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10-10-2007
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Tips on making accurate curves for low poly models?
I'm working on a 39 chevy pickup for a game. I wanted to know if there was any tips or tricks someone might share on how to make accurate curves and bends. The cab is almost all flowing bends and curves, and I've found it to be quite challenging to do freeform.
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10-10-2007
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One thing you might want to do is use existing high poly geometry to guide your low poly model.
for example, if you created a nice smooth fender, then you could use vertex snap to ensure that the points on the low poly model are in the right position because the high poly curvature would be there.  
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10-11-2007
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great suggestion - I never thought about that - although I do remember that being a strategy from way back.
here is a screenshot of my reference, and my current progress. Feel free to flame my attempt - but be constructive with it so I can help myself. As you can see the mesh is pretty disgusting.   My trouble area has been curving the chassis towards the bottom, basically bowing the entire side.. there must be an easier and more uniform way to do this. Really, nothing has been easy for me, I had to create my own blueprints, fit them all up, etc.. so I'm pretty hell bent on getting what I want. Last edited by Pyrex238 : 10-11-2007 at 03:02 AM.
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10-11-2007
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I would say to try to find some other models that have similar architecture and look at how they completed the geometry.
But man... that many faces on a low poly model will be a nightmare to control no matter what your methods are.
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10-11-2007
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Well with current engines this is the low poly model - I work with about 100k poly budget - I guess the industry is changing enough that 'low' poly might be a little misleading. From here I'll make the high poly normal map as well. This really isn't that many polys at all ~2790 not optimized, I'm sure I could easily get it under 2000 with a little time. However, I'm trying to be a little conservative on the cab since this is an open bonnet model, and since the engine is generated from whichever parts the player selects, I have to compensate for a variable poly count. Obviously this model was considerably more simple initially, but I had to tesselate the mesh so I could achieve convincing curves - which is where I ran into my difficulties... dealing with so many faces. I've been told to try and keep everything in quads as best as I can, is that a universal method? sometimes you just can't help but creating a triangle. Also, is there some way to align a set of selected vectors to a simple bezier curve? that would help out a hell of a lot.
Last edited by Pyrex238 : 10-11-2007 at 11:12 AM.
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10-12-2007
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Could this gamne your talking about be called,Street legal redline?
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10-12-2007
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whether current game engines can support it is irrelevant, mesh that is that dense is hard to control. Usually meshes that are that dense have been modeled lower poly than that originally, and then had a turbosmooth applied to that. Turbosmooth, when using the right mesh structure, creates the smoothest possible result, while moving each of those hundreds of vertices by hand may result in normals that aren't flowing properly, poor quality reflections, and more potential problems, the most of which is wasted time, since you have to move each and every vert if something needs updating.
I would strongly recommend that you build yourself a good basemesh, and then slap on a turbosmooth of 1 iteration. This will smooth over the model properly and get you the end result you desire. It will also force you to rework quite a bit of your model, but in the end, it will very easily save you much time.
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10-12-2007
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thanks for the suggestion. I assume you can see that my mesh needs to be reworked - what tips you off on that? I did restart again, and I'm pretty happy with the result, let me know if you have any suggestions for me. I will try turbosmooth as you suggested.
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10-12-2007
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Quote:
The biggest issue comes from how the curvature at the back is created, and how many wavy lines there are.  In this picture, the top and right views show the biggest issues, mostly on the hood. The edges in the top view are all straight, until one segment before the window. This will create a bulge in the mesh that won't look right. a model like this should have the geometry flowing smoothly from one edge to the next. The whole top view should look like it's tapered from the back to the front, basically... since the windshield and surrounding metalwork is narrower than the rear window's metalwork. In summary, just make sure that the mesh flows as smoothly as possible. This is also why I suggested using turbosmoothed geometry to build parts, or the whole model, because it will really help aid in keeping that nice smooth flow.
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10-12-2007
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Quote:
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10-13-2007
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Quote:
 just a noob question, and a litlle bit offtopic, but how do you guys get max to show that info about the mesh, (in camera01 view). thank´s and sorry again for the offtopic.
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10-13-2007
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right click on the viewports name and then click "Show statistics"
 
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10-14-2007
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Or as a shortcut you can press 7 on the selected viewport
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