Workflow Feedback: Modeling & Texturing - kaze369

kaze369

I want to get some feedback on my modeling workflow so that I can keep improving my skills. The video is about 34 min. long and I'm modeling a prop based off a concept that Jouste made in the Unofficial Polycount Collaboration Project. My next video will be me texturing the asset.

Please give as much feedback as you possibly can.

watch video here

edit: please excuse all the clicking sounds, I didn't realize it would be so annoying.

bluekangaroo

my short answer would be to just keep practicing and you'll eventually get better and learn ways to do things more efficiently.

looking at it quickly I noticed you used extrude a bit to form geometry which I found a bit odd. I almost never do this as I find creating a whole separate piece/mesh works better.

also, I nticed some areas came out looking blobby when you turned on your turbo smooth...the best fix for this is to just add more geometry and divisions to your control mesh

kaze369

I uploaded the videos to Vimeo so that's it's easier to access.

http://vimeo.com/14075407

http://vimeo.com/14075726

http://vimeo.com/14075981

Xoliul

Hey man, just a few thoughts:

I was surprised you started modeling on a perspective image. Seems pretty useless if it's not an ortho. I would just not create an image plane at all, and mess around for a few minutes with primitives/superbasic modeling to get the proportions right. It's important to train your eye and sense for proportions without relying on guidelines too much.
Looking at it in the end, I also think you lost a few of the subtleties that give the concept charm. Yours comes off as a bit simplified, straight and too sharp. Examples are the hanging cable (way fatter on the concept) and the connector for the tube that goes into the ground (has a slope to it with a slight curve, yours is straight).

Bind Swiftloop to a hotkey (Shift-S for example) and use it extensively.

Don't ever use creasing edge vertically, over the length of a cylinder with SubD. There are ways around this, always. Be it more efficient/creative edgeflow, or just separating in (sub)objects. Like Eric says.

-In general, I would call your SubD modeling sloppy (the round holes in the sides are really bad). Your edgeflow is wavy and undecisive sometimes, your hard edges are too sharp and sometimes too blobby. I think in this piece in general, they could have a more decided, uniform, rounded look. Especially at the bottom of the mesh it got real messy (I skimmed through the vid, but I think you made some sort of accidental selection there).
Reason for this would be:
A, a sloppy/less efficient workflow, you can model OK, but for SubD there are multiple ways to achieve something, one or more are more efficient and clean then others. This would be the order in which you model things, going from broad to tiny shapes, using Edge constraints, using snapping, etc.
B: being more strict on yourself qualitywise, try to look at a mesh and compare to the absolute best quality you've seen from others. If you know others would be able to do this part cleaner, then don't be satisfied before you get the same result.

to recap how I woudl do this specific mesh:
-model in separate parts. All those bent panels? Just model em straight, and stick em on with a bend modifier. The main cylinder? Keep it simple, that way you won't get so many bumps. The round holes, yeah, those would have to be modeled in. That means I'd use a lot more segments on the main cylinder. But since I kept it simple (panels not extruded), It would only be a few minutes of work to recreate it with 50% more segments in case I got the number wrong. This approach would take less time, and look better in the end


my tips:
-Do more highpoly practices.
-Be VERY strict on yourself. Nothing but perfection is good enough. If you aim for 100%, you might get close to 85% the first time, and get this up to 99% maybe in later exercises.
-Pick interesting subjects, but vary them. Techy objects like this one to get the tricks for difficult corners and details down, but also big, flowing objects to learn general polyflow.
Something like a car; IMO learning the right sort of polyflow for cars is almost an art by itself. But again, you gotta be super strict on yourself, accuracy is absolute king here.
-Study other people's wireframes and techniques. For cars I know I learnt a ton from wireframes at cg-cars.com. Or when I learnt for the first time you could actually Bend/FFD an object after Turbosmooth.

