Modeling for games?

Well, time to learn how to make a new category of models; gameing models...

Right, now try not to tease me because i know that theres a horde of different techniques used in gameing models as opposed to animation models. Gameing ones need to be fairly low poly, like only a few K... Where as animation models can be as heavy as you want them to be...

Needless to say, as such theres techniques to making a GOOD looking model, with out whoring up the polys. Thats what i'm trying to learn, to learn how to make a good looking model with out having it like 15k polys...

One problem that i noticed with low poly modeling is that they tend to umm... glitch out if you will. Also i seem to have issues adding any kind of decent detail with the lack of polys is diffacult.



So, what are some tricks of the trade? I need to learn every thign i can about this as i am going to get a carreer in game design. Infact, i'm already going to an acadamy it get a bachlors in it, so the more info i have the earlier i can get started.

Thanks,
BSZ

This a big big subjet bro ... but yea no matter what game you play you will always see edges of polys (but this too is being worked around with new technoligy)


the aim of lowpoly modeling is to only put detail where you need it and only on Hero characters or objects (Hero = will spend a lot of time in camera or closeup views ... the use of multires modifyer in max helps as it can be tyed to camera and the poly count goes down the ferther away it is from the camera)

Think the first thing to do as in any art is to look at what the masters have done in the past .... emulate this and then look at how they are doing it now with the latest tools and engines ...

simple example why was it that warriors had big shoulder pads and wrist bracers? to hide joints ... as for the female characters was to exspose lots of flesh to distract the eye ... lol

If you take a look at some of my old UT characters (GOTY) then you will see how basic they were ... 250 - 1200 poly budget was hard to do ... if it had to be round it had 5 poinys or edges lol a hero model could have upto 9 polys or edges wow ....

We relied heavly on textures and still most games still rely on a good texture artist

crude but it worked and still dose today at all levels ...

how to build a character now as low as posible can be done easly and rely on textures to fool the eye ...

cannot show you but basicly ... for limbs / joints have a segment on the joint and one close too each side for defermation and same for shoulders and crotch will try to sort out a demo model for you at some point ... it ia also advantages to keep the base model so you can alter and change it later for future game models .... so it slowly builds up a nice bank of basic shape models to build your characters from .... ie .... standard male / female / troll / horse / dog / whatever as these can then be twisted into macking monsters ext ....

but to start just buils a standard box model of a character then add extra segments where needed for just for joints and movement noi detail see what is the minimum you can get away with when you do a test rig with C/S ( save the .fig and the .phy file so you can re rig it faster later on) you may find you have to do this a few times to get is worked out where you need segments once you are happy that you can get full movement then you can save it out as a base file, then add detail and design as required and can test it quickly to save big alterations later ..

Hope it helps (and i have not waffled too much)

Drew