Any better?

@mrmmaclean I think it is To me the edge of the shadow that runs across the forehead looks a bit too sharp, softening it could be a good idea..?

800 tris, all quaded except for the nose, so haven't put in triangles myself

suggestions for reducing the tri count when it's already this far into being complete?

tutorials for photoshop texturing 3d would be great, i hardly know anything about photoshop so the texture looks like poo

Head is too small and the smoothing groups you did make him look blocky

^ plus you should make the material at least 75% self illuminated to avoid those nasty shadows..

please use noob terms, "smoothing groups"? how to avoid the nasty shadows (this is in viewport not rendered)?

also any way to make it where i can adjust the geometry like making the heady bigger without the UVs going whack so the texture doesn't stretch everywhere and i have to replace the UVs

thanks

Originally Posted by itismario

please use noob terms, "smoothing groups"?

Smoothing groups determine if the polygons "blend" together to form a smooth surface, or stay "firm" and have hard edges between them.

Check out this tut: http://www.alanmecham.com/max_smoothGroups_MiniTut.pdf

Originally Posted by itismario

how to avoid the nasty shadows (this is in viewport not rendered)?

Well the shadows I was talking are normal in any 3d application, but they tend to look pretty bad on low poly models. That is why one should turn up the self illumination of the used material so that shadows wouldn't show on the surface of the material. You just need to open up the material editor, select the material you wish to use and turn up the Self Illumination -property.

Originally Posted by itismario

also any way to make it where i can adjust the geometry like making the heady bigger without the UVs going whack so the texture doesn't stretch everywhere and i have to replace the UVs

thanks

You CAN modify the geometry after the mapping process without messing up the whole uvw-mapping. You can for example move the vertices around and rotate polys or whatever, however you are NOT allowed to ADD any new geometry to the model. THAT will cause the uvw-mapping to go bananas.

However, if you changes are drastic you may need to adjust the uvw-mapping a bit to fix any stretching, but that is why you should learn to use the Relax-tool (if using 3ds max).

Originally Posted by MadcoreTom

I thought it was time to register and contribute to my favorite thread

Here is my twisted tree, with 77 faces/90 tris, for a small openGL game I'm working on. the texture is simple, 256x256, but i could probably shrink that as its really just the same shape repeated
Let me know what you think

That could have a 64x64 texture ^^

248 polygons and a 1024x1024 diffuse and normal, but both can be downscaled to 512x512 without any really big impact.


And here some stuff that only has a 128x128 diffuse, meant for a completely different project than what I posted above. You can see the poly count in the pictures themselves.

Originally Posted by 9skulls

Smoothing groups determine if the polygons "blend" together to form a smooth surface, or stay "firm" and have hard edges between them.

Check out this tut: http://www.alanmecham.com/max_smoothGroups_MiniTut.pdf


Well the shadows I was talking are normal in any 3d application, but they tend to look pretty bad on low poly models. That is why one should turn up the self illumination of the used material so that shadows wouldn't show on the surface of the material. You just need to open up the material editor, select the material you wish to use and turn up the Self Illumination -property.


You CAN modify the geometry after the mapping process without messing up the whole uvw-mapping. You can for example move the vertices around and rotate polys or whatever, however you are NOT allowed to ADD any new geometry to the model. THAT will cause the uvw-mapping to go bananas.

However, if you changes are drastic you may need to adjust the uvw-mapping a bit to fix any stretching, but that is why you should learn to use the Relax-tool (if using 3ds max).

thanks for the help, but i'm using maya10 and i can't find anything about self illumination in the hypershade editor and nothing about smoothing groups

thanks again

Originally Posted by itismario

thanks for the help, but i'm using maya10 and i can't find anything about self illumination in the hypershade editor and nothing about smoothing groups

thanks again

In Maya, smoothing groups are done through the menu at the top. Select the edges you want to smooth and then go to 'Normals > Harden Edge' or "Normals > Soften Edge', depending on what you want to do.

