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

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.

Reference: Lara Croft Wireframe

A comparison of the first model of Lara Croft compared to the one used in current-gen systems.

Reference: Textures - Shining Force EXA

A good look at how developers of Shining Force EXA have achieved a look that reflects the illustrative style of their character designs.

Tommy Tallian

Check out the work of Tommy Tallian, a fine example of low poly characters created for video games. Also a good way to see how his UV textures have been organized.



Tommy Tallian