Stop Wasting Polygons! The Better Way to Model Wood

In this video, I create a low-poly wooden barrel from start to finish. The barrel is modeled in Blender, unwrapped in Unfold, custom bump and height details are created in Photoshop, and the final texturing is completed in Substance Painter. The focus is on keeping the geometry optimized while pushing the detail through textures to achieve a clean, game-ready result. Software used: Blender Unfold Photoshop Substance 3D Painter 00:00 - Intro: The common mistake of over-modeling wood details 00:45 - Analyzing the reference: What needs geometry vs. what needs texture 01:30 - Modeling the base mesh: Focus on silhouette and optimization 02:50 - UV Unwrapping: Preparing the model for procedural wood textures 04:15 - Substance Painter workflow: Creating realistic wood grain without polygons 05:40 - Adding edge wear and surface damage through height maps 07:10 - Optimization check: Comparing poly counts and performance 08:30 - Final render and visual comparison 09:50 - Summary: When to model and when to texture