For self illumination, select the material you want and in the Attribute Editor turn up the 'Ambient Color' value. I usually turn it all the way up and then in the menu just above the viewport choose 'Shading > Flat Shade All' and 'Lighting > Use No Lights'. Mind you, that's only if you want the texture to be totally flat (like if you want to paint in the shadows rather than light them). If you do it this way, the smoothing groups don't matter.

some of todays works, i'm still learning to texture

vertex: 33
tex: 64x64


vertex: 25
tex: 64x64

@Lionx_Dagger Neat, but next time show the TRI-count, not VERTEX :P

@Mik2121- Your fish texture is pretty wasteful there. Should have mapped it onto a 128x64. You'd save space and not really lose any detail you've got there.

Same goes for you, Lionx_Dagger.

Originally Posted by 9skulls

@Lionx_Dagger Neat, but next time show the TRI-count, not VERTEX :P

We always show the tri-count, but isn't the vertex count what really needs to be considered for games?

The number of verts (including the duplicated ones that happen from hardened edge normals, uv seams, and different materials) should be what matter, right?

Originally Posted by 9skulls

@Lionx_Dagger Neat, but next time show the TRI-count, not VERTEX :P

i have little problem with that
because blender don't show triangles, or idk where its write
i have only faces with idk if its the same

Originally Posted by Xenobond

@Mik2121- Your fish texture is pretty wasteful there. Should have mapped it onto a 128x64. You'd save space and not really lose any detail you've got there.
Same goes for you, Lionx_Dagger.

well as u see my texture is smaller then that but thx for info

Originally Posted by Lionx_Dagger

i have little problem with that
because blender don't show triangles,

There's a face counter in the top right. Just press Ctrl+T to triangulate your mesh and then every face will be a tri. Be sure to undo afterwards, and don't forget that it only displays half if you're using a Mirror modifier!
Clumsy? Hell yeah.

@mLink
I understand your argument, but adding additional vertices while not increasing the actual face count would really just increase the amount memory usage, since all formats that I know of store all vertex/face normal information, so the calculations for texture/lighting interpolation should not change. I am not an expert in this area so if anyone is and I am wrong please correct me on this.

My updated tree with 60 faces/64 tris, and a 128x128 reused texture
The shapes a bit different, but the spiral theme's stil lthere

i could have shrunk the textures to 64x64, but i didn't

@MadcoreTom Oh oh oh I know what that is! That's the drill from the movie Armageddon! And that texture YELLS for simple stripes

Nice work Mik2121

Finished with this for now...

Presentation

Textures

Wires


Specs;
987 tris total (699 tris exterior, 288 tris interior)
512x256 diffuse map only
90% hand painted

Originally Posted by GCMP

Specs;
987 tris total (699 tris exterior, 288 tris interior)
512x256 diffuse map only
90% hand painted

I admit that is super nice, but this thread is for ~500 triangle models and you are double that limit...

Originally Posted by Xenobond

@Mik2121- Your fish texture is pretty wasteful there. Should have mapped it onto a 128x64. You'd save space and not really lose any detail you've got there.

Same goes for you, Lionx_Dagger.

Gotcha. Thanks for pointing it out!. I just meant to keep a 128x128 texture, but I will change it to a 128x64 texture in a bit!. I just wanted to keep it into a squared texture.

Oh, here is another object I did. It's basically the oil drum I posted above, but even lower poly and lower texture.

Originally Posted by mrmmaclean

I admit that is super nice, but this thread is for ~500 triangle models and you are double that limit...

on the other hand it's an exterior and an interior that should count seperate - right? (assuming this is for a racing game it's gonna render either of these not both at the same point anyhow)...

looks cool but not sure if you could lose that middle edge loop - don't see it contributing to the silouette.

Originally Posted by e-freak

looks cool but not sure if you could lose that middle edge loop - don't see it contributing to the silouette.

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that it is for mirroring purposes.