High to Low Poly Workflow in 3D Modeling

After watching this tutorial you will have an understanding of optimization workflows and concepts to keep in mind when you need to bake high poly detail down to your low poly models. This video is part of a series on how to prepare real-time game ready assets in a real production pipeline.
Professional Website: onmars3d.com/
Gumroad: gumroad.com/onmars3d
Artstation: www.artstation.com/onmars3d
Instagram: / onmars3d
Software used in Tutorial: Maya 2020
Concept/Reference Art - Filippo Ubertino: www.artstation.com/artwork/oA...
#uvmap #lowpoly #gameart #3dmodeling #retopo #autodeskmaya
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents
0:00 Introduction
0:37 High-to-Low Overview
1:16 The Importance of Silhouette
2:43 Have a Target Triangle Count
5:16 Leverage the Original Base Mesh Where Possible
8:15 Use Triangles!
11:08 Keep Round Corners Round/Avoid Right Angle Corners
14:30 Use Shrink to Wrap Base Mesh on High-Poly Model
18:30 Rebuild Low Poly Mesh with Retopology/Quad Draw
19:50 Study Great Examples!
24:50 Timelapse of Concepts in Practice
31:40 Conclusion
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[@txlec99]

3d polygonal modeling is not a joke. i've been learning 3d modeling in maya for 6 months now and man i gotta ya that thing aint a joke. its serious and it drives you nuts all the way from the depth of the sea to the highest mount of the earth. if you're just modeling basic stuff like box and circles thats ok and that's very enjoyable lol, but wait, wait until ya start thinking bout creating iron man or just about any si-fic hard surface robots, things, or whatever in that in those line, your gonna instantly notice your not match for it and immediately feels like your LOST in the abyss of outer space.

[@OnMars3D]

There are definitely levels to this.

[@ericavoss8105]

You sir need a medal, this video is the best!! At school I was always taught ‘tris are bad’ and so it stuck with me. I finished my bachelors degree last year, and now I have to rewrite my brain into being able to use them. You have explained the concept very well, super grateful!

[@OnMars3D]

Glad it helped and thanks for the kind words!

[@themaxproful]

Keep working hard Im in the same boat as you

[@elnazheydari4163]

One of the best tutorials! I found the answers for some of my big issues with high to low poly workflow! I really appreciate it!

[@OnMars3D]

No problem, glad it was helpful!

[@JustGraphic87]

I was searching for some maya tutorials, and I am so glad that I found your channel, this tutorial is so helpful, thank you so much, I will keep on watching your other tutorials too, I am sure I can learn so many things with the help of your wonderful tutorials

[@OnMars3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@lobkevangheluwe]

Thank you so much for this tutorial, definitely the best I’ve found yet on this topic!

[@OnMars3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@user-te7iw9gt3g]

An awesome turorial, thanks! Keep up the good work

[@ManOfTrades]

I always do a lot of searching on youtube to find quality as good as this. I haven't seen your videos before, but lately they have been getting recommended and wow I wish I had seen them sooner! Such insanely good content, keep making more!

[@OnMars3D]

Welcome aboard!

[@jakubstacho9199]

Soooooo gooood, just what I was looking for. It would be great if you keep posting videos about high to low poly modeling along with baking and making game-ready assets

[@OnMars3D]

More to come!

[@EnterMyDreams]

so so so useful!! thank you so much! love your explanation process

[@bresk1]

That is some quality content right there , keep up the good work !

[@OnMars3D]

Thank you, excited to keep making more content!

[@HOWDOT]

Man thank you for this amazing explanation. Now I fell confident! Love all of your vids.

[@OnMars3D]

Glad to hear it!

[@jahandarwerewolf8480]

Thats what i needed!! Thank you very much Sir!!!!

[@Aldebaran80]

wow, shrink wrap erased me a lot of headaches... thax, i didn't know that tool.

[@OnMars3D]

Happy to share, it's definitely a useful tool!

[@OnMars3D]

Check out my Patreon/KZbin Membership for all my project files, 3d models, bonus videos, Discord and more or just to support this channel 🙂 www.patreon.com/OnMars3D

[@maxiperez8408]

Wow, this video is absolutly awesome. Thanks for making such a great and usefull content !! I was really struggling with how to do the high to low properly.

