Max Tutorials
Creating Low Polygon Characters
Overview
This tutorial will introduce some techniques for making a Low Polygon humanoid type
character. The type of Character that would be suitable for a computer game.
Understanding and Mastering the techniques introduced in this tutorial are
important techniques. The art that you make with these tools can bring you fame
and fortune. For example, game makers frequently sell millions of copies of a
game branded by a low polygon character such as Lara Croft in Tomb
Raider.
Low
Polygon Characters are widely used in computer Games and in Computer Generated
cartoons. They can also be seen more and more in commercials. A computer can
move a Low Polygon model around more quickly than a High Polygon character. That
means that the game runs more smoothly, the motion of the character will look
better. They also transfer faster over the Internet, Network, Hard Disk or CD.
Depending on what you want to do with the character you will need to decide just
how many polygons are in a Low Polygon character. Making a character without a
polygon budget is relatively easy, creating one from less than 1000 polygons is
an art.
A
typical game may have a polygon budget of 2/3000 polygons in any one scene. This
includes the surroundings and all characters in that scene. This would be OK if
this meant just your character. However, most games don't just have one
character on display, they may have 5 or 6 at one time. The companies that
create games decide on a typical computer specification that the game will run
on. This is commonly called a Target Machine. Their testers will try the game
out on that machine, as the software is being developed. If it runs too slowly,
they may cut the number of polygons in the scene.
Multi-Resolution Meshes
New technology is on its way that will reduce a high-polygon count model
according to the speed of your computer. This type of software will assess how
fast your computer is and adapt the resolution of the meshes accordingly.
Introduction
This
is an intermediate tutorial. The model that you will make starts out as
relatively high polygon. Later in the exercise techniques are introduced to
reduce the number of polygons.
While you model, bear in mind that your character is going to move. Try
to visualize the types of motion that you character will go through. It may even
be a good idea to animate a copy of your character at various stages during the
modeling process. You may find problems that you didn't expect. There are
generally two problem areas for animating a biped character - The shoulders and
the crutch.
The first part of the tutorial is a setup when you have drawn your design on
a piece of paper and scanned it into the computer. The drawing should be a view
from the front and one from the side. The height and proportions of both drawing
should be the same. For example, the bottom of the feet and top of the head
should line up. This technique lets you model against something you can see.
Drawing your character on paper is usually a lot easier than drawing it on the
computer. Half way through the tutorial you will hide the drawings, you won't
need the drawings except for reference in the later stages of modeling.
Some considerations for modeling:
The full body including the head needs to be a maximum of around 750 Polygons.
To find out how many polygons you are using in your scene Max has an information
dialog in the main menu. Open File main menu at the top left of the
interface. Choose the item Summary Info to check your Face count. This
tutorial will show polygon reduction techniques.
The
finished look of your model will depend on your texture. Regard the modeling as
the outline or profile only.
Workflow
Sequence
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