High Poly Hard Surface Modeling...

Havok

Greetings, this my first post but I have been lurking around for a while just looking at all of the spectacular artwork that you guys produce. I just wanted to know how you would go about modeling a high poly weapon for normal mapping. Would you use a box and start cutting, start with a plane, etc. For example, although it is not a weapon, the way Tim A. did his Sarge model's armor is what I am going for. I would appreciate any advice you could give me. Thanks in advance.

aesir

People all model in different ways. Some model from a box and just cut the shit out of it. Some do edge extrusion. I do both.

Just do whatever is easiet for you to get the result you want. Study other people's wireframes to see how they do what they do and recreate it.

Havok

Thanks for the reply. Right now I am trying to model an FN Scar, but the real thing I need help with is making it look like a hard surface. When I chamfer the edges, it looks like it is a hard surface, but chamfering is a bit hard to work with in my opinion. Do you have any examples of how my edges should look without a turbosmooth in my stack? Awesome work in your portfolio by the way.

Flewda

You're going to have to add hundreds to even thousands of extra edge loops by the time you are done with a hard surface model. When you use a turbosmooth or meshsmooth, you're going to have to add an edgeloop on each side of an edge you want to just have a hard (but rounded) edge. If you don't, that edge will obviously be all bulbous and rounded, not hard.

Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about not using chamfers/extra edge loops. It's the nature of the beast. Can you show us your progress so far, so we can make some comments, perhaps there is an easier approach to it than what you have?

Sage

Check this out, it might give enough information to get you started. With Sub d you really just have to do over and over to get a feel for it.

He has more tutorials here. http://lounge.ego-farms.com/

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emaslows/...DPrinciples.mov

You can also check out the tutorials in 3D palace. Take as a guide since you'll find better ways of this. Watch the Dreadnought one. Check out some of the Softimage tutorials as well since they cover sub D as well.

http://www.3d-palace.com/

Havok

Flewda-Yea, many edgeloops. I have been looking at peoples high poly wireframes and have seen a ton of things that I have missed. I started over 3 times and am starting to get a feel for it. Here is a screengrab as you requested:


Sage-Awesome links, dude. Thanks. Those are some automatic adds to my favorites. I can't check them out now though, but once I do I will come back and thank you again.

Flewda

Looks like you are off to a good start. The one thing that stands out to me is that your edges are razor sharp. Even though it's hard surfaced, a lot of edges have a very nice/soft roundness to it, so people don't cut themselves on it like a knife. The other benefit to making the edges a little more gradual is that it will show up in the normal map much better than if it's a super tight edge like that. All in all though, looks like you are starting to understand it. Just takes a lot of practice, so keep going.

Havok

Thanks, Flewda. The only problem I am having is making the little strips on the clip. I will figure it out though. I will fix those corners a bit later aswell because I have to get off in 2 minutes. Thanks for the feedback once again.

Havok

Excuse me, but how would I go about hiding an element in Max? Also, would it make Max work any faster? I am asking because the grip I made in front is slowing me down a lot and I need better performance. Thanks in advance.

Flewda

Well, you should probably make sure it's a separate object, and if it is, just have it selected, right click in the viewport, and should have an option for "Hide Selected Object" if you want it to remain part of one big object (with the rest of the gun) then you would select it in the element mode, and in the subobject menu you'll find a section for hide/unhide selected as well (it will not work to just simply right click on the view port when doing this in subobject mode).

I suggest using layers. It keeps things organized, and if you do want to hide something just really quick (temporarily) you can then just click unhide all when you are finished, and it will ask you if you want to unhide your layers, just click no and it'll only unhide the things not in layers (so you can keep those things out of your way). Layers are great once you train yourself to remember to use them

Eric Chadwick

Some more subdivision-modeling links I posted recently elsewhere, might help you out.

• Subdivisionmodeling.com
• Per's minitutorials
• Polycount - modeling hi poly weapons is painful, any tips?
• Polycount - technical highpoly workflow tutorial and scripts

Havok

Thanks for the help guys, I wont have any updates for a long time, though.

Ged

wow Ive never seen those minitutorials of pers, quite handy really thanks per!