[@OnMars3D]

Glad you found this helpful!

[@FavoredBag]

Great tutorial, Thank you very much!

[@OnMars3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@KaranBhand]

Thank youuu! I was asking for this :D

[@OnMars3D]

No problem, happy to share!

[@thevision2380]

Great tutorial video as always. your all tutorial's is fully useful to maya users. Thanks for sharing

[@OnMars3D]

Glad you found it helpful!

[@lowkey9583]

Now I need the 24k to 5k res optimization video :)))

[@OnMars3D]

I would just be applying the same techniques till you get to your target poly count. I can look into doing some super low-poly modeling in future videos though.

[@sonjuneee]

Really helpful for me tho. Appreciate it ❤❤❤

[@DarkAutumn3D]

That's what I always concentrate on as well. It's especially important for LODs. A good rule of thumb is to treat it like a cylindrical object. The more edges you remove or alter, the more it loses its shape - the more obvious it is. As long as you keep the silhouette for as long as possible then you can kinda chip away at the other parts. Always give yourself a triangle count budget - that's what I learned in games design. 24k tris is still a hell of a lot for a games engine lol. Good job though!

[@OnMars3D]

Yeah, spot on! I'll eventually comeback to this grenade and make an even lower poly model.

[@sebbosebbo9794]

Hallo great you presents here your hard work for use. . . r thx...

[@palashdas8009]

Thanks it's really helpful..

[@OnMars3D]

Glad it helped!

[@pachikokitty9479]

thank you. 🤩🤩

[@9000halNASA]

You are a master, tnx a lot. :)

[@OnMars3D]

Glad it helped!

[@magedafra]

nicely informative, thank you

[@OnMars3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@asvanum]

Yes finally I guess this is one the important one in the series

[@asvanum]

Also this pure Gold thank you for teaching us.

[@OnMars3D]

Happy to share!

[@Palrakesh363]

TY

[@tbnprathades1631]

If I remember it correctly, you can also use zbrush zremesher and project the detail on it. Then you fixed it on Maya, this isn't the best method cuz sometimes the shape could change.

[@EdgyEmoLoliconBoy]

nice

[@davelidster2280]

In this workflow I’m confused when you would do the UVs? On the optimised final low? Thanks for your work.

[@atomicshrimpFT]

Great video, howeder it was sometimes hard to keep track of all the names and knowing which model you are using rn. I would have made it low, mid and high for better understanding.

[@AndrewMZcroft]

Hi, what is better: Do the low poly from high poly model (removing esges,etc) or from subD model (adding edges where needed)?

[@michaellaviola6540]

I'm a professional rigging artist/animator, just learning more about modelling due to personal interest. The one thing I strongly disagree with is triangles. They may be okay in a model like the grande, but anything that needs to deform and animate needs to be clean quads. Too often, I've had to give back models to the modellers to fix the topology on knees or knuckles. The main problem with triangles for a mesh that needs to be rigged is that they prevent me from making clear and deliberate selections, it's not that you can't do it, but it's a nightmare to deal with. For something like this granqde, I'm sure it's fine, but overall, if I can have a mesh that's entirely made of quads, I'll take that any day

[@OnMars3D]

Hi Michael, appreciate the comment. I talk about that quite a bit in other videos. This series of videos discussed workflows for rigid body props where deformation is not needed which is why I say Tris are ok. I'm actually working on an updated video so I'll make sure to emphasize this point when talking about topology. Especially on when and where Tris and quads are needed. Thanks!

[@subang129]

Thanks for sharing this tutorial! Very helpful. Is there any special reason why you didn’t delete hidden faces to decrease more poly count?

[@OnMars3D]

The grenade will be rendered in an open state but as you said, for further optimization, you can delete unseen faces.

[@danielmfa3D]

Hello. Thank you for your tutirials. But i have a question. "14:30 Use Shrink to Wrap Base Mesh on High-Poly Model" How can i use this same technique in 3ds Max? Thank you

[@OnMars3D]

3DS Max has something similar, it has Conform Brush: help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2017/ENU/?guid=GUID-AB0F11DE-3125-42B0-B7FC-034A34B12181 or Conform Compound Object: help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2017/ENU/?guid=GUID-5790F099-E538-4702-9831-EC06C0EA2819

[@kimberlyKDA]

Sir, is that true if I said that "Not every high-poly model should be smoothed but if it is smoothed then it is definitely a high poly model"? Correct me if I'm wrong! Thank you sir!

