Are you excited about MVFW 2023? We at Low Poly Models certainly are! We have put a lot of effort into designing and creating our latest collection, and we can't wait for you to see it. In this blogpost, we'll take you behind the scenes and show you how our team came up with the concept, 3D modeled the wearables, and added eye-catching elements to each piece.
Concept Development
As a team, we went through several design concepts before deciding to create a techwear style collection. Nicole suggested a jumpsuit with an upturned hood, shorts, and baggy sleeves, which became the foundation of our latest collection. We wanted to create wearables that could be customized to show more or less body -ody -ody, depending on your preference. We started 3D modeling in Blender, beginning with the more feminine avatar shape. We make two representations of any Decentraland wearables that have hips, as there are two different body shapes on the platform and their hips fit together differently like lego pieces.
3D Modeling and Texturing
Once the first jumpsuit was modeled, we weight painted the mesh to the armature and uploaded it to the DCL builder to test its movement with emotes. Once we were happy with the movement, we moved on to the texturing process. We made some 2D sketches of how we wanted the design to look, with more creases, patches, logos, seams, and other eye-catching elements, and used this process to decide their placement. FGR3D UV unwrapped and textured the jumpsuit in Substance Painter using the sketches as a guide and adjusting according to what looks best in 3D.
We also created a second jumpsuit, which KJ 3D modeled with long pants and a baggier fit. Each jumpsuit has custom hair because having the hood upturned leads to clipping with most hairstyles. One of the hairstyles is short and spiky, and the other is longer and softer. With the shorter hairstyle, we reached out to the community on twitter to ask for your feedback between a couple of styles. It was almost unanimous that the swoop hairstyle was cooler and more fun! Thank you for your help with this.
During the modeling process, we added loop cuts and subdivisions to create more detail in some areas, like creases. Once we were happy with the overall shape of the wearable, we stripped the polygons down to the bare minimum, so it’s under the wearable limitations.
For the tech pants and matching tops, FGR3D took over 3D modeling, weight painting, and texturing, as KJ's tendonitis flared up after an intense project (we’re excited to tell you about.) We wanted one version to be looser and the other to be more form-hugging. So, one set is long and baggy, and the other is slightly less baggy and has a crop top.
With the crop top, we wanted to add a splash of colour but we weren’t sure which colour to use. We considered using DCL’s RGB feature so people could pick their own colour top, however that posed a few problems and things to consider:
- It would put us over the texture limits for this wearable.
- A workaround could be to add a custom hairstyle to the wearable but that would limit how much people can express themselves with their hair
- Not everyone likes the RGB feature, it is connected to hair colour meaning anything RGB will be the same tone as your chosen hair colour.
So FGR3D put together a bunch of different colour undershirts and we showed them to you guys! The response was fascinating, there were so many different preferences and it’s the closest poll we’ve ever run by far.
By one vote, the cyan top outdid the rest, followed by yellow and dark blue in joint-second place and red and pink in joint-third. With results so close, we asked the community how they would feel if we changed the wearable color from time to time once it’s published. That way, they could enjoy different colors. The results were mostly positive and we’ll check in with the community to gauge your preferences before making any changes.
Finishing Touches
To finish up the wearable collection, we added glitchy glowing elements to the textures by hand-painting them. Combining Substance Painter techniques with hand-painted textures seemed an interesting way to add in extra details and we’re glad we did! We usually use photoshop when painting textures, though there are many softwares you can use for image editing, including Blender and Gimp.
Official Unveiling and Sale
Low Poly Models' latest collection will be officially unveiled in Decentraland on March 28th during metaverse fashion week. Besides seeing the new collection, we will also be celebrating Low Poly Models' fourth birthday🎉 with great music from independent musicians and DJs in Spain.
The legendary wearables, limited to 100 units, will go on sale at the start of the party, with prices starting below market value and increasing in cost after every 5 sales. This means that the earlier you purchase, the better deal you'll get. The collection will be available for purchase exclusively in Decentraland's and Droffo's Marketplaces , and we can't wait to see how you'll style these wearables in the metaverse.
Set a Reminder for the Party ⏰
The collection will be released during Low Poly Models 4th birthday party on 28th March at 4pm EST . Follow this link to the official event on the DCL events page to RSVP and press the bell icon 🔔 to get reminded of the event!
Future Utilities
We aim to add extra utilities to the wearables in the future.
Get a closer look at these designs on our Sketchfab...
Short Playsuit: Here
Long Playsuit: Here
Baggy Outfit: Here
Snatched Outfit: Here