Vehicle: Low Poly Subaru Impreza

[Airtwist!]

well the subaru is my favorite car in Rally Sport, looks good, perhaps the map is not so sharp, but the shape of the car is nice and well done


i guess this one is for a game design, if yes, which game?



anyway nice model


Airtwist1.....

[karl]

no its not for any game...i am currently trying to get a job as a vehicle modeller working in the games industy, so i have to be able to proove that i can do it.


thanks for the comment tho

[spikey]

It looks like the windshield bends inwards from the middle, and I'm not sure if the rims should be a bit beefier than they are now.
Could you post side & front views too? Perspectives are always icky when trying to check the general shape :)

Mesh itself looks quite clean. You can fake hi-poly look by adding polys to the wheel arcs and similar round details, while keeping the poly count lower elsewhere.

2800 polys total sounds low for the current generation games. At work we shove some 10.000ish polys into one car, but that includes all the interiors, engines and such .. Body itself eats up some 3-4 thousand polys without tyres or rims.
So, don't get stuck at too low polygon counts. If you really want to impress the chap reviewing job applications, make different versions such as 5k polys, 7.5k and 10k polys .. Adding detail is fairly quick and easy, so it's not that big of a job in the long run :)

Good luck!

-Ilari

[karl]

Hi Spikey thanks for the comments you gave...i am deffinately going to up the poly count on it and redo the rims i think. I think that is an excellent idea to show a more detailed version.

What i might also do is seperate the bonnet and raise it slightly so u can see the engine i will model for it.



One thing tho....i would like to redo the texture using one at 1024X1024 rather than the one I HAVE used which was 512X512.



What size textures do you use for your stuff?



I will post up some different views when i get home for you to see.



Cheers



Karl

[EricCartman]

Hey Ilari,

We meet again :)

How's FlatOut coming along?

[doublerr]

yo, nice,
wats the limit poly for a low poly car?

[EricCartman]

I did some cars for GTP mod for Nascar Racing 2003 Season and we had a limit of around 2500 polys with interior and without wheels. Here are some pics:

http://www.crystalmadness.com/images/gallery/017_01.jpg
http://www.crystalmadness.com/images/gallery/016_02.jpg

In-game screenie:
http://www.bhmotorsports.com/sims/NR2003/screenshots/415.jpg

[Cynical_Saint]

Hey there Cartman! Is it Brad? You guys cheated a bit on the poly budget now didnt you? heheh I aint complaining tho because you cars look spectacular. :)


Here is a Viper I did for NR2k3, polycount on the body and interior is around 2000, wheels not included. (HDRI Render)

http://home.carolina.rr.com/cynical/hd_speedtek.jpg

I will say tho, that NR2k3 is just about at the bottom of the poly budget scale for driving games right now. I think most other games have limits that are a bit higher.

However if you are looking to present portfolio material to a game company, if you can make a convincing vehicle at around 2000 polys, you are golden. You really don't need to attempt any lower than that I don't think.

Just remember that in these low poly vehicles, MOST of the detail is in the texture, so make sure you have some good textures to accompany your model, and take advantage of smoothing groups.

Thats about the best advice I can give ya. :)

[karl]

Ok now then.....when i finish with the impreza i want to do a super bike and a rider..probably valentino rossi.

I want to get my self a job working for Climax (created moto gp 1&2 for the xbox). They are currently working on the third one now so i need to know what you think the poly counts would be for the bike and the rider, and what size texture i would use on both.

I think this is the best way to impress them by making something relevant to what they are currently doing..

Please let me know what you think..


PS: Those pics u lot posted look amazing.. inspiring stuff

[Cynical_Saint]

Well I am just guessing here but I would assume that the polycount would remain the same.

Polycount generally depends on how many other vehicles will be on screen at the same time, and for a Moto GP game I would assume it is about the same as a Nascar sim. However for a console game, it *might* be a higher limit.

As for textures. Right now textures are going at about 512x512, or 1024x1024 for high rez. So you are better served to make a High Rez texture, and resize it down if needed.

Lastly, it could never hurt to send an email to Climax and ask them what their current poly limits are. Worst case scenario is that they wouldn't respond.

