Model Low Poly Rocks In Maya | Simple Rocks and Stones

In this tutorial on how to Model Low Rocks In Maya we will look at the process of blocking, sculpting, and retopologizing to create some low poly art. This is a beginner friendly tutorial and part of the Low Poly Art series.
Low Poly Art Series
• Low Poly Art

[@SamLeoTre]

This was one of those tricks that I know I'm going to still be using years from now. Amazing. Thank you so much for such a clear and hopeful video

[@morningdrums]

I made my first rock low poly design because of u. Helped me so much. I also thank you for talking us through the tutorials. That is so helpful verses just listening to music

[@necko46]

You sir have made the best low poly rock tutorial I could find for Maya, thank you!

[@DigitalDreambox]

Thank you very much glad you enjoyed it!

[@madalina4212]

This was so simple and clear! Thank you very much!

[@DigitalDreambox]

You are very welcome!

[@kornritmansaithong6733]

You're the best guide for beginners of maya on youtube that I could find. Thank you, sir.

[@DigitalDreambox]

Thank you so much! Words like these really keep me going.

[@charlied2272]

Great tutorial, very easy to follow :) Plus, I got to learn a couple of tools I never used in Maya before.

[@cadukka]

Awesome tutorial!

[@Little_Miss_Carrex]

At first i was skeptical, making something high poly for a low poly end result seemed countproductive, but this was actually really fast and easy!

[@DigitalDreambox]

It probably is a little much but you should see the work I put into a ZBrush sculpt only to decimate it down sometimes haha. The nice thing about creating something more high poly first is that you can choose how much you want to reduce so that the density matches your art style. For example I prefer more triangles on bigger rock forms. You can definitely get the same look moving vertices around but I just wanted to show a different approach.

[@Flav0rful]

Very good tutorial. Explaining all the buttons to press and stuff is super helpful

[@holaisidro]

I loved this tutorial! It was great!

[@ernestoantoniosantosleon6931]

Hey. It is an awesome and easy tutorial. You made my day!

[@dacarly1330]

You explain very well. Thank you!

[@DigitalDreambox]

Thank you for the kind words enjoy!

[@NickRossi]

This was super helpful. Thank you!!

[@jamiew4814]

I've been using Maya a while and have never used some of these things, very interesting! Learnt a bunch :)

[@DigitalDreambox]

Great to hear!

[@dhirajsubbaiah]

Just The one I was looking for. The perfect one!......... Already subscribed to your channel.... Looking for more like this.

[@shaghayeghdarabi3911]

this was awesome. thanks!!!

[@lizah5611]

I really like your art style, thank you for the helpful videos :) subscribed

[@criimson3062]

Very clear tutorial and I love that you keep it simpel. Subscribed :)

[@DigitalDreambox]

Cheers! Thanks so much for supporting the channel!

[@ExpressionGaming]

I am new to modeling low-poly, I love the fact that you made it simple and easy to understand. keep up the good work, I have already subscribed. awesome tutorial

[@DigitalDreambox]

Thank you! Yes low poly can be pretty fun and interesting for people of any skill level. It's something that I find myself going back to.

[@ExpressionGaming]

@@DigitalDreambox I am learning to create a game in unreal at the moment, and decided to go with low - poly, I have always loved the way it looks compared to realism, I do love realism, but the cartoon look on objects as always fascinates me. and this video is what I was looking for. and you're welcome

[@edjonhadley1]

Thank you so much, made some nice looking rocks for my project😀

[@DigitalDreambox]

Happy to hear that. Best of luck!

[@ambroscustom]

Thanks for this awesome tutorial buddy 👍

[@ddesign1539]

Thank you!

[@nunny1179]

yo dude love your videos man, really getting into modeling now ^^

[@DigitalDreambox]

Thanks best of luck on your modeling journey!

[@gametutorialsmk1688]

You have a new subscriber, thx a lot

[@DigitalDreambox]

No problem!

[@amji127]

PLEASE DO MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS..............VERY USEFUL

[@DigitalDreambox]

No problem thanks for checking it out!

[@ilyashka_levelart]

Nice and very helpful video, thank you, subscribed ;)

[@heyitzsamurai]

thank you!! ❤

[@dessYnkv]

thank you sm!

[@Joeydalessandro]

Great tutorial

[@DigitalDreambox]

Thanks!

[@user-hq9gm3vs1k]

gotta say, an amazing tutorial kinda lost my mind with the whole low to high than back to low poly , ive done low poly rock before, but this way better of what i did, again amazing tutorial and thanks for the new ability acquired.

