Hey there unity community. First off I want to say that I did post on a 3d modeling website and I won’t say the name to give them bad rep but it has some relation to the program I use is all I will say. No one responds there and it feels like a ghost town, nor do people know anything about game models but still renders. Anyways to the point… I modeled a gun as you can see in the images below and I always start off with as few poly’s as possible. So I guess we can say this is a low poly blocked out shape. I used subsurf to see how it would look even more smoothed out and it seems fine, I know there might be some shading issues as well.
However when it comes to something low poly does topology matter as in, do I need to have more or enough geometry to make flowing face loops around? I get confused a bit on this part because I try to keep things as low as possible and modeling something organic, it usually has a flow like around the mouth and nose. As for here, this weapon I modeled from a reference has various angles and shapes which sometimes I guess confuses me as to how I would go about it. I also hate the fact that I have to use support or edge loops to sharpen certain areas. Sometimes this doesn’t work however but I guess any feed back would be great.
I’m trying to work my way on becoming a weapon artist if there is such a role(I think blizzard has this). Here are some render shots I took of the gun with subsurf on, without it, and the wireframe. Without subsurf the model is about maybe 5k or 4k tris.
It reads like you’re going low-to-high.
I did that too in the beginning, because it seamed like the logical thing to do. After all, you start with 0 polys and then add and add until you’re done. It’s only reasonable to assume that the best thing to do is working towards the high poly model and creating the low poly one on the way. It’s not.
I’m fairly new to modeling myself, but I already learned that. (I am doing hard-surface modeling btw → weapons, architecture and such stuff; no characters or other organic shapes).
In this scenario, it’s far easier to create the high poly model first, then start taking away as much detail as you can get away with. The reason for this is simple:
You’ll know how much you can take away, once you understand the limitations of normal-mapping (which you’ll want your high poly models for).
There are things you simply cannot fake using normal mapping. The moment you remove too much, it’ll start looking terrible after baking. This guides you towards the optimal poly-count for your low-poly model all by itself.
As for sharpening edges:
From the looks of it (color scheme on the third screenshot), you’re using Blender. If you want sharp edges, you simply select the edge that you want to sharpen, press Ctrl+e and select “Mark sharp”. After that you add an “Edge Split” modifier to your model and disable “Edge Angle”.
Beware of how split edges affect the normals. If you want a rounded corner, you don’t use sharp edges on the low poly model even though it looks much closer to the final. Otherwise you’ll get weird artifacts. (See the attachments)
As for maintaining edge loops:
That will happen more or less by itself when going high-to-low. Your high poly model absolutely requires a clean topology. The reason for this is that it allows you to add and remove details easier. When the high poly model has a clean topology, the low poly one will too. Unless you’re deliberately breaking them, your edge loops will stay intact.
Hey thanks for the reply. I try to avoid using edge split modifier because well…It separates parts of the mesh which doesn’t seem right for a game model I would think. I can see texturing the model like that becoming a problem but anyways I think I’ll just stick with more rounded edges but not too rounded. I tried to use mark sharp with auto smooth(under verts tab) which makes the edges sharp but it looks weird with subSurf. on so I ditched that method. I usually just go with adding support loops now but yes I agree I should just go high poly and work from there. It isn’t hard to remove unnecessary edge loops and I usually fix topology with the knife tool. Thanks for the help though, I guess I’ll work at it some more and look at other examples.
Difference:
Splitting the model into separate meshes.
Splitting a mesh into several unconnected parts.
The edge split modifier does the latter. It’s still one mesh. It has no effect on unwrapping, it has no effect on animation. Seriously, forget the idea of creating models out of one, completely connected mesh. You will take longer and quite easily get a terrible topology.
Mark sharp → Edge Split Modifier. It’s the correct way of doing what you want to do (creating sharp edges).
One thing I noticed on your third screenshot is that the bolts are a separate mesh. That’s bad practice. Merge them with the frame of the gun. Unless you want to animate them separately (gun falling apart for example), there’s no reason to have them separated.
Alright I’ll give it another go since I’m working on a new gun. Also yes the way I modeled this gun was I made certain pieces into separate meshes and I combined them together into one. The only thing I’d probably keep separate would be the clip where you change bullets but most of the references I use don’t have them. After all I’m not too sure if I should just keep my edges really sharp since I’ve noticed not everything is 100% sharp. I just figured using control loops would be a nice way to get good edge sharpness because of its control of how sharp it can be.
I usually go hi-poly to get it looking realistic and the analyze the loops and lines and select and delete one by one and keep to the relevant form. ZBrush is an immeasurable help in a hi-poly to low-poly pipeline and spitting out good normal maps. Normal maps are your friend. @TheSniperFan has some good pointers as well.
