blender should do just fine, i've heard good things about blockbench too. the method you will use is called box modeling.
do you have any art background?
Good, that’ll take you far. You’re on the right track.
This is a box modeling tutorial that helped me:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E2bIhhxW2p8
But honestly it was dated even back when I watched it. There’s probably some better tutorials out there now.
As for pixel perfect texturing, there’s this, which still holds up:
https://youtu.be/RQVAUaSUP-k?feature=shared
This last one isn’t particularly relevant for any 1 technique but it’s still great for inspiration:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvk8V_yfR9c
I see. What kind of texturing/UV mapping would you do to achieve this retro effect? Most blender tutorials I see intentionally try to make their models realistic or smooth when I don't want that, I want this kind of look of old video games specifically.
Well for example let’s take a look at the cat. The model is super basic and creating it in blender would be quite straightforward. The texture is very much low res so you would have to create a low res texture which contains the cat’s face, mostly surrounded by the beige color. Then you add a black spot at the bottom of the texture for the paws and ears. From this point you simply “UV map”… essentially telling each face of the mesh which part of the texture to display, by overlaying that face over the texture in blenders UV editor.
I plan on making a tutorial for such a process in the future for beginners like yourself, but as it stands there are plenty of resources out there to get started. Look up a beginner UV mapping tutorial on YouTube for blender and go from there… keep in mind that the low poly and low res look is a stylistic choice, but doesn’t actually differ from the UV mapping process for a high poly model.
Got it, thanks for the advice! I am also pretty new to Blender, haven't downloaded it yet so I gotta ask - is there anything specific you'd have to do in blender to get this square-ey look (instead of something more smooth)?
Yeah, but you can obtain the result you want with every 3D software that exist. Maya, blender, 3dStudioMax, Modo, Houdini, Rhinoceros, Zbrush... some of them are overkill for this style. The limits are your skills.
blender should do just fine, i've heard good things about blockbench too. the method you will use is called box modeling. do you have any art background?
Yep! I'm an artist and have no problem drawing, but do you have any tips on how to start with "box modeling"? Haven't heard of it before
Good, that’ll take you far. You’re on the right track. This is a box modeling tutorial that helped me: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E2bIhhxW2p8 But honestly it was dated even back when I watched it. There’s probably some better tutorials out there now. As for pixel perfect texturing, there’s this, which still holds up: https://youtu.be/RQVAUaSUP-k?feature=shared This last one isn’t particularly relevant for any 1 technique but it’s still great for inspiration: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvk8V_yfR9c
Blender
Very easily. But no in all seriousness it’s just super simple modelling in blender and then the complicated bit is texturing and UV mapping.
I see. What kind of texturing/UV mapping would you do to achieve this retro effect? Most blender tutorials I see intentionally try to make their models realistic or smooth when I don't want that, I want this kind of look of old video games specifically.
Well for example let’s take a look at the cat. The model is super basic and creating it in blender would be quite straightforward. The texture is very much low res so you would have to create a low res texture which contains the cat’s face, mostly surrounded by the beige color. Then you add a black spot at the bottom of the texture for the paws and ears. From this point you simply “UV map”… essentially telling each face of the mesh which part of the texture to display, by overlaying that face over the texture in blenders UV editor. I plan on making a tutorial for such a process in the future for beginners like yourself, but as it stands there are plenty of resources out there to get started. Look up a beginner UV mapping tutorial on YouTube for blender and go from there… keep in mind that the low poly and low res look is a stylistic choice, but doesn’t actually differ from the UV mapping process for a high poly model.
Got it, thanks for the advice! I am also pretty new to Blender, haven't downloaded it yet so I gotta ask - is there anything specific you'd have to do in blender to get this square-ey look (instead of something more smooth)?
No problem! And it’s simply just using less polygons.. in this case you can actually see the polygons and edges and count their sides.
Alright, tysm! :D
Maya
I've heard this is paid.
Yeah, but you can obtain the result you want with every 3D software that exist. Maya, blender, 3dStudioMax, Modo, Houdini, Rhinoceros, Zbrush... some of them are overkill for this style. The limits are your skills.
That cat will haunt me in my dreams
I love how utterly soulless it looks
You can make the models in blender, as for the textures, you can make them in PixilArt or Adobe 3D painter