[EricCartman]

Cynical_Saint,

Actually I am Jure, the guy who runs Blackhole Motorsports. :)
NR03 has low poly cars coz it has to draw 42 cars on the screen.

Karl,

As for MotoGP, you can extract the 3D models from the game and check the poly count. I think...

[Cynical_Saint]

Ahh Jure. Awesome.


Yeah I agree that the poly count is low in NR2k3 because it draws 43 cars, however I would still go as far as saying that is still probably low compared to most other games out.

But as I said before, if you can build cars that are convincing at those kind of limits, I am sure that will be impressive to a game company.

The key word is 'convincing'. Anyone can build a car at 1000 polys, but it is whether you can make them look good at that LOD that makes the difference. Good use of texture and smoothing groups can really pump up a low poly model I think.

I think you have a good start goin above with the Subaru, a little bit of work on making the texture a little more detailed would go a long way I think.

It is going to be a bit more difficult on the bikes, because the open engine is a difficult thing to texture convincingly.

Good luck and keep us updated Karl. :)

[karl]

Thanks for the replies guys, I will ring climax today and see if they can give me any info, and will let you know what they say.

My bro has moto gp 2 so i will check out the models from the game to see what bits are actually textures and what bits are modelled.

For now i am going to rework the impreza i think ....deffinately the texture as that has come up a fair bit.

Cheers

[doublerr]

erm...so...for a low poly car......the door, lights etc..is it juz texture them...or...
i mean, can the car's door be open? or its juz a box?
and.... so....model n texture, which is more important?
sorry 4 my poor english...
thanks

[nikfaulkner]

hey Karl,

Cool car,

i actually work for Climax. bung me an email with some details (cv and maybe a link to some more of your work) and i'll try to get someone "upstairs" to have a look at your stuff.(obviously no promises)

in the meantime feel free to shout if you have any questions (i didn't work on the motogp games but i know plenty of people who did)

my work address is...

nfaulkner@climaxgroup.com

i'm away for a few days so i apologise if i don't get back to you untill the end of next week.

keep up the good work


nik

[spikey]

Jure, I should have guessed you're here too :)
Excellent looking model you have there! FO is coming along nicely :))

Karl, separating car parts is a good idea. Current trend seems to have separate objects that fall off (*grin*) .. How much, and which bits, depends on the game and it's engine so I'd guess stuff like doors, bonnets, bumpers etc are enough to show off your skills.

Hmm. What else.. Texture sizes are usually 1024x1024 for PC, lower for consoles (depending on available memory.. again, game- and engine-specific thing). As usual, it's not a bad idea to have different res textures included. Make the original in 1024 for example, and then scale down to 512x512 and 256x256. Remember that after scaling down, they often need some tweaking to re-define details where needed.

Oh, one more! If you really want to shine (or appear as a nitpicker), pay attention to the triangulation :)
If possible, try to keep your triangles following each other in a Z-pattern whenever possible. Game engines always attempt to optimize the mesh, and in this case proper triangulation leads to fewer calculated and drawn vertices. It's called tri-striping, and of course I couldn't find any good links describing this in the detail it deserves. NVidia probably has something at their webpages in developer's section.
Anyways, basically a real badly triangulated mesh can be as "heavy" for the engine as a mesh with several times more polygons. With Z-patterned tri's engine can draw a new triangle using just one vertex for as long as the "stripe" goes on. So, you can help the optimization by preparing the mesh for as good striping process as possible. Pretty straightforward mouseclicking using edgerotate or similar tool.

For visualization purposes .. |\|\|\|\|\ <-- correct, |\|/|\|/ <- bad :)

Then again, in the end the whole tri-striping process depends on how that particular engine / mesh exporter / whatever is coded, so your mileage may vary.

There's more to write on just about everything, but I'm not sure if they're really needed at this point .. Even the tri-striping is bordering on the edge of usefulness, I guess :)

-I

[buzzbomb]

Actually there quite a bit of info on Tri- stripping on this very forum ... :)

Games modeling - some rules of the trade. For the newbie and for the experienced... =>> http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=112189

FO sure is looking good Spikey, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it.

[spikey]

Bah, typical to find the answer way closer than expected .. Some kind of undocumented portion in the laws of physics or something.

Thanks for the compliments :) Hope you'll like it!

-Ilari

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