Extrusion/Box/Low Poly

When it comes to 3D modelling in Maya, there are a plethora of tools and solutions to modelling something the way you want. When it comes to modelling an object, the user is able to utilise a series of primitive shapes such as cubes, spheres, cones, planes and rings. These are a great starting point to creating almost any model you can think of.

One basic workflow is to start with the primitive object(s) you want and to start incorporating edge loops in them. This adds more vertices into the pieces that can be manipulated. One such manipulation is extrusion. Extruding in a model allows the user to pull out and stretch sections of a model to a desired length. It is an extremely powerful tool and one of the tools that will be used most frequently.

Below is an example of a model I am currently working on, which is a RTS Head Quarters building. It is largely inspired by the idea of a magical floating kingdom that is built by stone and wood and is powered by magical crystals. Think of Disney's 2001 movie Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Image Above: Volts48, 2015), style of having blue crystals within the civilisation's technology.

The walls and center tower within this model are only made from two cube objects. Each cube was extruded in such a way that eliminated the need for extra objects. This can help speed up the workflow as well as eliminate any accidental vertices/tris that are unnecessary.

Tris, or triangles are part of what make up a 3D model. The more tris there are in a model, the more detailed it can be. This is of course dependent on how the model has been created and isn't wasting tris. The downfall to having too many tris is that it will be more demanding on computing power and memory use. While it may seem that only have a 2000 tri model is okay, if you consider all the other models that are in a game, this will quickly add up and is one of the main causes for performance issues in games.

A common workflow, particularly for characters is that they are modeled in another program such as ZBrush first before being brought into Maya or 3DSMax. These models are what's called a High Poly model, and consist of a large number of surfaces and tris. Once these have been brought into Maya/3DSMax, the modeller can then cut away and merge unnecessary details to greatly reduce the tri count of a model. When a model has much less detail, it would be considered low poly as apposed to high.

With the project I am working on in the image above, my team has been assigned 6000 tris between three buildings. As a rough guide we started by allocating 2000 tris per person, however some buildings will require more detail then others, so should their be any tris left over after one model, they can be reallocated to another member. Tri and texture count limits are common practice within the industry, and is an important practice to ensure that games will perform at a prescribed rate.

References:

Volts48 (2015). Atlantis: The Lost Empire Nostalgiaview. [Online Image] (Available). Retrieved on 19/11/2016 from http://volts48.deviantart.com/art/Atlantis-The-Lost-Empire-Nostalgiaview-521629925

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