Hi Guys
I am very confused here, i am doing some low poly characters for fun, i was inspired by the Nintendo 3DS Game Bravely Default.
The question i have is about the clothing, just by having a look is the clothing actually apart of the model? or is it a separate object all together? what is your take?
I want to learn to model for the gaming industry so i understand the less polys the better, but my brain just can comprehend whats going on here.
thanks in advance!
look up some professional artists working. not tutorials, but work.
lower poly gives better performance, but its not a big deal anymore.
myself im a poly-nazi, i want everything as optimal as posible, but a character these days can range from 15.000-80.000 polygons. so dont limit yourself too much.
so, about the separate mesh thing you were talking about, the short answer is Yes.
you do want to keep things separate, not only to save on polycount, but you will have a much easier time selecting stuff afterwards, and also a lot easier to UV map and texture.
Thanks for the tip, but lets say this would be for the mobile market so poly count is key, If i have 16 different outfits for one character, for example, should i not just make 16 different whole characters wearing 16 different outfits?
there is no right or wrong way to do it, but what i would do is make a full high poly (60k tris) nude version of the character, and use that as a manikin. then retopo that model into a low poly version, still nude. (ofc no genitalia or nipples needed as that wont show in the final models anyways) and have this as your base model.
so now you got your High poly to define the character
a low poly BASE MESH! keep in mind this model wont be used in the game, its a Base mesh…
What you do now is duplicate this basemesh every time you make a new character, dress it however you want, select every polygon of the basemesh that is still visable, invert select, and delete faces.
then tweek. move some verts around to touch it up a little.
then move on to the next character and use the base mesh again.
60K? Holy Mother! This is how far i am now, 1200 tris, the reason for all of this is that i have noticed the skin mesh showing through the clothes and it looks crap 
but the original models by the pros don’t seem to have this issue. thanks again for the advise. much appreciated.
mind you the high poly mesh is for baking. unless you want your final model to have the “low poly” look, you should consider baking a normal map.
that is why i would make the high poly.
now when i said 60k, take that with a grain of salt. it depends on the character, 30k-400k is common for a bake mesh. keep in mind that you do more often than not use a sub surface on the baked model.
also here is a trick to give ur cloak thickless with very little extra geometry.
https://gyazo.com/fc2f7f0f61a9bc58fa7ccd1872f3781e
the shading will look wierd, but it should look just fine in the game engine.
I’ve never done interchangeable clothing, but I always model low poly characters with clothes as one mesh. There is no skin or body beneath. If the character has a jacket on, then the torso is a jacket, same with pants and boots. No skin underneath. Let’s say your model has a hat on. You could just parent that as a separate object onto the player character and swap in different hats easily.
For a full set of clothes, like boots and such, depending on the poly count, you could just have several versions of your model in different clothing and switch them in game, or model each piece separately and bring them in that way. The thing is, is that you don’t want a body mesh beneath the clothing, unless you’ll have a nudish character. You can, and I have done this, delete the mesh beneath the character where it’s covered up by clothing, or delete the mesh starting at the edge where the clothing mesh would start. That way you don’t get any body mesh sticking out where the clothing is.
It beats weight painting the crap out the model in places that won’t be seen anyway. 
After all, you’re just adding to the poly count with a body beneath the clothes, which again, is never seen. Of course, poly count doesn’t matter as much as it once did, unless you’re doing this for mobile.
As mobile games become less and less causal time-wasters and “phones” are becoming people’s main computers, low-poly modeling is going to remain relevant. It’s hard to beat physics… and those phones will reach a performance ceiling related to the possible size of the battery. It’s noble and productive pursuit.
@finalbarrage
N-Gons Sorted thanks for reminding me, and for the trick 
@Kris
I needed that reassurance. i wasn’t sure if it was acceptable to do without the “under skin”.
I’m weird that way.
I agree 100% but i think what finalbarrage is getting at is to perhaps use high poly version for in game videos or normal maps so you don’t lose the look of the original.
what is ur point? i the high poly model is for baking, it is very importaint on low poly models.
i think the polycount he currently has on the models are very good actually. but having that hi-poly version to bake out normals would make them look a lot better.
ohh one more tips id like to give you. use more tris. you can get more shapes with less geometry.
A fully modelled unclothed mesh would probably be more flexible and be easier to manage for you. Then you can just worry about creating the individual pieces without having to reconstruct. I think with some planning you could work out a reasonable polycount. Making your designs conform to that would certainly teach you something about economy.
Skin tight clothing could be achieved with reskins.
A lot of artists do make the clothing a part of the character mesh when they know that it’s static. That the end user can’t alter it. It’s arguably more economical.
I’m not a game artist, so my technical knowledge is limited. But I imagine it may be more efficient to have one instance of a character mesh with some separate parts, than have a number of unique models. Something worth researching I think. 
Double post…:rolleyes:
turn it into tris or quads.