Creating a HP and a LP Crate
High Poly Crate
To start my model of a crate I made a cylinder and rotated it onto its side. I then selected 3/4 of the cylinder using face select and deleted it. This left part of the cylinder that I could use to start my crate but I still had some of the cylinder left to delete so I once again used face select to delete all the parts of the cylinder except for the remaining faces of the top.
After deleting all the parts of the cylinder I didn’t need, I extruded the right edge of the faces I had left so that half of the handle shape was created. I then extruded the bottom edges of the model but then returned the pivot to center so that I could made the extruded part have a straight edge. The left edge then needed to be extruded and I deleted the faces that originated from the cylinder as well as the first extruded part from the right edge of those faces.
I then mirrored the model I had so that I could create the basis for the handle plank of my crate. To make it look more like a crate I used the extrude tool to add thickness and the scale tool to make it longer. So the model would stay true to its shape when smooth I added support loops using the multi-cut tool as shown in the image above.
To create the basis for the other planks, I added a cube and used the scale tool to make it a closer size to the handle plank. I then used vertex select and the point snap feature so that the cube was close to the same size as the handle area. I also made sure to use the multi-cut tool for support loops. I then duplicated this plank and moved it above the handle so the basis for the front handle of the crate was done for now. Before I duplicated the handle for the back handle, I combined the parts into one mesh so that each handle/side would be one separate part of the model rather then each plank.
To start the sides of the crate I duplicated the front again and scaled it so that it matched the space between the front and back handle. I also used the move tool so that I could fit it in a little more precisely. I then deleted the handle plank and selected the plank above where the handle was. Using shift right click I was able to duplicate the plank on its own and I moved it into the space where the handle was. Then I scaled it so that it would match the size of the handle plank that was previously there. I then combined the new plank with the other two and duplicated the combined mesh to create the other side by moving it to the other side of the model.
To create the base of the crate, I created a cube again and then scaled it so that it would be easier to match it to the size of the crate. I then used the point snap feature again by selecting vertices on each of the edges of the base so that it was the correct size. I also used point snap on the planks so that they were closer together for the baking process later on.
To make it look like my planks were not magically connected I decided to attempt to make some screws. To start them I created a cube and deleted half of the faces since they wouldn’t be seen. I then used a combination of the bevel tool, multi-cut tool and extrude tool to make an indent in the cube to mimic the top of a screw and then move it further in. I duplicated this screw multiple times so that there was two screws for each side of a plank.
To finish off the model I smoothed all of the parts of the high poly crate model so that it would be exported smoothed and I grouped and named all the parts so that later processes could work properly. The second image above also shows the poly count.
Low Poly Crate
To start the low poly version of my model, I started again with a cylinder and lined it up with the high poly handle hole. This is so I could easily recreate my model in at least a similar fashion. However, I couldn’t replicate the exact shape of the HP handle hole as I edited the shape of the hole so I couldn’t make the hole in the exact same way.
I scaled the remaining faces of the cylinder to match the shape of half of the HP handle hole and then extruded from the bottom edges of these faces. To make the edges straight I scaled them up which made it possible for me to match up the edges with the bottom of the original handle. I then used a combination of the extrude tool and move tool to create the LP version of the front handle as shown in the image above. To decrease the poly count of the model I used the weld tool to weld some of the vertices together.
I duplicated the handle part again to create the side of the model and used the merge to center function on the vertices of the handle to get rid of the handle. I then got rid of any extra unnecessary edges. To get the base I duplicated the first base I made for the HP model and removed the support loops that I added.
The images above show the naming conventions for the LP model parts and the overall poly count compared to the poly count of the LP model.
