Opel Calibra Low-Poly

[petter]

hi everybody...
i'm back with a new project: Opel Calibra, a low-poly model for games
this is till i finish the skyline:D

no more comments, i'll let you guys to crit & comment...


p.s.: parts are splitted: front fender, hood, front bumper
this is gonna be a rusty wrecked car but still functional

[rodderworld]

i always am somewhat fearful when i hear rusty to describe a project. whilst i love rust and have spent much of my life with rusty cars, i just hope you don't use it as an exuse. hard to tell how this will shape up at such an early stage but i'm interested to see it since i'm on a low-poly jolt myself. good luck

regards,
rodder

[zcata2008]

interesting. do you have a certain game in mind ? or is something general ?

what is the maximum number of polys you want to have ?

i hope you will not abandon your skyline ... right ? :confused:

any way good luck with this Calibra. i will try to learn something from your work at a low poly car

[windmaster]

Nice modeling..what's the poly count so far?

[P2sta]

hi petter, nice start, keep working

[Herminator]

You say it's low poly yet you've used mesh smooth on it?

[zcata2008]

he used SMOOTHING GROUPS, not meshsmooth man :search:

at least i think so :D

[Herminator]

he used SMOOTHING GROUPS, not meshsmooth man :search:

at least i think so :D

take a closer look ;)
he's used smoothing groups and he's modelled everything in quads, which is not needed as much when you're modelling for games.

[zcata2008]

yes, you are right, but probably that part doesn't especially need tris or n gons

But he sure knows what is going on :D

[Herminator]

take a closer look ;)
he's used smoothing groups and he's modelled everything in quads, which is not needed as much when you're modelling for games.

Oops, typo in there :banghead:
I meant to say he's used mesh smooth. Check the corners of his bumper, where it meets the front side wing.
If he wasn't using mesh smooth, he'd need some tris to get the wheel arches smooth enough, or pretty different poly flow around the wheel arch.

[petter]

@zambila_catalin
it's not a certain game.
the maximum allowed poly-count it's about 1500 quads.
and... i'll wont abandon the skyline :P

@windmaster
thanks.the poly count it's about 160 quads till now

@p2sta
:P thank you

@herminator
neighter mesh smooth nor smoothing groups.it was Turbo Smooth :P
i used that only to check the surface bumps.
it looks like i used smoothing groups because the car parts are splitted and perfectly alligned.
in the end, smoothing groups will be the option.
oh well...it's always better to use quads instread of tris even if it's a low poly model but tris are allowed too, no problem, but as long as i'll won't face any problems in polygon modeling, i'll use quads.
n-gons are bad anywhere, even in game industry.

[micemincer]

Hi petter,

hmm If I were You I would forgot about any X-smooth tool. Cuz model can has bumps and mountains - but they won't be visible in final model, cuz it won't be X-smoothed in the final state. So what is the point?

If You are pinting in 1500 than I guess U have got allready too much polys.

Are You going to make intereior and wheels within the 1500 polys limit? That will be hard I think.

Best regards

[petter]

1500 quads=3000 tris... it is only for the car body and a simple interiour.

nope. the car can have bumps, there will not be visible so much, but what if you apply a reflective map in that game !?! so... i have to check the surface :P

[Herminator]

There's no point checking a surface with turbo smooth though, since it's not going to be turbo smoothed in the game. Simply check it with smoothing groups. To make sure reflective maps look ok (they'll rarely be perfect for a game model) just render it with suitable materials and ensure you're mesh is good from the start.

You should also be counting in Tri's at all times, since again, thats how it's seen in game engines and it's always a more definate amount.
If you're poly count is 3000 tris, your mesh already looks too dense for the bonnet, yet the wheel arches are verging on too low in poly's (which is why you'll need some tri's)

[petter]

yes might be right, i have to add some tris...
as you can see i never opposite myself with other guys oppinions prettending that i know what i'm doing and i'm the perfect one and never make mistakes:D. i try to learn and improove... so, your advices are more than welcome, but still i dont think i already have too many polyes:D

[micemincer]

I made once a low poly model of destroyed building.

generally, 1500 tris is really small limit - for some old games may be. Give it 15k and I think this do pretty good and yet low poly :]

for example -as far as I remember - models for "need for speed hot pursuit 2" cars had around 8k - and that was few years ago :]

Remember to delete non visible polys to save tris quantity.

