polycounter lvl 10
    A bunch of low poly objects placed together. Texture is a shared 256x256.

    ScifiObjectsPack.jpg

    ScifiObjectsPack0.jpg

    ScifiObjectsPack1.jpg

    ScifiObjectsPack2.png
  • SharpDressedSkull
  • MichaelF
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    MichaelF polycounter lvl 11
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Wow guys, amazing posts :)
  • Mrpopo
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    Mrpopo polycounter lvl 5
    Cross post from my thread http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121587

    the smaller building is 500 tris the larger is just over 1000, and each tree is around 300ish. 3x1024 textures

    4594973284.swfhttp://ryanposer.moonfruit.com/communities/9/004/011/637/069/images/4594973293.swf4594973293.swf
  • Spug
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    Spug polycounter lvl 12
    3cw.gif

    Wow the house turned out boss status love it! My only crit is that it is using 3 1024's? Dat is a lot of texture info for the low res of the asset. other than that it is boss MrPOPO! (Edit: unless you are going to make it a modular kit where you can make a whole town with only 3 1024's :P)

    So I did a paint over for you MichaelF. It looks like you are highlighting every facet on your model. If that is intended, then don't read my post or consider my paintover, but you want to make this car look rounded with your texturing. It will read better overall, and look like it is higher in tri count with a more rounded approach.

    My paint over was simple, took me like a minute to make these changes, and I think it will help improve your asset :)
  • tonyd927
    Here's some buildings I made for an RTS game for iOS and Android.
    All under 600 polygons.


    scene6_zps2d2fcf29.jpg

    scene2_zpsa2e46510.jpg
  • Mrpopo
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    Mrpopo polycounter lvl 5
    Spug, you've read my mind good sir. I was definitely toying with the idea of making it modular and I could definitely cut the base/tree texture map down to 512. Thanks for the feedback!
  • MichaelF
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    MichaelF polycounter lvl 11
    Spug,
    i see what you mean, and you are totally right. i will try to get back to the texture in the near future :) thanks a lot!
  • hyperkitty
    Hey guys I am new here, :P

    Here is my low poly model I did, and since i'm a noob in 3D Modeling compared to everyone else and wanting to improve, I just wanted to know what you guys think, and would appreciated critiques. He is a dragon, but he was born without wings that's why he is crying as he is a freak :P
    Low_Poly_Submission.png
    4844678#1
  • dsant3d
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    dsant3d polycounter lvl 4
    Awesome stuff Mrpopo!
  • dsant3d
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    dsant3d polycounter lvl 4
    My first post on this thread hope you enjoy. Hopefully there are some Battle Toad fans out there.

    forPolycount_zpse9d59b2b.jpg
  • Lazdena
    I joined this forum specifically for this thread, I've been rooting through like 100 pages a day and getting a ton of inspiration from it.

    Gonna be working on models over my long weekend, just did this to work out my awful blender skills.

    ReaverBot.png
  • loki1991
    hyperkitty wrote: »
    Hey guys I am new here, :P

    Here is my low poly model I did, and since i'm a noob in 3D Modeling compared to everyone else and wanting to improve, I just wanted to know what you guys think, and would appreciated critiques. He is a dragon, but he was born without wings that's why he is crying as he is a freak :P
    Low_Poly_Submission.png
    4844678#1


    hey nice work althought for a dragon it looks way too smooth. try making the horns and claws a bit pointer at the ends. it looks like a blow up balloon at the moment. also why have the dragon crying anyway? the art style looks bright and colorful like spyro so why not keep him happy to go with it?
  • Cdore
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    Cdore polycounter lvl 6
    Currently at 882 triangles. I was sort of going for PS1's version of low poly rather than the 500 limit people self imposed on themselves. lol

    Now time for the best part. UV unwrapping.

    SNY6wMB.png
  • hyperkitty
    loki1991 wrote: »
    hey nice work althought for a dragon it looks way too smooth. try making the horns and claws a bit pointer at the ends. it looks like a blow up balloon at the moment. also why have the dragon crying anyway? the art style looks bright and colorful like spyro so why not keep him happy to go with it?


    For the smoothing I had smoothing groups on but yes it's a bit much. Thanks, I didn't think to make the horns and claws pointer and more defined ^__^. He was a character for my final game project, there is a story behind him that's why is he crying.

    Thanks again ^__^
  • madmuffin
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    madmuffin polycounter lvl 7
    rLtjhFz.png

    Trying to get this little guy to sit without stretching all to hell or pinching into himself horribly! Are there any ways to improve the topology any at this size or is this about as good as it gets?

    (He has eyes trust me, they're just not a part of the biped rig so not shown.)
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Not sure it'll help as its so low poly, but you can check this tut: http://www.pig-brain.com/tutorials/tut02-02/

    Looks good though man!
  • madmuffin
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    madmuffin polycounter lvl 7
    Torch wrote: »
    Not sure it'll help as its so low poly, but you can check this tut: http://www.pig-brain.com/tutorials/tut02-02/

    Looks good though man!

    Thanks! It's hard to tell because I forgot to turn off the grid but if you look at the last guy of the four, the knee has the same shape as in that tutorial you linked, it really works!
  • Decay of a pixel
    Thought I show some of my stuff, all low-poly since it's the only thing I know how to do :) All made in 3ds max and textured in Ps. They are all just practice to learn about workflow and mostly practice in unwrapping and texturing.

