UGAC - PROP 102 - ULTIMATE CRATE/BARREL - swizzle stick

#1

Well, I’ve never done this before but it sounds like a lot of fun. Alas, I haven’t any sketching stuff with me right now. Anyways, on with the description:

My crate is actually a garbage can. On the inside will be things like half-eaten hamburgers, slices of pizza, half a chicken, etc. It’s going to be from a strategy/adventure game where you try to survive as a homeless person in a big city. The different food items will give you a certain percentage of your life back depending upon what it is. Sometimes the cans won’t contain food at all, but they will provide other special items like aspirin and booze. :smiley:

I’m going to try for a slightly cartoony look, though I’m not sure how well I’ll pull that off with a garbage can and its contents.

I’ll put up some sketches in a few hours when I get home.

#2

HaHa Awesome Idea!
Look forward to seeing more.
It should be interesting to see how everything looks with an toon-atmosphere.

#3

I’m going to try for a slightly cartoony look, though I’m not sure how well I’ll pull that off with a garbage can and its contents.

yet the idea is very cool so i think you’ve done 50% of the challenge so far…
just half to go…

#4

The concept, one of a couple of 5-minute sketches I did:

The work in progress. I still need to optimize a whole lot if I’m going to show something it contains. A lot of the stuff on the can itself is going to be cut back substantially to allow for newspapers hanging out of it, boxes and stuff inside, etc. It’s going to be a “smashable” object that will make a half-eaten hamburger (or hotdog or something) pop out. At the final stage of modeling I’m going to put some dents and stuff in the can to make it look a bit “used”.

The crazy colors are because I’m an amateur at UV texturing and I need to know exactly what I’m looking at. Colors are good for defining what I’m looking at.

Sooo… besides the fact that I have a shiatload of optimization to do on the body of the can, does anybody have any comments or anything? I’m not going to be normal-mapping anything because 1) I don’t know how, and 2) it’s just a garbage can.

#5

Okey dokey, I just spent about an hour cleaning up the mesh because it was absurdly dense before. The current poly count is 888. Kinda funny that you can spend that many polygons on a trash can.

I’m going to add a couple of colored boxes to the inside of the can and I’m also going to make a hamburger to pop out of it. The lid is going to rest against the side and the can and lid are going to have some dents. Yay for inexperienced modelers!

#6

Hamburger! When the hamburger pops out it’s going to be big enough to be visible onscreen at low resolutions. In other words, it’s going to be about half the size of the garbage can. :slight_smile:

The total poly count is now 990. I should be able to squeeze some boxes and stuff into the garbage can. Soon I’ll add dents and stuff and then it’s off to UV mapping.

#7

Whoo! I just realized that I mis-read the instructions. 1000 triangles, not just polies. Time for even more optimization!

#8

Dont you hate when that happens. But anyway, lookin nice so far. Mesh is a bit messy, but you can always clean it up. Nice idea too.

#9

I’m completely redoing the burger (partially because it was terrible) and much of the can, much as I hate to. My modeling skills aren’t exactly great, but I’m still having fun.

#10

And thats all that counts. :smiley:

#11

Hey, too bad about the quads/tri’s mixup. Im sure youll be able to fix it. Maybe put the detail of the ridges of the basket in the texture, perhaps even a normal map. Normal map are great for details that do not show up in the silhouette.

#12

did you get the idea for this from earthbound :)?
if that’s not where you got the idea then i’m sorry, i just love that game and there’s a lot of times when you dig through the trash cans and find hamburgers. nice lookin’ models, hope you can get them under the limit :slight_smile:

#13

I’ve been able to reduce the poly count and still have it look decent. I’m not going to normal map it because there’s nothing I really want that I couldn’t do with the existing geometry and a bump map. I’m probably going to start texturing tonight, so we’ll see how well that goes. I have a few ideas for what I’m going to do, so stay tuned.

I can’t remember where I got the idea for it, but I think it was after reading an article about originality in modern games.

I’ll have some more pictures soon.

#14

looks and sounds quite interesting. cant wait to see what comes of it when textured.

#15

This is a version from a couple of hours ago, but it’s still basically the same. I’ve just added some dents and some other minor stuff. The tri count is now exactly 1000. The lid is not pictured as I’m still trying to decide whether it should be on top of the can or beside it.

That’s the final burger and it’s shown approximately to scale with the can. I realize that I could get rid of several polies from the burger, but it really doesn’t matter since I’m not adding anything else. (well, I don’t think I am. The idea of adding some flies above the can seems interesting though.)

#16

The flies could just be an animated texture on a plane… If you’re trying to be tri-economic…

#17

the bin probably takes more polys than the burger. you could have reduced the number of edges on the bin.

the burger lookes nice with bites in it :slight_smile:

#18

Very true. I’ve seriously considered reducing the number of ridges, but decided that it would be too much of a hassle. I’d have to rebuild the can from scratch, and I’m not too keen on that idea. The can took a surprising amount of work for such a relatively simple object.

I’ve decided that I’m going to do the flies. Each one is just going to be a black dot on a floating triangle that I’ll have moving above the can. In the game they’d move around and always be facing the camera.

In other news, I’ve started working on the UV map. While time-consuming, it’s actually easier than I thought it would be. Heck, it’s even kinda fun because I’m learning new stuff and I’m immediately seeing the results of learning. Whoo!

#19

The flies are a great idea. It’ll probably be that small detail that makes the whole thing go ‘pop’ somehow :thumbsup:

#20

I have my litte brother to thank for the idea. Thanks Peter!