Thinking Outside the Box:
Low Poly Tricks, Tips & Techniques

By Paul "Villam" Steed

Curve Angle

Curve angle is what I call the angle made by the edge of a low-poly curve. If the curve angle is low enough I'll make it higher to the point of acceptable by reducing the segments or facets that make up the curve of the shape. Therefore the lower the curve angle the more likely the chance a shape can be optimized.

Having the Right Set of Balls

When creating spheres or a partially spherical geometry consider using a geodesic sphere instead of a latitudinal/longitudinal sphere. L-spheres are nice and tidy, but not very frugal when it comes to low-poly. Check this out…

The g-sphere on the left may not look as pretty as the l-sphere but it is more efficient and more effective. Here's why…

Conclusion

So, like I said. Next week I'll post the walk-through of modeling an object/monster that would have been in Quake 3 if we hadn't gone the Arena route. Later on I'll go over how I made Shauna. I would have done it this time but putting these tutorials together eats the hell out of my time. Since Quake3: Arena is eating my shorts right now in terms of time bandwidth, I think you can understand who wins. Be cool, kids and practice, practice, practice (safe sex). :]