_regards_______________

[windmaster]

can we see more updates?? I am looking forward to see how your model end's up. beacuse 3k for the body is a very low polycount...so.. it's hard to make it look good ....updates pls

[petter]

i'm too busy with other stuff(not 3D:banghead:) and i don't have enough time but i'll post updates as soon as possible..., maybe tommorow...:)

[zcata2008]

the cars in NFS Most Wanted have about 15.000 polys

so even if you will end with 4000 - 6000 tris, i think it will be ok

good luck man.... but i still want to see that Skyline ready one day :D:D:D

[petter]

4000-6000 !? that's maybe while in the menu mode(i mean when you're in the menu, when you can tune it, and make a a camera spin around the car), not while in the race mode...

about the skyline..., i'll finish it ASAP as Calibra, too:D

[Herminator]

4000-6000 !? that's maybe while in the menu mode(i mean when you're in the menu, when you can tune it, and make a a camera spin around the car), not while in the race mode...

about the skyline..., i'll finish it ASAP as Calibra, too:D

It depends on the game and the platform, but 4-6000 tris is still pretty low. You'd see those poly limits on PS2 racing games, some games used closer to 10,000.

360 and PS3 are considerably higher, some games 40,000 whilst Project Gotham is more like 80-90k. For the menu's they can go higher again.

[petter]

updates...for c&c :)

[revelli]

nice, but too much polygons in this small part

[petter]

1st question:
in game low-poly modeling it's better to have all parts welded together, or it's better to have them splitted ???

2nd question:
what if i can keep the car having only 4 sided polygons.Or it's better to don't even try and leave the tris how they are ???


i have 556 quads till now...out of 1500

@revelli
i'll work a lil' later on the mesh flow...

[Herminator]

Depends on the game, but a large proportion of stuff should be welded. Although now more and more things are detachable, so welding isn't needed and will often increase the polycount so isn't done. So it's kind of up to you how far you go with the welding.

For the hundreth time, in game models do not have to be all quads :banghead: By trying to remove the tris (which you aren't really doing anyway) you'll be adding more "quads" which is upping your poly count, which means it's an in efficient model. A game engine sees a model as tri's anyway, it's like modelling in Edit Mesh mode with the hidden edges made visable, quads are still nice, but they're not when it's doubling the poly count on a small area.

Look at your door panels and bonnet, there's quite a lot of polys there, yet they hardly do anything for the outline of the car (which is what people will notice the most) yet your wheel arches look like they were chopped out with an axe....


And ALWAYS do poly counts with TRI'S

[slice56]

And ALWAYS do poly counts with TRI'S

lol, I don't know how much I can stress this....I have come across this many times in the industry unfortunately. A person finishes a model and it ends up being twice the polycount, causing that person to waste another day or two fixing the problem....

Like Herminator is saying, the PROFILE of your car is the most important thing next to details that make the car pop realism. You have a bunch of wasted polys behind the front wheel well that slip al the way down, when they could easily flow into that front wheel well and benefit the well instead of wasting them on that flat panel. Another thing, for car models in games, you really want to focus most of your beveling/detail on the real half of the car (you see it the most). That doesnt mean sacrifice details in the front that would make the car look innacurate, that just means maybe instead beveling that logo in the grill, you just give it hard edges. You will never tell the difference of a beveled logo compared to a hard edged logo when playing/viewing a car from the front in-game...my 2 cents...

Dave

[petter]

how does the wheel arch looks now... !?
the arch may look better but i hate seeing all that tris...

[rodderworld]

lol man, you're obsessive about tris. it looks ok (i guess). i'm just having a hard time getting a feel for this project though. that isn't a crit (i suppose), it's more an explanation for why i have nothing more. sort of hard to see where this is headed.

regards,
rodder

[petter]

you might say that i'm obsessed :P, but this is a part of a kind of a contract, and there says clearly to use as few tris as possible.i don't know why, if it's a low-poly model for a game...
from today on, i work no more...so i'll have all the time for 3D...:love:

[micemincer]

:]

petter: the worst thing that can happen to the any project is it's client. So be hard

Model looks god imo, but when U notice lack of free quads/tris in budget then my suggestion is to delete some of them in flat areas of the model (doors, hood).