[@mrkoddy]

Do you advice to model High Poly with turbosmooth first then simplifying the High to Low Poly? Or may I make the low poly first then adding details on the High poly after?

[@OnMars3D]

I prefer to model the high poly first then create the low poly afterwards.

[@Flatlined804]

With nanite being introduced, will this method be still used in future?

[@OnMars3D]

Yeah, this workflow will not go anywhere. Nanite is great for high end devices like PC, next gen consoles, etc There will still be a need to create more optimized assets for lower powered hardware.

[@atomicshrimpFT]

But wouldn’t it be contraproductive to have so many poles in the low poly? Of course you can’t see them but for presentation?

[@pygmalion8952]

I usually decimate my model and triangulate it to the point which it is not visibly break the model's shape. i can go a bit far away with LODs tho.

[@OnMars3D]

That works too, that workflow is used at game studios when they have thousands of assets to prepare for a real-time game engine.

[@FritzHugo3]

Are there not a automatic way to to delete unnecessary lines? I search a tool/way to export a "compressed"/converted easier 3d Version (without the flexibility to chance things after this step). Maybe the tool make a picture from the high polygoncomplete objekt. Than there make a low polygon model and put the picture from the high polygone at the low polygone model. So you should get a mix. Technical there are a low polygone but the humans see all smother - like a little opticle illusion. Or something other maybe. Any idears there are ways for this without many manuel wordk? (like you have a wav and make a mp3, like big huge 100MB Picture and after exporting there are a 1 MB .png)?

[@OnMars3D]

There is automatic tools in Maya and other 3D software. In Maya, you can use Mesh > Reduce, these types of tools work well when you need to create LODs in game engines.

[@thorthunder2616]

Can we remove edges for create very low poly model aftet texturing high poly model

[@OnMars3D]

You can but you have to be careful to not impact the original UVs too much, otherwise, you will get noticeable distortion in the textures.

[@fernandohenrique3405]

I noticed that you make use of triangles even when Ngons would be appropriate. Why? Personal or technical reason?

[@OnMars3D]

Triangles give you more predicable control over the topology. Once the model goes into the game engines, it automatically get's triangulated and when you use Ngons, you risk the engine incorrectly triangulating the model.

[@shisa2834]

Im not sure what's worse....the high-to-low work or UVW unwrapping. Especially with high object count projects.

[@OnMars3D]

It gets easier with practice. I plan to cover UV Mapping next on the grenade!

[@kmanL3G3N3D]

Do u offer personal tutoring by chance?

[@OnMars3D]

I do offer one-on-one mentorship. You can find more information here: onmars3d.artstation.com/pages/services

[@emile7895]

is it still low poly with 24k tris ?

[@OnMars3D]

It really depends. Depends on the target hardware, specifications set by the project, whether it's a background or hero prop, etc I created this as a hero prop, so 24k maybe high but the workflow still applies whether it's 1k, 5,k, or 20k tris.

[@emile7895]

@@OnMars3D nice, thanks

[@swrcPATCH]

But I dont have maya

[@vetbarashka7102]

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

[@VertexRage]

24k triangles is called low poly now? Wow.

[@jesusfagzano1615]

low poly 24000 faces LOL

[@zeusteoh5667]

Ya not industry standard

[@OnMars3D]

24k Tris or 12k faces/polys. I talk about the tri/poly count here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/j3XYaqOPgtCeia8 Context matters when setting a triangle count for models. This prop is meant to be a hero prop where it can handle close up shots in real time and run on a high on platform (PC/Next Gen Consoles, Etc). If this was just a simple grenade with no focus, then going down to 2k-5k tris make sense. With all that being said, the concepts that I discuss in this video can be applied to models that 100k, 25, or 5k. As always, hope this helps!

[@Batuhan96glaive]

Bro saying things over and over again, making me paranoid

[@vetbarashka7102]

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