Modeling a Low Poly-Count Robot in BLENDER
This is not a tutorial will teach you how to model by hand editing polygons in Blender. The goal of this tutorial is to introduce you to keeping the polygon count as low as possible. In this type of modeling beauty is sacrificed for speed. Pay close attention to which view your are directed to perform the steps in. We will start off in TOP VIEW.
SETUP |
| Start off with a Mesh->Circle with 8 vertices. Here in TOP VIEW the octagon has been rotated and scaled down along the Y-AXIS to give it an oblong shape. The top & side edges have been subdivided. Here the last edge has both of its vertices selected and then is ready to subdivide by pressing the [W-KEY]. When you are done you should have 12 vertices.
Beauty Subdivide |
| Before we go any further we need to set 3 options in the Edit Buttons Window [F9]. They are the Beauty button, the Draw Faces, and the All Edges buttons.
| In SIDE VIEW the entire mesh had been extruded 2 times [E-KEY]. The first image on the top left shows 6 vertices selected (we can only see 3 ) and moved up. The next image on the top right shows 2 vertices selected and moved up. The last image on the bottom is just a shaded view of what we have so far, and something for you to compare your work to. In this lesson we will have many compound image such as this. They are to be read from left-to-right in rows from top to bottom.
| These are 2 simple moves as most of them are in this lesson. In FRONT VIEW the lowest row of vertices is extruded down and scaled down. Then it is extruded down one more time.
| Now we are in SIDE VIEW and have selected 2 groups of 6 vertices. Use the Border Select [B-KEY] to select groups of vertices this way.We can see 3 vertices selected and 3 more on the other side of the model have also been selected even though we can not see this. We then scale along the Y-AXIS by using the [S-KEY] in combination with the middle mouse button (or ALT+LM).
| The first image is in SIDE VIEW and shows 2 vertices being pulled down. The second image is in FRONT VIEW and shows a column of vertices that have been extruded to the left and evenly scaled larger.
| Now we will use extrusion and scaling to start the bulk of our modeling. Try to extrude, move to the left, and scale the selection of vertices to something similar to this image.
| Here we have zoomed in on the model again still in FRONT VIEW. The vertices have been extruded back to the right this time and scales up a bit.
| Three more extrusions and scaling have been executed.
| This step is a little touchy. The column of vertices are extruded back to the right into the arm and scaled smaller. The lower image is a shaded view for comparison to your progress.
| Here are 5 more extrusions. It looks as if we have made some unneeded extrusions but this is done to increase the resolution around the elbow area for smooth bending.
| Here we make the exact same sequence of moves we did a few steps earlier to construct the wrist area.
| No comes some more detailed work. To make it easier we are going to hide the Bulk of our work. Select the vertices we want to work with and press [SHIFT+H-KEY] to hide the unselected vertices. Next go to SIDE VIEW.
| Select the center vertex and deleted it. Next we join 2 vertices with an edge by selecting them and pressing the [F-KEY]. The edge is subdivided with the [W-KEY_1-KEY] and 2 more subdivided edges are made. All open faces are made by selecting the 3 OR 4 vertices that surround them and pressing the [F-KEY]. In the last image 3 faces have been made out of a total of 8 that need to be made.
| Here the center cluster of vertices is selected and we switch to FRONT VIEW and extrude.
| Go to TOP VIEW and move the front group of 4 vertices back. Switch back to FRONT VIEW and move the center row of vertices up.
| Here we have hidden all but this block of vertices. Notice the selected face. It is easiest to select in a perspective view. In TOP VIEW the face with its edges are extrudes two times to make a Thumb.
| This finger is made by extruding the half of the hand 3 times scaling down with each subdivision.
| We have only one row left but we need at least two. Make sure that the Beauty button is selected and subdivide the 2 selected faces.
| These 2 fingers are made the same way the previous one was, extrusion and scaling.
| In TOP VIEW we will bend our arm a bit. This is done by careful placement of the 3D cursor and activate rotation around the 3D cursor with the [DOT-KEY] (as in " .com " ) and then rotate with the [R-KEY]. You can revert back to normal rotation at any time with the [COMMA-KEY]. After rotation it may be required to move the rotated section.
| This Rotation-Moving process is don with more section selected.
| Here the fingers are curved in the same way. See the placement of the 3D cursor?
| In FRONT VIEW we will bend our arm downward in a more natural position. If we were to use this mesh with an IKA Skeleton then all this bending would NOT be done.
| When satisfied delete the selected vertices in the image so we are left with a perfect half.
| [TAB] out of edit mode and mirror the half. This is done with the following sequence: [SHIFT+D-KEY]-[S-KEY_X-KEY] then join the 2 halves with [CTRL+J-KEY].
| Here I have activated the SMESH just to show you that these techniques work very well when working with Smeshes. This is because we have mostly quads instead of triangles and a very low polygon count.
The Legs and Head of the Robot are not quite done yet, but please check back soon for the completion of this tutorial.