I’ve been stuck the 3 past days on getting the shoelaces right, shaping them, making a proper bow and simplifying them. I’m almost done with the low polygon model. All I need to do is to lay everything properly on the different texture maps I’m planning to use and I can start texturing.

I’m reusing the hooks that where initially made for the pony boots, but I need to make smaller eyelets, not a problem thankfully. Lacing as usual is a royal pain to make and I’m leaving the knotting for tomorrow (if I do not just steal the knot of the pony boots). As it turns out the stitches I’ve baked into the test texture are too close to the hooks, so I’ll have to redo that, not a big deal.

I think that I did a pretty good job so far, the low polygon model is only 1950 triangles. Considering that the high polygon model was 11952, it’s not bad at all. I could probably go further down but Shigeko is going to kill me if I do. I need to the final UVWmapping but there is no hurry at the moment, whatever I have now is good enough to work with.

Next step: Adding all the hooks, eyes and lace it all up properly.

I’d like to add that bothering to make a low polygon model is not just “nice” it’s what make the difference between a good and a lazy modeler.

The high-resolution model is pretty much done, Unwrapping, stitches and I also have a hidden spine. I might add a couple of extra thing things later, but now it’s time to focus on the low polygon version.

Progression has been very slow, I’ve been asking their opinion to several people, getting their suggestions, doing slight changes here and there. I finally decided that this was enough, and really… this is as good as it is every going to get.

Now… to the next step.

I finally managed to write my own little voxel system on Torque3D. The code is extremely crude and pretty much unusable for anything but this specific example. This does give me a better understanding of how to write into a vertex buffer to create a 3D model “on the fly” based on dynamic parameters.

Good progress on the boots today, i added some details which should have been bump mapped normally, but I wanted the toes upper seam to mark the starting point of the lacing, speaking of those caps… I’m not entirely sure whether I like them or not, now they look a little too hm.. dressy, but once textured, maybe it will blend in the background and won’t pop out as much.

I’m also tempted to have a spine on the back and maybe a pull loop like on the pony boots.

It’s pretty rare that I do not already have a very clear idea of what I want to do. This was one of these times. But I’m finally getting somewhere; and past the “design roadblock”.

That’s where I realize that boots are definitely not my area of expertise. I’ve done nothing the past few days but tweaking the shape of the mockup model and I’m still not fully satisfied. by it.

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