    I did this one a while ago, it's anakins podracer modeled after the N64's Star wars Podracer Game. It was ment to be at such a low poly-count, it's exactly how it looks ingame. Was one of my first models.
    Anakinpodracer_zps92c11e5e.jpg

    This is a env. tryout, I know the models could benefit from some more poly's but it was manly for practice in texturing.
    defrender_zps2bffd1c4.jpg

    And here are two I did to practice my handpainting, the sword is finished (although I could polish it a bit more) the second one is still wip.
    sword_zpsd1b6978e.jpg
    texturesword_zpse5e4d9eb.jpg

    wip_zps010737df.jpg
    wip2_zps4758408c.jpg

    any crits or suggestions are welcome, I'll post some more when they progress.
  • Spacey
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    Spacey polycounter lvl 18
    Decay of a pixel: I think this is a good example to learn a little about design.

    decay_po_zpsa215c7d6.jpg

    The proportions are completely out of whack. If you even managed to swing that sword, I'm sure the handle would snap right off. Both the handle and hilt are way too thin. You can easily beef those up while still maintaining the "massiveness" of the design.

    The idea of having a sword crafted around some kind of crystal material is pretty cool. I'm not sure why the handle is wood though. It doesn't make sense to wrap the crystal with wood. And the handle is so thin you'd need to use even thinner wood...why construct it that way to begin with?

    The places that show wear and tear don't make much sense. Why is there a tiny little area on the handle that's broken away? Was it just to show that there's crystal under it? There's also a giant chunk taken out of the middle of the blade. Why would the sword take so much damage there? Isn't it more likely that the sword would have been damaged along the blade's edge? I think it'd also be important to add some geometry to make the crystal parts recessed into the blade.

    Really think about how the object is going to be used and how it would be constructed in reality and then create a design based around that. Even if it's just some throwaway model to practice textures, why not flex your design muscles at the same time? This paintover isn't perfect and I'm still learning a lot myself, but I believe it reads as much more believable.
  • Decay of a pixel
    Spacey,
    Thanks for the comment,
    I know the design doesn't make that much sense and I should fix it, or just redo the model. I struggled to get a good proportion on both the size of the handle as on the hilt when I started modeling it, I did do a design sketch, I was going for the one on the right,
    sketchsmall_zpsda3ac5b5.jpg
    which is actually more to the proportions you suggested but I sort of wanted it to look like this:
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BmJNEqmMFR8/TSt5TdvSbxI/AAAAAAAAADA/8tnTugm7mLI/s1600/kenshin_v01_150.jpg

    So the ridiculous proportion of the huge and heavy blade compared to the thin handle was something I did sort of intent. Though the choice of wood just screws with the already thin credibility. I sort of decided what to paint as I went along and I guess I wanted to try painting wood, didn't really think about if it was right for the model.
    Same with the crystal bits, I did them more as doodles, although the one on the blade was more meant to be inset in the blade, as sort of a rough inset gem idea, that bursts trough to the surface.

    Anyway thanks for the advice and the effort of the paint over, I'll keep that in mind for the next one, and think more about what's realistic and believable.
    I might redo this one just to get it right, because even if it ain't important, it doesn't hurt to get it right!
  • ArtLearner
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    ArtLearner polycounter lvl 3
    My first dota2 Weapon :) i still have a lot 2 learn.:) i made it for bristleback 542 tri's btw
    bsyd.jpg
    http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=157884064
  • Torch
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    Torch interpolator
    Good job on your first weapon Art!
  • Uberren
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    Uberren polycounter lvl 9
    Just finished this little project I was messing around with.

    gfEdhIe.png
    0g0gryO.jpg
  • mikeP
    Made a mistake posting in this topic but some nice work in here :)
  • Saigo
    dsant3d wrote: »
    My first post on this thread hope you enjoy. Hopefully there are some Battle Toad fans out there.

    forPolycount_zpse9d59b2b.jpg

    Hey man, pretty cool work, but you should turn off mip maps, texture filtering and the like so that the texture looks less blurry and more like pixel art. There was a thread about how to do it in different programs here somewhere, but I can't find it right now.
  • Saigo
    Also, you should turn off shading as well
  • lotus
    First item in Dota 2. Comes in at around 420 tris :D

    It's for Outworld Devourer.

    promopicture_zps1291d9b5.jpg
    promopic_full_zps8a0c7558.png
  • inkDrop
    Just finished this piece, I could clean up and optimize my texture space for sure.
    lampc4dscene1a.png
  • mcunha98
  • Bill Lowe
    Been playing with some faceted low poly ideas in Unity, haven't quite nailed the right mix of tonemapping, color correction and bloom, but getting some nice results.

    caveMan-1280x720.jpg
    cavemenfire-1280x720.jpg
    caveman3-1280x720.jpg
  • Mrpopo
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    Mrpopo polycounter lvl 5
    Some bottles I made for a bottle toss game at work today, 256 textures, 60 tris each.

    vs1LeXy.jpg
  • JGcount
    JGcount: love the style of her, big fan of the colourfull cartoon style you have with the subway surfers game. Just wondering how you do the eye highlight, looking on the subway surfers characters in particular, it doesnt move when the iris moves so it actually feels like a proper highlight, rather than one painted on the diffuse

    Thanks man

    The eye spec is actually modelled in - in subway surfers for example, it is a simple tri that is moved to a small spot on the texture map with 100% white. That way, when you move the eye UVs, the spec stays in place.

    Hope that made sense.
  • lotus
    Bill Lowe wrote: »
    Been playing with some faceted low poly ideas in Unity, haven't quite nailed the right mix of tonemapping, color correction and bloom, but getting some nice results.

    I like these a lot. Nice colors.
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