PolyHertz

You badly need to hotkey some of the tools you're using, it seemed like you're relying on the UI for everything, and that's a big no-no when it comes to efficiency.

You should also practice making circular shapes sense looked like you had alot of problems with them in the video. Try using the spherify modifier, and/or geoloop + SplitRing from Illusion catalyst to round out and add evenly spaced loops to your geo. I'd recommend watching grant warwicks subdivision essentials tuts also: http://3dtotal.com/tutorial/3d_studio_max/hard_surface_essentials/hard_surface_01.php

kaze369

Xoliul wrote: »

Hey man, just a few thoughts:

I was surprised you started modeling on a perspective image. Seems pretty useless if it's not an ortho. I would just not create an image plane at all, and mess around for a few minutes with primitives/superbasic modeling to get the proportions right. It's important to train your eye and sense for proportions without relying on guidelines too much.
Looking at it in the end, I also think you lost a few of the subtleties that give the concept charm. Yours comes off as a bit simplified, straight and too sharp. Examples are the hanging cable (way fatter on the concept) and the connector for the tube that goes into the ground (has a slope to it with a slight curve, yours is straight).

Bind Swiftloop to a hotkey (Shift-S for example) and use it extensively.

Don't ever use creasing edge vertically, over the length of a cylinder with SubD. There are ways around this, always. Be it more efficient/creative edgeflow, or just separating in (sub)objects. Like Eric says.

-In general, I would call your SubD modeling sloppy (the round holes in the sides are really bad). Your edgeflow is wavy and undecisive sometimes, your hard edges are too sharp and sometimes too blobby. I think in this piece in general, they could have a more decided, uniform, rounded look. Especially at the bottom of the mesh it got real messy (I skimmed through the vid, but I think you made some sort of accidental selection there).
Reason for this would be:
A, a sloppy/less efficient workflow, you can model OK, but for SubD there are multiple ways to achieve something, one or more are more efficient and clean then others. This would be the order in which you model things, going from broad to tiny shapes, using Edge constraints, using snapping, etc.
B: being more strict on yourself qualitywise, try to look at a mesh and compare to the absolute best quality you've seen from others. If you know others would be able to do this part cleaner, then don't be satisfied before you get the same result.

to recap how I woudl do this specific mesh:
-model in separate parts. All those bent panels? Just model em straight, and stick em on with a bend modifier. The main cylinder? Keep it simple, that way you won't get so many bumps. The round holes, yeah, those would have to be modeled in. That means I'd use a lot more segments on the main cylinder. But since I kept it simple (panels not extruded), It would only be a few minutes of work to recreate it with 50% more segments in case I got the number wrong. This approach would take less time, and look better in the end


my tips:
-Do more highpoly practices.
-Be VERY strict on yourself. Nothing but perfection is good enough. If you aim for 100%, you might get close to 85% the first time, and get this up to 99% maybe in later exercises.
-Pick interesting subjects, but vary them. Techy objects like this one to get the tricks for difficult corners and details down, but also big, flowing objects to learn general polyflow.
Something like a car; IMO learning the right sort of polyflow for cars is almost an art by itself. But again, you gotta be super strict on yourself, accuracy is absolute king here.
-Study other people's wireframes and techniques. For cars I know I learnt a ton from wireframes at cg-cars.com. Or when I learnt for the first time you could actually Bend/FFD an object after Turbosmooth.

Thanks for all the advice Xoliul.
I didn't realize my modeling workflow was so inefficient.
There's just a few things that need a bit more explaining.

"Looking at it in the end, I also think you lost a few of the subtleties that give the concept charm. Yours comes off as a bit simplified, straight and too sharp."
excluding the dirt, grass and the wire, what makes my model deviate from the concept so much?

"...the connector for the tube that goes into the ground (has a slope to it with a slight curve, yours is straight)."
I really don't understand what you meant by this.

"Don't ever use creasing edge vertically, over the length of a cylinder with SubD."
I'm not sure what you mean?