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How The F*#% Do I Model This? - Reply for help with specific shapes - (Post attempt before asking)

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  • Bumblebee
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    Bumblebee polycounter lvl 3
    I recently started a project after a very long time and I endep up where I had little geo to work with at the highpoly stage. The problem I always have on a curved surface that when I want to tighten an edge, I have this ugly pinch. I first use cut to make the loops and then collapse the tri so I have nice quads. The prob is i have a huge pinch after that which looks  plain ugly. Anyone got a better approach? I looked at other peoples highpolys and they have the same topology but theirs isnt pinchy


  • Revel
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    Revel interpolator
    The minor pinching well be removed during the bake?
    Eh, it's not magically disappear, I mean it's just gonna take a small portion on your maps that it didn't even worth the time to spend fixing the pinching. From your screenshot it looks clean, try to bake it into a normal map and apply temp texture on top, I doubt you will notice any pinching there.
  • Revel
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    Revel interpolator
    Bumblebee said:
    ...
    Hmm, please don't too carried over with a 'nice quad' flow on your highpoly, if the ngon can give a better result just use it.
    I don't really understand your last image though but here's an example of my 1911 I did recently.

    On that section I even have 6 sided poly but smooth without any *noticeable* pinching..but you do need to line up the curvature there nicely (view on ortho helps alot when you want to check curve surface).
  • guitarguy00
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    guitarguy00 polycounter lvl 6
    Revel said:
    The minor pinching well be removed during the bake?
    Eh, it's not magically disappear, I mean it's just gonna take a small portion on your maps that it didn't even worth the time to spend fixing the pinching. From your screenshot it looks clean, try to bake it into a normal map and apply temp texture on top, I doubt you will notice any pinching there.
    Thank you. I will give it a shot. Is it sometimes impossible to avoid minimal pinching when it comes to putting hard edges on curved surfaces like this?
  • Justo
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    Justo polycounter
    Is there a single chamfer op in Max that lets me get something like C from A? All I get is B.

    I guess I could get that if I chamfered the four vertical edges first, then added a loop near the top, and manually shrank the top face. Any quicker routes?

     

  • Mad_Llama
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    Mad_Llama polycounter lvl 6
    @Justo beveling the side and then the top edges (or the top and then the side edges) would yield the C result. Though there might be a faster way, your suggestion is also on point.
  • Justo
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    Justo polycounter
    Oh, that's nice! That reduces the operation to two chamfers. That's better than what I had before, thanks :) 
  • Udjani
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    Udjani interpolator
    How can i make this shape?, i could get kinda close to that, but couldn't find a way to get the sharper corners maintaining quads and without pinching. i guess that using more geometry would work, but i feel like is enough, just that i can`t do it. 

    Anyway any tip or how would you approach it would help me!
  • admiralpixel15
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    admiralpixel15 polycounter lvl 2
    @dchani  This is what I've done with my model before. It's not the best way to approach this kind of shape and I'm pretty sure there are much more convenient way to do this. Hopefully this will be like a guide. 
  • daniel_v
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    daniel_v polycounter lvl 6
    Hey guys!

    I've asked a very similar question in the beginning of this year but this simple problem still keeps me busy. It would be great if someone here could help me out since I'm not able to find a solution here in the forum. Perhaps someone could even draw a correct edgeflow on my screenshots....
    How can I reduce the pinching in these 2 corners? I would love to have absolutely no pinching in my viewport at all. ;-)

    Thanks!
  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    curved and done. 
  • daniel_v
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    daniel_v polycounter lvl 6
    ok great, so just a bit of speading things should make things work fine? :)
  • nordahl154
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    nordahl154 polycounter lvl 9
    Is there a cleaner way to arrange my wires? I'm sure there is but I'm not visualizing it...



  • Revel
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    Revel interpolator
    Normally I will avoid having a vertex pole on my control loop so it will create an equal distance.
  • rage288
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    rage288 polycounter lvl 7
    Is there a cleaner way to arrange my wires? I'm sure there is but I'm not visualizing it...



    You are creating poles on control loop for the sake of a quadrangular topology, thats quite wrong cause it will most likely create some kind of shading error or noticeable pinching.
    Who cares how the wires look as long as the model subdivides and looks as intended?
    In a case like that piece I would do the following (as long as its Hard Surface and its not going to be deformed):



    It may not look nice in wireframe but the shading is perfect and my bevel on the edges is consistent and pinching-free

    FUCK Quads! :)

    Cheers
  • Pacer
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    Pacer polycounter lvl 3
    rage288 said:
    Is there a cleaner way to arrange my wires? I'm sure there is but I'm not visualizing it...



    You are creating poles on control loop for the sake of a quadrangular topology, thats quite wrong cause it will most likely create some kind of shading error or noticeable pinching.
    Who cares how the wires look as long as the model subdivides and looks as intended?
    In a case like that piece I would do the following (as long as its Hard Surface and its not going to be deformed):



    It may not look nice in wireframe but the shading is perfect and my bevel on the edges is consistent and pinching-free

    FUCK Quads! :)

    Cheers
    EDIT: ups I quoted both. nvm. idk how to delet it lol.
    Well it's my first post here and I'm actually very new to 3D. But its my approach to that model! 


