Lowpoly Project Update!

Hello to everyone who's been visiting this blog and sharing some of this info around the internet. Lowpoly just wants to say thanks for sticking around, and for all the cool comments and messages that have been directed this way. I might be posting more in the future. I'm curious.. do you guys think tumblr would be a better platform for this blog? Would it make it easier to reshare info? I'd love to know your thoughts so feel free to weigh in. New stuffs on the way.

Hand Painted Textures in Blender

Weapon modeling and texturing all done within Blender, In 5 Parts.

Reference: Shadow of the Collossus

I recently stumbled on a great blogpost that might be helpful for you modelers and texturers. Froyok investigates the models of one of the best looking games on PS2, Shadow of the Collosus, which is also one of my personal favorite games. Lots of screenshots of the models themselves, both textured and wireframes, and lots of miscellaneous information. Definitely check it out. And don't stop there, Froyok does great 2d and 3d work of his own, and has other game breakdowns for Arkham Asylum and Assassin's Creed 2.

[breakdown] Shadow of the Colossus (PAL - PS2) | Froyok

Other Real Time Water Examples

To follow up the last post, here's a couple other demos I've found on Youtube that use the same method of creating real time water for use in the Blender Game Engine.

Real Time Water Tutorial

Not sure if I've posted this one up yet, but the folks at YoFrankie! have posted an indepth tutorial on creating animated water in real time for use within the Blender Game Engine. The effect is achieved using Normal Maps mapped onto a flat plane. Photoshop or another graphic editor is required for this. The graphic part is fairly tedious, and somewhat time consuming. But once it's done, you have your own water maps to use over and over!

UPDATE: Finally recorded a video of my own after following the tutorial

Blender Game Engine Tutorial

A useful video on how to texture a level with the use of texture atlases. The video says "Part 1" but I don't think the author has gotten around to making a Part 2 yet.

Rocksteady

Here's a progression of the texture work I did for Rocksteady. Similar to the Casey Jones one.

ShermanCG, Swords

I stumbled upon this fantastic set of swords done by Isaiah Sherman. I really appreciate the progressive change in the designs. The textures are sweet, too. Looking forward to seeing more from this guy. Check out the link to his page, there are wireframes, textures and concept sketches for this set.

ShermanCG, Swords

Tutorial, Video Game Prop Modeling

I found a simple tutorial over at BlenderCookie. While the model itself isn't the most exciting, he goes over a lot of the fundamental thinking that is involved when modeling props for video games. It's important to remember that optimizing your model for the lowest amount of polygons, while still maintaining the basic shape of your model, should be the most important thing. The video is a bit lengthy but there's a lot of useful techniques, including keystrokes for the UV layout that I wasn't aware of.

Part 01
Part 02

FF9, Bestiary

I've always admired Squaresoft's work in their video games, as well as the world created for Final Fantasy IX (for the most part). Here's a grid of the enemies you encounter throughout the game. The images aren't too big, and I wish there were some wireframes and texture examples out there somewhere, but this is a decent reference.

FF9 Bestiary
edit: I noticed the last link doesn't work anymore. Here's a new one: FF9 Bestiary

Blender 2.5 Basics Crash Course

Tutorial: Rigging, Mechanical

I've started thinking about modeling robotic characters in the future, and how they can't be rigged exactly the same as organic characters. Organic characters need to be able to bend and change shape, but mechanical objects shouldn't (usually). These tutorials show how to rig a mechanical arm, and should suffice with rigging any mechanical character or object. This tutorial was done in Blender 2.5, but the theories should apply to 2.49.

One thing to remember, these tutorials assume each mechanical part is a separate object. If you designed a robotic character, most likely, you'll want all objects to be separate meshes in a single object, and you'd need to weight paint each bone to affect each part in the same way.

Key points:

PART 1
Creat Armature
E = Extrude Tool, extrude new bone from previously selected bone
Shift + S (while end of bone is selected)/Selection to Cursor = to move the endpoint to your previous selected vertices.
Clear Roll = once armature is finished to clear any unnecessary rotations for each bone (17:40)
Add Constraints to lock down certain rotations and location of each bone (24:50)

PART 2
Create IK Constraints

Tutorial/Reference: Texturing Casey Jones

I thought it'd be handy if I documented some of the steps I take when texturing a character. Click on any picture to see a larger version. Keep in mind, there's many steps in between. I often have to try different highlights and reload it to the character to make sure it works. These are the major steps.

Step 1. Color blocking
Here's where I go through and put down solid colors. When you apply it to your character, it's going to look like CRAP. That's because there's no lighting or details.



Step 2. Basic shadows and highlights
Some games utilize lighting, others don't. I like to paint in my lighting directly on the character. And I usually paint as if the light source is from above. I take liberties with that rule, though. If something needs a bit of highlight, I try to go for it. It's amazing how much better the character looks with some subtle gradients hinting at a light source.



Step 3. More shadows and highlights
I continue on with the process of adding more shadows and highlights. These characters are blocky by design, so I don't mind using harsh shadow lines in some places.



Step 4. Details
Here I start trying to lay down a lot of the detail work in order to further develop the character. At this point, I also start thinking about contrast, and I try to push the shadows even further. The character was screencapped before this stage of texture was done, that's why he doesn't have eyes.



Step 5. More Details
At this point, I pulled out my tablet and started painting in some clothing shadows, the kind of stuff I can't easily do with a mouse. Even more details are added.



That's where he stands so far. I have some hair to figure out.

Tutorial: Modeling

This tutorial aims at creating a character of 1800 polys.

Things to remember:
Add Loop tool = ctrl + R
Select Loop = option + cmd(RMB)
Scale selection along normals = option + S



The video is quite long so I've included time markers so you know what begins when.
00:00 - Intro
04:40 - Begin Modeling
07:56 - Leg Modeling
12:37 - Knee Modeling
14:56 - Foot Modeling
22:08 - Chest/Stomach Refining
23:06 - Arms Modeling
29:25 - Hands Modeling
37:37 - Head Modeling
49:10 - Added Details

Low Poly Tip #2

Here's another way of reducing polys. I'd only do this if you're never going to get a close up on the hand. Still, helpful to know, though. Model your fingers as planes, and curving them in such a way that they never appear fully flat.

Low Poly Tip #1

Going through Tom Tallian's pack of low-poly Team Fortress models, I noticed a trick he was using in order to keep his meshes low on polygons. Not everything must share the same and extend from the same points. Instead, the limbs are sometimes modeled separetely and just made to look like they are "attached". Reminds me of how action figures are assembled.

Solid Snake, Pocket Version!?

Whoa! Props to the artist of this. Additional photos/wireframes here

Reference: Yuna, FFX-2

I came across this nice little treat today. Someone extracted (I believe) the Yuna model from Final Fantasy X-2 and put it available for download. The file is a .ms3d, which is native to Milkshape3d. Unfortunately, I cannot open it because Milkshake3D is PC only. So if anyone wants to download it, Milkshape3d is free, and it might be nice to be able to check out some of that low poly hair. And if you do, any chance of exporting it to a .obj so I can check it out? (wink wink)

Survivor Yuna FF X-2
Milkshape3D

Here's some images, including texture maps! (256x256)!!!

Sword&Shield

This is one of the smoothest games created in Blender that I've seen so far. Though just a series of demos, this demonstrates how games in Blender can be both visually appealing and not very processor intensive.

Old School Updates

Great examples of old style games brought to 3d. I'd love see some more of these. The first is made in Blender, the second I believe in 3DS Max.