Microsoft KB Archive/161385

= Microsoft Knowledge Base =

Recommended Method for Modeling Low-Resolution Characters
Last reviewed: December 23, 1996

Article ID: Q161385

The information in this article applies to:


 * Softimage 3D for IRIX, versions 3.5, 3.51
 * Softimage 3D for Windows NT, versions 3.01, 3.51

SUMMARY
The information contained in this article is designed for users who have a basic knowledge of SOFTIMAGE 3D. It is also specific to modeling low-resolution characters for games and/or interactive purposes.

MORE INFORMATION
There are many techniques that you can employ to create characters in SOFTIMAGE 3D, one of which is to model your characters with polygons right from the start. With this approach, you can model your object by duplicating and extracting polygons as well as moving points, but this is time-consuming and quite limiting.

The recommended approach, when creating low resolution models, is to start by modeling your characters using linear NURBS. With this method, you can convert your NURBS model to a polygon object at any given time you wish. To avoid undesirable subdivision, verify that your NURBS step size is set to (1,1) before performing this operation

In contrast to polygon modeling, using the NURBS approach, you benefit from most surface tools such as skin, revolution, four-sided, as well as extract, trim, and project tools that are inaccessible with polygon objects. In addition to this, you are still able to take advantage of modeling relation. For the available surface modeling tools, a curve is required to generate the model, which means you can also control the characteristics of the NURBS curves that you select for each operation in the NURBS Curve Setup. Also, if all your textures use Global UV maps, from the onset of the modeling process, you can see what your models look like with textures. This also gives you access to the various parameterization settings for NURBS surfaces that are useful for added texture-mapping control.

Once you have completed the modeling, you can simply convert the linear NURBS to a polygon mesh and retain all the UV information. If it is necessary, you can perform additional cleaning or polygon reduction with the Effect>Rulebased tool and the Effect>Filter tool to remove collinear edges and merge coinciding points. Likewise, you can control and modify the textures map resolution during the modeling process with the use of Color Reduction and Paint tools. Your character creation process becomes less of a linear approach and allows more precision and greater flexibility because you can take advantage of additional tools.