Low Poly Car - 1968 AMC AMX

[Squiggly_P]

Well, i don’t post a lot of actual stuff on the boards, so i decided I’d start posting up these little speedies. Modeled this in about 20 minutes. Still have to optimize it, but i guess it’s decent enough for 20 minutes.

I also did a video capture while i modeled it, I’m re-encoding that right now, but i dunno how big a file it will end up being. The original was 1600x1200 and 200+ MB… i didn’t think anyone would like that filesize, so i’m re-encoding it with a better codec at 800x600… hopefully get it down to around 50 or 60 MB. I’ll have to post it up at one of those crappy file-hosting sites, but i might do a Google Video version of it if they don’t mangle the quality too bad. I plan to also do a video capture of the optimization / unwrap of this thing (which will probably include me gutting the tires… i spent way too many poly’s on them, hehe).

>edit< Here’s the video: http://files-upload.com/files/568781/amc_amx_low_poly.mp4

[iliketosayblah]

it looks nice for low poly, but why do low poly anyway…it will look better and you have like 10k verticies to go until it will start slowing down, there cant be any harm in adding just a few more verticies can there? anyway looking good.

[Felix_Kutt (Felix Kütt)]

indeed, in current ‘not-so-very-nextgen’ games the cars are around 10k poly’s iirc. but nice for extremely old machines, i guess…

as a speedmodel though, very nice!

[tef]

Since this is a car model I have to agree. If you want it to resemble a vehicle with car paint you need to have smooth edges. If it will be a dirty looking car you need less since grime and dirt fakes geometry and reduce the otherwise obvious low poly structure. I would atleast go up to 5-10k if you are supposed to do close ups.

[Squiggly_P]

It will probably look better once it’s textured. I like the challenge of trying to make something look a lot more detailed than it actually is, using as few poly’s as possible. The way this thing is right now I can probably actually remove almost half the polys without really altering the shape much. I’m gonna do the texture as a 128x128 or 256x256.

Call me old-fashioned

Oh, the video is being uploaded now, it’s about 45 MB.

>edit< first post now has link to video download. it’s MP4 using the H264 codec… Quicktime and VLC should play it without a hitch.

[tef]

Ok. well… I love low poly too since it is the ultimate challange when it comes to texturing. If you are using 256x256 maps you surly dont need more polys than you have. But then I guess they will be seen from further away?

[Squiggly_P]

Yeah It’s more for like a Nintendo DS size screen i guess. I’m making a series of shorts right now using extremely low-poly models as well. I just like the look But since my modelling speed is kinda slow i figured i better start doing some speedies like this. This was actually the second time i modeled the car and i knocked 10 minutes off it from last night’s attempt. Made it lower poly as well

[tef]

Neat, I will wait for the textures then. Btw, it’s a pity low poly modeling isn’t more popular than it is in this forum.

[Enriq766]

We have come to the day where people say 10k polys is ok… THANK GOD!! I knew my rantings about “too bad if your computer sucks I’m making it 10k polys” would work one day!!! no tbad for 20 min. I wonder what 20 hours would look like?

[JESUSFRK14 (craig snedeker)]

nice! i always have troubles with low polly cars cause when i set smooth or sub surf it looks weird with these black shadows all over it. good luck

[Jace]

Hey JesusFreak, you can get rid of those nasty shadows easily. They are controlled by NORMALS. In edit mode, select all with A and hit Mesh–>Normals–>Recalculate Outside. If that doesn’t work then recal inside. It’ll get rid of the overlaying normals. Hope that helps!

~jace

[tef]

Jace & JesusFRK14:
There is one more thing that can cause shadows in render and that is if you have to many sharp edges goin around without enough sampling on the spotlight. A sharp edge is between 45-90 degrees. You should allways avoid sharp edges where you don’t want a sharp edge or a sharp shadow

[JESUSFRK14 (craig snedeker)]

Ok, thanks! I’ll give both a wirl!

[Squiggly_P]

quick question… I’m having trouble turning off the Texture smoothing in teh 3D viewport. I turned off Interpolation, but it’s only affecting the renders. Anyone know what I’m forgetting to do? I know i’ve done this before, i just can’t remember what i did the last time

[Squiggly_P]

Well, i put off the texture for this long enough. I made a video of the unwrapping phase, but it was incredibly dull and long even at double speed, so i just deleted it. Anyway, here’s what i got of the texture so far… Just been working on it on and off today.

I’ll probably add some more shading and stuff, the windows are kinda dull looking right now. Anyway, thx for lookin

EDIT: Added some shading, better turnaround thing, didn’t wanna bump the thread for this little update, but I think i’m done with this for now, i just have to add some window highlights. I’m gonna keep dumping these in this thread, instead of showing the stages, i’ll just dump the finished model shots in here from now on. Expect more stuff soon.

[HD_render_man]

good work it realy fantastic. any one can make huge amounts of verts look good, but it takes real skill to make a low poly mod look good.
fab work keep it up.

[JESUSFRK14 (craig snedeker)]

cool! looks good