Next-Gen Weapon Creation – Day 2: The Low-Poly Model

on Aug 11th 2009 with 19 comments
Tutorial Details
This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Next-Gen Weapon Creation

Creating weaponry effectively in a next-gen workflow requires detailed knowledge of a variety of very specific skills and tools. In this, the second day of the next-gen knife modeling series, you will tackle the creation of your low-poly model, by cleverly reverse-engineering the high-poly source mesh.

In keeping with the theme of efficiency, you will strip away the unnecessary parts of the high-poly cage, leaving, with a few modifications, a game-spec low-poly model. This effective technique allows for the creation of a low-poly model in a fraction of the time needed to create the high-poly one.

Please note that, although we will be using 3ds Max, the theories and techniques discussed can be applied to any 3d application that supports polygonal modeling.

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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Ben Bolton is a freelance game artist and student from New Hampshire. He has four years experience with weapon and environment modeling, and has contributed to several Source engine mods. He is currently attending Champlain College in the Game Art and Animation program. You can view his portfolio website at: www.benbolton.com.  

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  • Nysuatro

    Well done. Learned some thing.

  • Shujaat

    Amazing tutorial series Kaskad. Learning many new things in each of the 2 tutorials you have posted up so far. Can’t wait to see the rest of them.

  • Hooper

    Thanx! Can’t wait for the texture part.

  • Tim

    Awesome!!

    I did this tut on my own with a different style of knife, in Maya.

    But I’m having a really hard time laying out the UV’s.

    Can’t wait to see what you do with yours.

  • Tim

    Still can’t wait! :D

  • Rob

    Hey great tuts! Can’t wait for your uv and normal mapping one! Anychance you could tell me the short cut your using for bridging edges? I can’t for the life of me find it and wondering if i need to set it up myself somehow? cheers

  • jakechapy

    Thank for the tut really help me out

  • Just help meh

    hey man, i need some help, when i remove a edge, the vertices from this edge just keep there!!! so every holy time i judt remove an edge it leaves 3 thousand vertices that were tere! please can you help me, Ben?

    by the way, how did you put that image in the background? viewport background maybe? tell me plz. thx for the tutorials

    • Phil

      you have to press CTRL-Backspace at the same time

      • Slive

        Are you sure?

        For me, CTRL-Backspace activate the Selection Lock Toggle Button

  • Alex Uzbekistan

    Aren’t these videos downloadadable?

  • Owais

    Hi I could not find the reference image or blue print of the knife so tell me where is reference image?

  • Slive

    A very Big thanks for this great stuff.

    Hope to see additional files like blue print

  • David Nordahl

    What were the hotkeys you used to select, create, and remove the supporting edges?

  • Christen

    Thank you so much for this video!!!! Every time my instructors go over these things I keep missing it. I’m just too tired from the work load so it doesn’t catch or I just miss the lecture.

  • lukas

    video not found ;/

  • Yannis

    as lukas said below – no video :/

  • http://www.facebook.com/alberto.fava.31 Alberto Fava

    Please Ben, can you reload the video?

  • tanjim

    Hey Ben, video is missing, it would have been better had it been the first of the four videos, now after watching the first its frustrating that the second is missing. Please reload it. Thanks in advance.