i want to make a low poly ruff collar and hat based on philip the 3rd.
heres a pic
both need to be below 1400 polys.
i’m not sure where to start with either. i have a feeling i should start out with a cylinder and do some proportional grabbing or something, but i have no idea how. i know i can probably make the ruffles on the inside with a texture or normal map, but i’m not sure how to get it to look bumpy and how to have it curver around the characters neck naturally.
and for the hat, i’m also not sure how to have the hats brim all curvy. again, i assume i have to use proportional editing, but i have no idea where to start.
this is for a video game, so if you have a steam account, i can credit you with the creation of the items, so you can get a cut of the sales of the item if it gets ingame.
also, making the items WITHOUT the sub division surface modifier is preferred
Woah, slow down. Don’t jump right into complex shapes without analyzing the task at hand. Start with basic shapes first, then curve them!
Base shape for a hat shouldn’t be hard to create: a cylinder with some extrusions. For the collar, you can start with a capless cylinder (say with 64 verts), make a tube out of it. Then select every other edge loop and Alt+S it a bit. There’s your basic collar with only 256 quads (512 triangles). To get a nice-looking detail normal map you could then add a multiresolution modifier, sculpt the detail (like the fabric edges and whatnot) and then bake it onto that low-poly base. Or add a subsurf and model the detail and then again bake it onto the low-poly base. Or just UV-unwrap the collar and make that normal map in some external program. Options are good to have.
I’d suggest making everything “flat” and for “curving” use non-destructive methods instead of proportional editing.
Your options to curve the collar/brim are:
Warp modifier: non-destructive proportional editing. By changing settings and dragging some empties around, you can curve your collar and the brim
Lattice or Mesh Deform modifiers: provide more control, but are a bit more clumsy because of it.
Any combination of the above.
The modifiers allow you to operate on vertex groups so you could easily affect e.g. just the brim of the hat with one modifier and make a “dent” in the hat with another. The real power of the modifiers is that they’re non-destructive: you’re not modifying your base geometry, so you can always go back by removing the modifier or changing the settings. Once you’re happy with the shape, you can apply the modifiers (keep a back up copy with the modifiers still on in case you need to make some adjustments later).
