Help clean up my wireframe? ('06+ MX-5)

[TeeJayHoward]

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/9472/boxmodeledmx52scaledoa9.png (http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/70/boxmodeledmx52dg1.png)http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/7956/boxmodeledmx53scaledcj0.png (http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/6378/boxmodeledmx53nu8.png)
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2314/boxmodeledmx54scaledlf0.png (http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/9499/boxmodeledmx54kt5.png)http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3886/boxmodeledmx55scaledkp8.png (http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/2294/boxmodeledmx55jq7.png)
I know the front bumper isn't cut yet... I'm trying to get everything cleaned up first. Any suggestions, recommendations, comments, critiques, or criticisms?

[TeeJayHoward]

Well, I kept on goin'. Here's where I'm at thus far:
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/632/mx55thumbov6.png (http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/425/mx55pa3.png)
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/6103/mx53thumbht1.png (http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8140/mx53mh0.png)
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/5198/mx54thumbyn5.png (http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/4079/mx54hy8.png)
I've got a top for the car, too. I just like it better with the top down/off :)
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/2158/mx56thumbcv3.png (http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/7039/mx56ek8.png)

11,742 triangles without the top. 12,892 with. Headlights/taillights aren't textured on, they just look that way.

[lookdown11]

looks like ve found a way to clean it up ;)
nice progress.

keep it up

greetz

[Herminator]

Is your poly count, with or without subdivision?

Either way, sub division should not be used with low poly modeling for games.

Looking at your unsmoothed wires, you really need to work on the quality of your mesh, it's a little lumpy in places, like over the rear wheel arch.

[TeeJayHoward]

Is your poly count, with or without subdivision?
Without.
Looking at your unsmoothed wires, you really need to work on the quality of your mesh, it's a little lumpy in places, like over the rear wheel arch.
I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. I look at the wireframes in the advanced section, and the unsmoothed model practically looks smoothed. Then I look at mine, and... Well, it looks like I hand-altered each vertice using only the persp plane. (Which I didn't do, by the way.)

How do you figure out where things are supposed to go? Is it something gained with experience, or is there a trick to it?

And by the way, the model will be for one of the GTA games. I'd like to go back afterwards and turn it into a "professional" looking model, but I think it may be easier to start from scratch for that...

[Herminator]

A good way to make sure the poly flow is smooth is to look down the important lines. Like a carpenter would look down the edge of a piece of wood to check it's straight, do the same for any major loop and adjust each vertice thats a problem, one axis at a time.

You're modelling your low poly unsmoothed car asif you're going to mesh smooth it. There's no need to stick to quads for game models (although the majority of the car should still be nicely quaded) and you really need to avoid ngons (5 sided or more)

Work on your poly balance too, you've got square section roll bars yet you've got a very dense mesh on your handbrake and around the gear gator. Use poly's where they'll be noticed, like around the lights and wheel arches to give them smooth curves. Are door speakers really that important that they need so many polys?

[Tonn]

[QUOTE=Herminator;71223]
...sub division should not be used with low poly modeling for games.
QUOTE]

Why so? I think as far as polycount hits the target it doesn`t matter. 3 of my latest game aimed ("lowpoly") models are 20 000 tris, 8000 tris and 100 000 tris and they all use subdivision (1 iteration).

[QUOTE=TeeJayHoward;71242]How do you figure out where things are supposed to go? Is it something gained with experience, or is there a trick to it?QUOTE]

Experience mostly. Try to picture an area and think what it should look like, when you have it done everything else usually just falls in place.. sometimes after a few trys perhaps. Now judging by the overall wireframe you should understand that the rear corner (quarterpanel,bumper,taillight) doesn`t look that good. Tris are mostly OK unless you use subdivisions. Look at it in smooth shading and reflections to spot areas with polyplacement that doesn`t work.

[instinct-vfx]

Why so? I think as far as polycount hits the target it doesn`t matter. 3 of my latest game aimed ("lowpoly") models are 20 000 tris, 8000 tris and 100 000 tris and they all use subdivision (1 iteration).