Did the client give U any specifications ? or only poly limit.

regards

[petter]

@micemeyer
only poly limit and as few tris as possible... and some other things that don't have relevance in modeling.


anyway, i solved the trys problem:D

[micemincer]

nicely :]

but i see one big 5gon - on the left of wheelarch

regs

[petter]

nope, it's not, because the front bumper it's detached by the fron fender... :p

[Herminator]

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

TRIS ARE FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!

what you have done by adding vertices is not make nice little quads. You'd just added some hidden edges, more tri's (WHICH IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE COUNTING IN) and possibly/probably added some overlapping geometry.

http://img453.imageshack.us/img453/3674/baffoonmo6.jpg

It looks like you really need to look up the differences between Edit Poly and Edit Mesh. Also look up Hidden Edges whilst you're at it, even edit poly has a "turn edge" tool for a reason.

[petter]

lol,man... i know...all that stuff. the difference between the edit poy and edit mesh and how edit mesh works...and in the end all are trys, but i thought it's better like this:D

[Herminator]

but i thought it's better like this:D

To put it simply. It's not!

[petter]

it looks fine... :D

[Herminator]

You make my head hurt :confused:
If you're aiming for 3000 Tris, it's now too high poly in that one area and you may have introduced overlapping edges.
Unless you plan on having square wheels and no interior, you should go back to what you had before.
With a 3000 total limit, your wheels should probably take a couple hundred tri's each. You really will be fast running out of tri's.

Why is it when someone gives you advice, you seem to do everything possible to avoid taking it?

[petter]

wheels are separate... wheels poly count doesn't matter.
just the carbody should have 3000 trys

[petter]

here's an update...

[petter]

this is a reference from a game too... provided by the company... how many tris you think this one has ??? (out of wheels)

i've also attached an important text, here...check it out... :P

[micemincer]

U're gonna texture it like on attached pic?

regs

[petter]

yep... i have to make it look rusty...very rusty, but to look like it's still functionall...
and...
i don't know exactly how to do it:D

[Herminator]

Thats not a game, model, infact I doubt its a model at all.
It looks like an artists impression of what they want for the game. They've taken a photo of the real car and painted over it to make it look old and dirty/rusty.

Whats your tri count on the model at the moment?

[petter]

@herminator
check post #40 :)

[UnsteadyTeddy]

Your poly distribution is not good. You've got lots of tris around the corner of the front bumper and no where near as many around the back. Also on the roof, in the middle you've got a straight edge and then two close loops down the back window. You need to keep the distribution similar throughout the model otherwise it looks uneven, which makes the low poly areas really stand out.
You really need to clean up your wheel arches. They look awful. You've got a lot of loops down the side and at the rear that aern't doing anything for the silhouette.
What do you mean the wheels poly count doesn't matter ??

No doubt you will ignore this advice, just like herminators ...

[petter]

wheels are separate... the wheels poly doesn't matter.they focus just on the car body.
i didn't worked at the poly flow.i'll do it:D
what are your suggestions about the wheel arches?

[zcata2008]

nice work so far man. i am thinking to try a low poly car myself.

but with about 10000 tris :D

[micemincer]

yo hehe
im thinking of low poly car too, about 1,000,000 polys :D

regs

[bern3d]

nice model!
but why so many triangles? :confused:

[petter]

@bern3d
there aren't so many triangles...in fact it's a low poly model, the triangles doesn't matter

Does anyone have any ideea of how the wheel arches should look !??

[petter]

- 1st and 2nd image: front bumper, with SMOOTH modifier and Smoothing Groups activated.

- 4th and 5th image: redid the wheel arches using triangles...:)

- worked on poly-flow

- so far, i reached 1674 tris out of 3000 limit

[revelli]

well, when i look on your back bumper i can tell that this is the first part that will need much better polyflow
also side of your vehicle needs better using of polygons, since they are cutted very chaotical...
and there is one triangle just above tailights that will for sure cause bad reflections...

[petter]

got nothing else to do, in a 5 minutes free time, out of this simple animation.
i know, i know... i'm lazy and it's just shaded, no wires...

[Obizzz]

It depends on the game and the platform, but 4-6000 tris is still pretty low. You'd see those poly limits on PS2 racing games, some games used closer to 10,000.

360 and PS3 are considerably higher, some games 40,000 whilst Project Gotham is more like 80-90k. For the menu's they can go higher again.

I agree.

3000 is really low by today's standards.. maybe for a car belonging to the scenery but certainly not for a playable car.

The cars I've modeled for games have had 12-15k tris EXCLUDING wheels (Xbox 360 project)

IIRC PGR3 was around 50k without wheels.

/Martin - game artist