[@Jadecool312]

I was getting very frustrated in zbrush, this is very simple, thank you!!

[@DigitalDreambox]

ZBrush is great but can be overkill for something like this. Glad you found this video useful!

[@EliaForce1984ita]

Wouldn't it be much faster to start with a mid poly icosphere like the one you used, leave it triangulated as it is by default, deform it with the grab brush in sculpt mode and then reduce?

[@37.2.1]

Hi! I am really liking your tutorials so far! I was wondering if anyone knew why we change the face uniformity from 1 to 0, for the final step in creating the rock?

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi it depends on the look you want. The first time that you adjust face uniformity and increase it to 1 you are trying to make the quads roughly the same size. This is ideal for the sculpting phase to have evenly spaced topology. The second time when we drag the slider back down to 0 we are essentially asking Maya to make the quads fit whatever the mesh needs. This can change the way the triangles look when we go into the Reduce phase. Sometimes adding a Remesh phase before the Retopologize phase can further change the look of the decimation.

[@mariatodorova1274]

Thank you :)

[@DigitalDreambox]

You are welcome!

[@LARA-ee8kl]

10/10 :)

[@liligraceforbes2605]

Love it, but Soft select is not working for me when holding B+Left mouse button???

[@ragaviragavi7440]

sir in maya 2018 were we can fine retopolagzie ?

[@ktm4059]

If I'm hitting "b" on the keyboard and only having the entire model light up as yellow (no oranges or reds like in your example), despite selecting a few vertex is there something else that might be turned off? Currently the whole object still moves when I try to move a piece or a section of it.

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi it's probably because your brush is really large. You will need to click and drag to change the size or open up your Transform tool window by double clicking one of the tools for example the Move tool. Then look for Soft Selection and you can adjust the Falloff radius there. After that when you change the brush size with the B key you should be able to see it in action. Hope this helps.

[@eriknohr8690]

nice one

[@DigitalDreambox]

Thanks!

[@joshuabalansayo2659]

Does this work in maya 2018?

[@killer051151]

hi! i had a question. i heard we were supposed to stick to quads only? are we triangulating because of the hard edges?

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi I used triangles here mainly for look. Triangulating is fairly common in low poly art but you can replace it with quads if that's what you like. Modeling using quads is a cleaner process though when it comes to edge flow, sculpting, and Sub-D modeling.

[@mikem.6761]

amazing video bro. One question. Can I use polygons with 3 vertex on a 3d printer? cos I wanna print low poly models and Im not sure if its better to leave the 4 vertex polygon on the model or only 3 vertex on each polygon. or maybe it doesnt matter. thanks a lot!!!

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi I took a quick look online and it does appear that people have managed to 3D print low poly objects with a triangulated look. It may be up to the program. Sorry I don't have much experience in 3D printing, wish I could help more.

[@mikem.6761]

@@DigitalDreambox thanks a lot bro for your fast reply. You are the best. And yeah I guess I'm gonna try to keep 4 vertex then. Just in case. You have a new fan yeee

[@DigitalDreambox]

@@mikem.6761 Thanks Mike! Also it should be an easy test. Try printing a pyramid. Unless printing materials are expensive of course. Good luck!

[@mikem.6761]

@@DigitalDreambox oh I dont do the printings. I only make the 3D file, and I send the rest to the client, but good idea im gonna ask them to do that. thanks buddy

[@rustyrishii]

Where is the retopologize option in maya 2019? I can't find it ....even on Google pls help

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi if you on an older version of Maya you may be able to access the Remesh and Retopology feature through the Command Line. Select your mesh and then enter polyRemesh; for Remesh or polyRetopo; for Retopologize. After that open your Attribute editor and look for either the polyRemesh1 or the polyRetopo1 tabs and you should be able to change the settings there.

[@rustyrishii]

@@DigitalDreambox thank you ...and 1 request.... Can u pls make a detailed tutorial on making a low poly gun

[@DigitalDreambox]

@@rustyrishii No problem. I have a few more low poly fantasy props videos to get through but I'll try and sneak it in somewhere between those.

[@ernestoantoniosantosleon6931]

@@rustyrishiiI had the same problem, but I just went to REDUCE and it worked fine too

[@maverick9860]

Ive run into a problem within the Modelling Tools and using the 'Add Divisions' tool. It does not divide all the faces, and instead opts to only divide faces within a select connected band around the tetrahetron. When trying to add divisions selectively to the faces one at a time, some of the faces choose to not divide at all regardless of the fact that the 'polySubdFace#' inside the popup increases in Faces.

