Creating a Low Poly Game Character in Maya and Silo
In this tutorial, we will be modeling and texturing a low poly game character. Software Required: Silo 2.2, Maya 2012, 3D-Coat 3.7, Photoshop CS4, CrazyBump.
What you'll learn
In this tutorial, we will be modeling and texturing a low poly game character. Rather than focusing on the higher-end scale that is commonly seen in other tutorials, with this tutorial we will be limiting ourselves to just a few thousand polygons. We will begin, not by sculpting a high detail model in ZBrush or Mudbox, but by focusing on the character's actual low polygon in-game model. Once that's built and optimized, we will then focus on adding a good set of UVs before we move onto painting diffuse, normal, and specular texture maps. By the end of this tutorial, we will have taken a look at numerous tips, techniques, and shortcuts all geared towards saving precious time by simply focusing on the actual game model itself. Software Required: Silo 2.2, Maya 2012, 3D-Coat 3.7, Photoshop CS4, CrazyBump.
Table of contents
- Beginning to Block out the Shape 9m
- Starting to Add the Hands 10m
- Refining the Hands 9m
- Building the Head and Helmet 13m
- Adding the Chest and Combining the Body 13m
- Starting to Add Upper Body Armor Details 13m
- Continuing to Work in More Details 13m
- Optimizing as We Work 6m
- Building Lower Leg Details 14m
- Adding in the Boots 14m
- Refining the Helmet 13m
- Beginning to Clean up Our Model in Maya 12m
- Testing Areas of Deformation 13m
- Optimizing and Smoothing Our Model 11m
- Preparing Our Model for UVs 9m
- Creating UVs for the Stomach and Hands 14m
- Adding UVs for the Torso, Upper Arm, and Thighs 13m
- Laying Out Additional UVs 14m
- Adding UVs to the Feet 2m
- Assigning Texture Space Priority to UV Shells 15m
- Applying Basic Shaders to Our Model 6m
- Baking the Diffuse and Lighting Passes 13m
- Exporting Basic Normal Maps 13m
- Defining Sections of Armor 16m
- Adding Dirt and Worn Metal to Our Textures 16m
- Texturing the Face of Our Model 9m
- Removing Texture Seams in 3D-Coat 7m
- Enhancing Our Normal Map in CrazyBump 16m
- Using 3D-Coat to Paint Normal Maps for the Organic Details 12m
- Enhancing the Diffuse Map with Our Normal Map 13m
- Filling in Empty Texture Space 9m
About the author
Antony Ward is a Freelance Digital Artist, Animator and Writer based in the UK. Since the early 1990`s he has worked in, and along side the game development industry for some of today's biggest companies at a senior level. Since going Freelance he has branched out into new areas and has also found the time to write three technical manuals, Game Character Development in Maya (2004), Game Character Development (2008) and 3D Modeling in Silo (2010) as well as many published tutorials. These have pr... more