Cause it's a waste of polys usually. if you use more polys where you need more polys and less polys where you need less (tengancy and curvature dependent) you can use a lot of polys for nce details that you otherwise cant.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Herminator]

Cause it's a waste of polys usually. if you use more polys where you need more polys and less polys where you need less (tengancy and curvature dependent) you can use a lot of polys for nce details that you otherwise cant.

Regards,
Thorsten

What he says ;)


In a game, every poly matters, subdivision just doesn't offer enough control over how efficient the model is. Especially at poly counts in the 20k and below region, good poly placement can make a huge difference. Even on 50k-100k poly models, it's not likely to be used. There are companies that use it but they're not common and they have specific reasons.

[slice56]

Yea, nobody here uses meshsmooth (we use Maya). We model in all of our details poly by poly ;)

[Tonn]

Or you can just use subdivisions on some parts and then remove the "polywaste" edge loops.. Say you have 10 000 tri budget for all the bodypanels, why is it bad when you use subdivision? It`s faster, later it`s just point and click to remove unneccesary edges.

[Herminator]

In game models, the majority of an object tends to be one solid mesh, even if doors, etc. are to be opened, I'd tend to model them as part of the main body and then detach them to ensure good mesh flow and accuracy. So it would be hard to mesh smooth just one part of the model.

With 10k poly's it's already a fairly low budget, it shouldn't take too long to build up the cars overall shape without the use of mesh smooth in a fairly short period. You'd then build up to the poly budget with adding chamfers/seems and small details where they will be noticed. Done correctly, it gives an impression that the model is higher poly than it really is.

[slice56]

In game models, the majority of an object tends to be one solid mesh, even if doors, etc. are to be opened, I'd tend to model them as part of the main body and then detach them to ensure good mesh flow and accuracy. So it would be hard to mesh smooth just one part of the model.

With 10k poly's it's already a fairly low budget, it shouldn't take too long to build up the cars overall shape without the use of mesh smooth in a fairly short period. You'd then build up to the poly budget with adding chamfers/seems and small details where they will be noticed. Done correctly, it gives an impression that the model is higher poly than it really is.

I'm with you on this one :D

Its much easier IMO to have exactly in mind how many splits you want in something without having another button do it for me, and add extra splits that I would have to delete later on myself. If I model things exactly the way I want them, it leaves less "guesswork/cleanup" later on...

[JamesArndts]

Yeah I have to agree on most points here. You will model the car basically by hand building up as you go without relying on a smoothing function. The benefit of doing it this way..you have light efficient geometry that isn't too much of a hassle to fix problem areas. Whereas once you run a smoothing function you loose all that great general control. From what I have heard not only in games, but in film applications also cars are modeled with all details built up by hand. It's how I did the two featured on my demo reel and it worked pretty well for me.

[DaveCox]

ah man you guys model all your cars without meshsmooth or hypernurbs?? jeeze i have a lot of growing up to do :eek:

[rodderworld]

only low-poly cars, don't worry too much.:p

regards,
rodder

[JamesArndts]

Davecox,

Yeah no worries it's fine to use that workflow depending on what your using the car for...still renders, or demo reels yeah you could use a smooth proxy workflow and still build a lower poly mesh to start with. Even for animations or clips if you can handle the overhead a smoothing function would produce. Usually one iteration of smoothing doesn't create an insanely dense mesh and it's very usable as a final product. I think in here they are talking about modeling cars for real time engines and they need to be as efficient as can be for that purpose. Then again here is something pretty astounding from the makers of the Gran Turismo series..."To give us an idea of how much of a jump Polyphony is making in visual fidelity, Yamauchi pointed out the cars in Gran Turismo 4 were made up of 4,000 polygons. The cars in GT5: Prologue are made up of an average of 200,000 polygons." So in my estimate thats a couple smoothing iterations going on there lol!

[DaveCox]

ah i see! i totally mis-understood! phew!

thanks for clearing that up for me.

[slice56]

The cars for Midnight Club: Los Angeles (http://www.rockstargames.com/midnightclubLA/) are all built up by hand. No smoothing involved. They run right around 100k tris on average with all parts. Next-gen is sooo fun!!! :buttrock: