Model and Texture a Low Poly Race Track
Today I am going to show you to to make a small, low poly track in Blender and texture it. It’s easier then you might think.
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Step 1
Open blender and press A to select everything, and press DEL on your keyboard to delete everything. Add a bevel curve (space > curve > beizer curve) and extrude (e) and move the nodes around until you have a track made. Also click the 3D button in the Editing Panel under Curve and Surface.
Step 2
Select the last new nodes and press C to merge them. Then adjust them to make them smoother. Then you can tweak your track to make it better, if one curve is to sharp or a piece of road isn’t straight, etc, fix it here.
Step 3
Deselect your track and add another beizer curve, this time in editing mode press V on your keyboard. Then resize it to make it smaller (note: you can add this curve anywhere since it will be deleted later.)
Step 4
Press the 3D button again, and make sure you are in top view. Then select the left node and extrude it upwards. Do the same with the right node. Then extrude them sideways, like in this image :
Step 5
Name this object anything you want, something short and easy (again, it doesnt matter what name it is). I am naming it “1″ in the Editing Pane. Now click your track and insert the name (“1″) here:
And if everything worked right, the object should follow your track curve and make a track with walls!
Step 6
Now comes more tweaking, fun stuff this time though. Your small curve you added last, re-size that smaller/bigger. You’ll notice the track also gets bigger and smaller. Adjust it until it’s right (e.x. parts of the track don’t overlap each other). You can also edit the track and make the curves different, longer, short, and raise the track up and down. Fun Stuff! Here’ s my finished track after editing it with these techniques:
Step 7
Now let’s texture! The fun part, since Blender gives you a painless unwrapping method. Select the track and press Alt+C and choose mesh (at this step you can delete that small curve I mentioned before, we dont need it). Go into edit mode, face select mode, and ALT+Select the middle faces. Then right click any one of the faces to de-select it, and then right click it again to re-select it. This step may seem useless, but it’s mandatory for the next step.
Step 7
Split the Blender work area and open up the UV Image Editor. The, back in the 3d grid view, press U and click Follow Active (Quads). Then choose Loop Average.
Step 8
Load up a road texture, press ALT+Z in grid view, and look at your sweet unwrapped, textured road! Looks awesome!
Step 9
The same technique applies to the sidewalk borders. Select them all with ALT+Right Click, and then ALT+Shift+Right Click to select more. Unwrap it with the same settings, load another texture, and click OK. So easy, professional result.
Conclusion
This track was probably made in under five minutes, but looks like it took a lot longer. You can create whole levels like this, and save a lot of time. It’s so fun, easy, and has a great look. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
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Craig Snedeker My name is Craig Snedeker. I am a teenage web designer, graphic designer, video editor, and I do some game design, photography, and videpgraphy. And I also love playing video games, listening to music, watching movies, and reading books! Read my blog at craigps.info
34 Comments to Model and Texture a Low Poly Race Track
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Great tutorial, worked really well.
Thanks
Thanks for the awesome tutorial. I am making a racing game and this really helped. It was easy.
does this also work in teh game engine?
How do you raise the track up and down? e.g. give the track hils and ramps as stuff. I can only seem to edit the curve from the top.
Thanx
Dallas: Yes it does
Blenderboy: Hit the [3D] button in the curve editing buttons.
Tell me if you can't find it or if it doesn't work
I knew technique of modeling but you thougt me the most useful way of unwrapping a track.
Thank you so much.
pix.
Your welcome!!
test
hi,
first of all thank you soo much for this tutorial! this saves me a looot of time!
i’m trying to do a loop with this technique but i cannot figure out how to do it properly..
it always twists if it goes upside down..
i would be very happy to hear from you
thank you very much
bb
What twists when it goes upside down? You have the [3d] button checked right?
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/1120/problemlq.jpg
this is my problem
I’m working with 2.49b and the “Follow active” feature doesn’t show up when I press “U”. Even though there’s a website on that script (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:Py/Scripts/Manual/UV/UV_Calculate/Follow_active_quads), I can’t see any download link… So where did you get that script and why do I need to press ALT when selecting the middle parts?
Forget about that, now it works after reinstalling Blender. Great tutorial anyway
Thanks
and yeah I wondered where the script was until I was told it’s embed in blender.
It won’t let me name the objects. Could i have a little help plz?
dude: if you are on 2.49b like me you have to enter the name of track section (after selection) in the Editing Panel (F9) > Link and Material tab > OB, then , selecting the track curve, type the name like in the above picture and press enter..
Craig Snedeker: i have a little problem: in your track segment you have only one face ( faces wall apart) in my case i got few faces in each segment.
Sure the picture explains better than me:
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/8994/blender.png
Where im wrong ?
Naturally my track section curve has only three segment like this \_/
sorry for double post
Hmmm the pic dont load for me. Try using LittlePix.co.cc free, no login.
I don’t quote get your problem :S
http://littlepix.co.cc/gallery/albums/useruploads/blender.bmp
nobody knows an answer to my problem? here it is again:
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/1120/problemlq.jpg
the track twists when the looping goes upside down!?
please help me
Maves: I don’t understand
BlenderBurt: I can’t see the picture. Try uploading to littlepix.co.cc
Burt: The curve in 2.49 is still a bit picky and will do that. I’ve seen similar problems in rigging tutorials that use curves. They use restraints, I think, to work around the problem. I’m not experienced enough to help with that, though.
http://littlepix.co.cc/gallery/albums/useruploads/problem.jpg
i don’t know how to work with restraints in blender but maybe there is another way to get rid of this problem? all i want to do is a looping
dont know how to extrude.. can you explain to me properly?
BlenderBurt: ive been looking for a solution to that problem for quite some time, ive heard it referred to as the ‘zero point crossover bug’, and this forum thread goes into detail about it: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=141604
there are a few work arounds, but nothing that truly fixes it i dont think.
however, in blender 2.5, you have the option to change the ‘type of tilt calculation’ for a curve (it calls it ‘twisting’), if you set it to minimum, vertical loops seem to work.
so… i guess now im stuck waiting for 2.5’s game engine to become halfway decent.
noobies: select a point by right clicking it, then press the ‘e’ key, then move the mouse, and left click where you want it.
to update my post, it seems i was wrong about 2.5’s game engine, after doing some fixing of my file, it works better than 2.49.
also, the last post in that thread i mentioned talks about using surfaces, which doesnt seem to work since you cant assign a bevel object to a surface based curve…
also, to illustrate the fix, http://www.snuq.com/temp/blender25zaxiscurve.jpg
victory!
hey man,, thx.. my next problem is i can’t follow the steps here.. im really a newbie in blender so i dont know how it really works.. but i gain some knowledge buy exploring it, so i know now the basics..im in step 6 now, i dont know what to do about it, my track is also not that in the image..im really confused, please help.. thx a lot man..
Questions might be better off asked on http://blenderartists.org/forum/
Nice, gotta try this out.
HI Craig Snedeker nice tut but i have a problem with that part
where is the face select mode i can not find it so i can not texture it right ):
Thx for ur help (: