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

Smooth versus flat shading

By default, an object will look flat and choppy, like this:

Figure 2.2 – Flat shading

Figure 2.2 – Flat shading

For an object to look smooth and curved, you have to use something called smooth shading. Smooth shading makes the flat; hard faces of a mesh appear smooth and curved.

Figure 2.3 – Smooth shading enabled

Figure 2.3 – Smooth shading enabled

It’s important to note that a smooth-shaded model is no different, structurally, from a flat-shaded model. The smoothness is only an illusion.

Smooth shading is used on any kind of curved, organic-shaped mesh where it’s important to have smooth curves. For example, on a human character, you’d use smooth shading. In this book, we’ll only be focusing on flat-shaded models. All the easier for you!

You’ll often find yourself wanting to change a smooth-shaded model to a flat-shaded one, and vice versa. It’s extremely simple. Just select the object, right-click...