Book Image

Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender

By : Samuel Sullins
Book Image

Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender

By: Samuel Sullins

Overview of this book

Step into the world of low poly 3D art with Low Poly 3D Modeling in Blender—your entry point into Blender and mastering the fundamentals of 3D art. This beginner-friendly guide ensures that you’re fully prepared for the creative adventure that follows. Through a step-by-step learning process starting with the principles of low poly art, this book gradually immerses you in the intricacies of modeling. As you progress, you’ll gain hands-on experience creating diverse projects ranging from designing a simple 3D crate to rendering complete low poly scenes. The book covers a wide spectrum of topics as you navigate Blender's interface, mastering essential modeling tools and exploring both basic and advanced modeling techniques. Advancing to the final chapters, you’ll find ways to breathe life into your models with material creation and gain practical insights into modeling a variety of low poly objects. From end-to-end scene construction to configuring Blender for rendering high-quality images, you’ll be equipped with the foundational skills to propel your career in 3D modeling and explore the boundless creative possibilities that Blender offers. By the end of this book, you'll have a solid understanding of Blender, 3D modeling, low poly methodologies, material design, 3D rendering techniques, and the broader world of 3D art.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
1
Part 1:Getting Started with Low Poly Modeling
5
Part 2:Modeling and Shading for Low Poly
9
Part 3:Creating Your Own Assets
15
Part 4:Building a Complete Low Poly Scene

Modeling low poly rocks

Rocks are really simple to build—especially low-poly ones. We’re going to make two kinds of rocks: a fairly normal boulder and a flatter one.

The process here is a bit different. You’ll start with a mesh, then mess it up and randomize it. You’ll use the Knife tool to add new edges and vertices, and Proportional Editing to shape it.

Let’s start by making a basic rock shape to build upon.

Creating the basic rock shape

Here’s how you model the basic rock shape:

  1. Add an icosphere.
  2. In the Operator menu, change the subdivisions to 1, for the simplest possible sphere.
  3. Press Tab to go into Edit Mode.
  4. Switch to Vertex Select mode.
  5. Turn on Proportional Editing by pressing O.
  6. Now, you need to flatten the bottom of the sphere. Select one of the bottom vertices and move it upward with G to flatten the bottom of the icosphere. (Don’t worry about making this perfect; just aim for mostly...