3D Canvas Plus/Pro - low poly modeling

3D Canvas Plus 5.0 and up
3D Canvas Pro 4.2 and up

Overview

The create edge, trim edge and weld operators make 3D Canvas a very good tool for professional low-poly modeling. These operators are available in 3D Canvas Plus from version 5.0 on, and in 3D Canvas Pro from version 4.2 on. This tutorial is going to show how to use these operators to get a nice low-poly human head. You can find this tutorial and other interesting game developing resources at www.theothersideworks.com.

I would like to thank very much Amabilis www.amabilis.com for the very kind and clever attention that they give to their customers. Amabilis patiently answered to all my somewhat confusing requests for a low-poly operators set, added some intelligence to them, and finally decided to implement a very great and useful set of operators. Thanks again Richard !

You will find in the tutorial folder all the major modeling steps of the low-poly head model in .x format, that is the preferred 3D Canvas format for import/export of 3D models.

Drawing a human head

One of the most common ways to create any low-poly model is to start with a cube primitive, then add details until the artist is satisfied with it. We will use a variant of this method, that is, first model the surface, then the volume.

We'll start with a cube primitive, then draw the front, back, top, bottom and side parts of a human head on each face of the cube by using the low-poly operators set. Please note that this technique is specific for low-poly modeling. In a hi-poly model, you can't draw each single triangle by hand and you can't keep in mind where each single triangle will be placed on the model. On the contrary, in a professional low-poly model, it is very important to have full control on each single triangle and that you get an approximate mind vision of the triangles placement and shape on your model before modeling it.
To better show what's going on with the cube, I decided to paint each face of the cube with a different color, it is not necessary that you do the same, but doing this would help you to better maintain the control of the cube. To paint the cube you can use the paint face tool.

painting the cube

Ok now, let's start with the front face of the cube, it will contain the front part of our human face. Before using the create edge operator, I would suggest to use the divide operator to create reference points on the surface, then use the create edge and trim edge operators to draw the human face. Plese note that you can use the divide operator to divide both faces and edges. Also note that to remove edges it is very important to use the trim edge operator instead of the general purpose delete function. If you use the delete function to remove edges you will not get the desired result, this is because the delete function is designed for wide range deletions, that could be useful in some situations, while the trim edge operator is specifically designed for precise low-poly modeling.
In the picture below you can see the final result, since 3D Canvas doesn't have an outline rendering mode (yet), I used the group selection tool to highlight the drawed edges.

drawing the front part of the head

Once the front part of the human head is done, you can draw the other parts on the cube. You can use the included head-01.x model to see how each part can be drawn.

drawing the other parts of the head

Shaping the head into 3D space

To shape the head I would suggest to change the default single view of 3D Canvas into a double view, then use a perspective view for point selection, and an orthographic view for point editing. To change the single view into a double view you can use the View->View Selection main menu. To set each view to the desired mode (perspective or orthographic) you can use the View popup menu (it appears by right clicking on the view).

Once you get the double view, you can use the face selection tool to select points in the perspective view. Use the ctrl key to select multiple points and the navigation control (on the lower left of the view) to rotate the cube when you need to select other points. Then use the edit control on the orthographic view (on the lower right of the view) to edit the selected points.
It is very useful to select many points at the same time because it helps you to maintain the model simmetry. In the picture below you can see that the two side points on the forehead are selected and thus edited at the same time.

using multiple views to shape the head

Following the method explained above, and after a bit of practice, you should be able to shape the profile of the head as it is shown below. I would suggest to shape the profile first, then the front and back sides, then the top and bottom sides. However the order of shaping is not too much important and you can choose the order that you prefer.

shaping the profile of the head

Once you end up with the shaping job you should get a final result about like the one shown below. The picture is from the head-02.x model that you can use as reference.

the final shape of the head

Adding hair

One of the most common ways to add hair to a low poly head is to define a hair area on the upper part of the head then use the the tip operator to shape the hair. As usual, you can also use the create edge, trim edge and weld operators to modify the hair shape. To mark the hair base I used the paint face tool. The picture below shows the hair base marked black. It is fron the head-03.x model that you can use as reference.

defining the hair base

Finally, with a bit of practice, using the tip operator on the marked hair base you should get a final result about like the one shown below. The picture below is from the head-04.x model, that you can use as reference for your practice session.

the final shape of the hair

Please note that though the head is definitely low-poly, shaping the hair this way could give you some problems during the mapping job (where you apply texture maps to the model). As a general rule, when modeling a low poly character, you should also try to keep the model shape as much convex as possible (that is, avoid holes or reentrant parts), and you should try to avoid overlapping parts as well. These rules greatly simplify the mapping job.

The hair above is a good example of overlapping parts and not-convex shape. This technique for doing hair is good anyway but it takes some time during the mapping job. In this case one way to simplify the mapping job is to map only the external surfaces of the hair, assignin to the less important internal sides a "garbage space" on the uv-map.

Final notes

Well, at last the head is done. The techniques explained here are those that I prefer to work with, because I believe they are effective and fast (well, of course after a bit of practice). There are other low-poly modeling techniques that are very good as well, however all of these techniques require a very good control on each single triangle, that is why the 3D Canvas low-poly operators set is so much important.

As a final touch to our low-poly head we will move its axis to the proper rotation center. This is very important if you want to insert the head in a hierarchy model to animate it.
If you don't move the head axis to the correct rotation center, then when you try to set a rotation keyframe for the head on the jointed animation, the head will rotate around its center instead of around the neck as it should be. To move the head axis you can use the shift operator, the picture below shows the head axis moved to the bottom of the head, this way we get correct rotation keyframes during animation.

moving the head axis to the correct center of rotation

As always, comments and suggestions are very welcome.. alex@theothersideworks.com