Low Poly Blender Tutorial - Basics
I’m probably not the right person for this job.
I want to start this off by saying I am in no ways a professional or even any good at 3D.
Modeling Tutorial: http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creating-a-low-poly-ninja-game-character-using-blender-part-1–cg-16132
UV Mapping Tutorial: http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/creating-a-low-poly-ninja-game-character-using-blender-part-2–cg-16133
First things first. If you have a question…Google it! 9 times out of ten you will have amazing results and find your answer.
Tip #1 - Keep a clean mesh.
What I mean by this is keep everything symmetrical (I would recommend the mirror modifier). Also I prefer a lot of straight lines, This really seems to depend on the style you are going for, but for me it always seems to work best.
Tip #2 - Don’t over think it.
I can’t tell you the numerous amount of times I have remade a model from the start because I over thought it. Keep in mind you are trying to achieve a low poly style!
For instance, this box tv gave me trouble for a few hours. I remade this damn thing three times before I got the result above. In the end I realized the problem was that I was trying to fit to much detail into it, which was defeating the purpose of the art style I was trying to achieve.
I would assume this one would be common sense for most people, but I can’t stress how important this one can be. Using references when modeling and greatly increase the quality of your results.
For example, when I decided I wanted to model a camera I looked online for a reference camera that fit what I wanted. I then used it as a guide while modeling. I of course took some creative freedom along the way to give it my own style and flare, but it was important to use the reference as a guide for the basic result.
My last tip only applies in some cases, but when making a game you want to make sure not only the style matches, but the proportions and the colors.
For Example: You don’t want a low poly pixel art model with a simple color low poly model mixing.
For Example: You don’t want a small object to be much larger then the character.
For Example: Make a color palette and use it on all the models that are going together.
Now that I have taught you a few tips/guidelines that I use, why don’t I take you step by step how I go about modeling something!
How to Make a Low Poly Model
(if you are confused by anything I am doing you can ask me or google it)
To get started decide what you want to model. In my case I have decided to model a coffee machine. First step is to find a reference!
I found this one which should serve as a good reference to use.
Now open Blender and change your perspective to Orthographic by pressing 5 on the numpad or following the image below.
Next your going to want to make that reference a background image.
For this next step it is going to vary which object you want to create to use as your base. For me in this case it was a cube.
I am jumping ahead a bit now because I’m assuming everyone to have some modeling experience in blender. I now have the basic shape of the coffee machine so now I can start fine tuning it and adding detail.
Fine tuning and adding detail is done. Reminder still keep it simple!
Almost forgot the coffee pot!
Now that your model is done you want to begin texturing. To UV Map your model you want to go into edit mode and make sure your ‘Mesh Select Mode’ is on ‘Line’.
This next part is going to take some getting used to, but you are going to being selecting edges and ‘Marking Seams’ where you want the UV to be cut when you unwrap it.
Once you are done marking seams on the model, you should have something covered in red lines.
Now that you have finished that it is time to unwrap the UV and begin texturing.
For this step I recommend switching the ‘UV Select Mode’ to ‘Island’ as well as turning on ‘Snap to Pixels’ in the UV settings.
And then once that’s done you should have a finished model!
I hope that this tutorial helps at least one person and if anyone has any other questions feel free to ask me!