[@DigitalDreambox]

I haven't run into this issue personally. Perhaps try freezing the transforms and make sure you are in object mode when you add divisions. The other option is just to skip the add divisions part and retopologize it instead.

[@maverick9860]

@@DigitalDreambox sure thanks, Ill give that a try

[@maverick9860]

@@DigitalDreambox So got it to work, weirdly enough I had to go into the 'polySubdFace#' input created by the 'add divisions tool' (in the channel box) and manually change Divisions U & Divisions V so be the equal (add divisions tool only was changing one of them)

[@DigitalDreambox]

@@maverick9860 Nice job figuring it out. Debugging can be tricky but satisfying in the end.

[@karan2739y]

What Face uniformaty do in retapologize?

[@DigitalDreambox]

Face uniformity helps keep the faces the same size which is ideal for things such as sculpting.

[@tarialorehand]

I love how you made these and even tried it myself. but for some reason there are no uv's for them in order for me to add a texture. how do I fix that?

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi I would just give it an automatic unwrap if you want to UV it. It's a pretty simple object. For something a little more in depth you can try this tutorial. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZWqZmWIlLeKnc0

[@tarialorehand]

@@DigitalDreambox I tried that, it was still not in the uv mapper. It was nowhere to be found.

[@DigitalDreambox]

That's odd. If you email the channel with a little more detail I may be about to help you better by perhaps taking a look at your asset. Contact is in the About page on the channel.

[@tarialorehand]

@@DigitalDreambox I ended up just making a crappy looking one and deleting this one. I needed to get the project in by the timeline. But what I can do is remake it and see if anything changes or it stays the same. If it does I will contact you. Thank you so much for the help

[@DigitalDreambox]

@@tarialorehand No problem best of luck on your project!

[@funwithmie1087]

my Mesh is not showing retopologize option ...can you show me how to turn it on

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi are you on an older version of Maya by chance? You may need to use the Command line to use the Retopologize feature if you are.

[@alexspeed8888]

How do you make Maya's interface bigger at 4K?

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi I'm not sure but I found this link that has some options that you can try. You may need to play with some of your Windows settings as well. knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU/Maya-Customizing/files/GUID-03BF2E0E-6FB1-438E-A238-3298994CFADB-htm.html

[@alexspeed8888]

@@DigitalDreambox Thank you very much! I no longer have to lean every time I'm looking for something

[@Margokih_]

Could you do a snow tutorial in low poly please ?

[@DigitalDreambox]

That could be a fun one. I'll definitely look into it and see if I can come up with a good process.

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi the snow tutorial is uploaded now. I'll leave a link below. Best of luck! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHaccqyQadCmra8

[@sambuddhadasgupta9246]

How can we textured it..... uv or not?

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi Sambuddha I'm posting a link to my cup modeling series with a UV unwrapping section. It goes over what you need to unwrap the rock. Hopefully this helps. If enough people are interested I can make a part 2 to this tutorial but it should be pretty basic if you check out the link. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZWqZmWIlLeKnc0

[@TheJanessa009]

Why does it need to delete history everytime use another mesh

[@TheJanessa009]

By the way thank you for sharing tips teacher😊

[@Millu30]

Set 5000 faces on retopology Me: wait thats beyond illegal

[@maniksharma9736]

Wow i always thought that modeling in Maya is faster than blender... But blender "Rocked"

[@deemwinch]

Van Darkholme is that you???

[@artogerilyagames4955]

UV texture

[@DigitalDreambox]

Hi I'm still deciding whether I want to add a UV unwrapping part to this tutorial or create a new tutorial for perhaps a different rock type with a UV unwrapping section. In the meantime I'll link one of my UV unwrapping vids to help you out since I'm pretty busy at the moment and I'm unsure when I'll be able to get to it making it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qZWqZmWIlLeKnc0

[@artogerilyagames4955]

@@DigitalDreambox Is it possible to use 1 material in 10 different type of shape of rocks? Thanks

[@DigitalDreambox]

@@artogerilyagames4955 Yes absolutely! I'm a big fan of just a simple diffuse material for low poly art which doesn't require much UV space at all. Just separate your colors in a painting program and make sure the UVs of each rock occupy those quadrants. An additional part of my workflow is to test the objects in game with some lighting beforehand so that the colors work for me before combining them onto one UV. I sometimes do that for emissive materials as well. Just have one material driving the emission of several objects to keep things performant.