  • Spunky
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    Spunky polycounter lvl 11
    The grip on this revolver is killing me.

    I've tried probably a dozen times trying to get it. I've mostly been starting with half of a cylinder and strip modeling around the edge...but when I get to that part near the trigger I shit the bed.


    Any tips on how I should approach doing this?




  • hypronost
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    hypronost polycounter lvl 6
    Hi,

    I feel like I'm doing this horribly wrong.
    Is there a better way of getting these angles cut out of a dome while retaining the smoothness of the dome?




  • Bluewake
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    Bluewake polycounter lvl 2
    hypronost said:
    Hi,

    I feel like I'm doing this horribly wrong.
    Is there a better way of getting these angles cut out of a dome while retaining the smoothness of the dome?

    Here is my take on it. Someone more experienced may know of a better way.
  • Br0ken
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    Br0ken polycounter lvl 3
    Shinigami said:
    Is there any way to replicate this in max @perna

    https://youtu.be/luFz5gzvM9s
    This feature is partially achievable with Skin Wrap and Conform, but in result a whole mesh will be deformed, not bottom only...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqay1_giSgk
    Maybe anyone know a better solution?

    edit:
    Using Blend Distance in 
    Skin Wrap options it's possible to choose nedded-to-deform part of mesh, so result looks nice now.



  • Mossbros
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    Mossbros polycounter lvl 9
    @Spunky
    Sometimes starting with less geo helps, with that many edge loops you may struggle with deforming it to that shape.
    Sure it's possible, but maybe not worth the time if you can do it with less geometry first, then add more later. 

    Not the greatest of examples, but you catch the drift I assume. 



    Get your close to potato approximation, then edit on top, one of many ways.
  • hypronost
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    hypronost polycounter lvl 6
    Bluewake said:
    hypronost said:
    Hi,

    I feel like I'm doing this horribly wrong.
    Is there a better way of getting these angles cut out of a dome while retaining the smoothness of the dome?

    Here is my take on it. Someone more experienced may know of a better way.
    That looks great!
    Thanks a bunch!
  • guitarguy00
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    guitarguy00 polycounter lvl 6
    This is basically the same as the previous question, and has the same answer, only instead of an extrusion you have an inset. Those weird honeycomb shapes you have? Don't do that.
    Thanks. I tried a similar method to the one posted on the previous page and it worked out much better. I still get a tiny bit of pinching on the corners of the inset(horizontally), is this unavoidable?




  • Udjani
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    Udjani interpolator
    Whats about the spheres? 

    I was trying to make that shape, the first one kinda get close, but the topology is quite dence, and still have some pinching, for the second one, i was trywing to do with less topology to get more controll, but end up with wrong shape and more pinching. 




    If you want to take a closer look at my two balls they are donw here \/

    Sorry, couldn't resist.
  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    dchani said:
    Whats about the spheres? 

    I was trying to make that shape, the first one kinda get close, but the topology is quite dence, and still have some pinching, for the second one, i was trywing to do with less topology to get more controll, but end up with wrong shape and more pinching. 




    If you want to take a closer look at my two balls they are donw here \/

    Sorry, couldn't resist.
    https://www.pinterest.se/pin/166211042476176563/

    https://www.pinterest.se/pin/62768988537719948/

    https://www.pinterest.se/pin/545498573598258711/

    https://www.pinterest.se/pin/490962796864607331/
  • demigodssw
  • demigodssw
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    demigodssw greentooth
    Hi guys, I am modeling a star trooper helmet and I am getting some weird shading in the area inside the red circles. I was wondering is there any way to fix it without adding too many addition loops?

  • demigodssw
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    demigodssw greentooth
    Gave up, added some loops and fixed it.
  • Spunky
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    Spunky polycounter lvl 11
    @Mossbros thanks! ill give that shot. I do have a bad habit of piling too much geo on too early.
  • KonradSilver
    I'm trying to get the wholes set into this mesh where the bolts fit into the forearm cover. having trouble making circular cutouts while retaining the surrounding surface quality


  • gfelton
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    gfelton polycounter lvl 6
    I'm trying to get the wholes set into this mesh where the bolts fit into the casing. having trouble making circular cutouts while retaining the surrounding surface quality
    Could you post a picture of the problem area?
  • KonradSilver
    gfelton said:
    I'm trying to get the wholes set into this mesh where the bolts fit into the casing. having trouble making circular cutouts while retaining the surrounding surface quality
    Could you post a picture of the problem area?  


    I have circled where i'm having trouble getting insets without deforming the surface. Using Maya 2017. Thanks!
  • rage288
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    rage288 polycounter lvl 7
    @KonradSilver if you plan to bake it later into a low poly I highly recomend using floaters for those details or even painting them into the normalmap or heightmap in substance painter or quixel or whatever

  • serpantin
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    serpantin polycounter lvl 2
    Dear pros, especially sculptors, please help. I'm obsessing over this and can't stop.

    So I have this anime figure head I'm recreating (Super Sonico).



    What makes it different from lots of others is that the front bang/hair is smooth until gets cut into nice sharp edges. As if one continuous mesh. As as you can see from the shadow it's in fact a shell-mold and hair is actually modeled around the head. I know the traditional technique of layering disconnected/island meshes:

     

    To get this classic "islanded/feathered" hair look:



    But in case of my anime head hair looks like a one-cut mesh.

    I've modeled a base mesh in 3D Coat (because voxels and such an erratic mesh full of long extrudes):



    And detailed it some:



    And here's what it actually looks like:



    As you can see it's actually a mutilated voxel sphere and not a shell (although I can make it into one with a boolean against the bit blown up head). What I tried were all kinds of stuff finally ending with me creating a spline in the form of parts to cut away which I then scuplted around (moved those in basically).



    Still there's an issue of the end result looking too noisy (also hard to clean up) and not quite like the original.

    Voxel resolution is not the issue here, because I switched to a 4-mil surface/poly mode as soon as base mesh was done and didn't switch back, so there's was enough rez for detailing. I also retopologized the mesh before bringing it to Mudbox for polishing.

    I can FEEL I'm doing it wrong, but for the life of me can't figure out the "right" technique. I WISH I could let it do and go for a feathered look or even try to hide the transition from the hairball into front hair islands, but it would be cheating, no?

    Sorry for a probably stupid request, hopefully I won't get banned for this.
  • serpantin
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    serpantin polycounter lvl 2
    Dear pros, especially sculptors, please help. I'm obsessing over this and can't stop.

    So I have this anime figure head I'm recreating (Super Sonico).



    What makes it different from lots of others is that the front bang/hair is smooth until gets cut into nice sharp edges. As if one continuous mesh. As as you can see from the shadow it's in fact a shell-mold and hair is actually modeled around the head. I know the traditional technique of layering disconnected/island meshes:

     

    To get this classic "islanded/feathered" hair look:



    But in case of my anime head hair looks like a one-cut mesh.

    I've modeled a base mesh in 3D Coat (because voxels and such an erratic mesh full of long extrudes):



    And detailed it some:



    And here's what it actually looks like:



    As you can see it's actually a mutilated voxel sphere and not a shell (although I can make it into one with a boolean against the bit blown up head). What I tried were all kinds of stuff finally ending with me creating a spline in the form of parts to cut away which I then scuplted around (moved those in basically).



    Still there's an issue of the end result looking too noisy (also hard to clean up) and not quite like the original.

    Voxel resolution is not the issue here, because I switched to a 4-mil surface/poly mode as soon as base mesh was done and didn't switch back, so there's was enough rez for detailing. I also retopologized the mesh before bringing it to Mudbox for polishing.

    I can FEEL I'm doing it wrong, but for the life of me can't figure out the "right" technique. I WISH I could let it do and go for a feathered look or even try to hide the transition from the hairball into front hair islands, but it would be cheating, no?

    Sorry for a probably stupid request, hopefully I won't get banned for this.
  • Noors
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    Noors greentooth
    I'm not familiar with 3d coat, but i guess you have a tool similar to zbrush dynamesh ? You can make one continous mesh from multiple separated meshes. The guy here is making a printable figurine, so you can watch the all serie, it's pretty neat. You can find more look at "sakaki kaoru"
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WbNRMFgkao

    and this aswell, i think it's the same guy.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr0owEPNj_c


  • KonradSilver
    can someone help me get a grip on the topology necessary for this lower receiver, using sub-d modeling in maya?
  • MaxHoek
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    MaxHoek polycounter lvl 8
    @KonradSilver yes maybe we can, but please post your attempt before. 
  • KonradSilver
    @MaxHoek excellent, thank you for the heads up. Still trying to get a better feel for the etiquette here.
  • Michael Knubben
    It's literally in the thread title :neutral:
  • KonradSilver
    @Michael Knubben
    yipes that's embarrassing 
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    EDIT:  Unless you want to demonstrate a solution for your own enjoyment or the learning of others, disregard -- I found a way to accomplish this in Zbrush using masking and deformation.

    I am a beginning Zbrush user, and this is my project to build familiarity with the program. The first picture below is my reference, and the bottom picture is my current progress in recreating that model.

    Notice the mechanical inset along the creatures skull? I play around with some brushes in Zbrush but couldn't find a combination that gave me the uniformity and hardness to recreate that. My next idea is to jump back into Maya to make that part as it is a simple hard surface pattern, but I imagine there are some techniques in Zbrush to accomplish this without having to switch programs. Any advice?





    Solution:

    Made a custom insert mesh brush, drew it out as a curve. Dynamesh to get it all together.


  • kiran14
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    kiran14 null
    Trying to add this in cylinder but can't figure out , how do I connect the edges .

    Here is something that I tried but can't figure it out.
    I have added a white plane to show the gap that is causing the issue. 
    the green and the and the pink part is welded but added different material on it to  highlight.

    Front view 


    Top view.


  • Michael Knubben
    The 'show results' in the title should be taken to mean 'show us what you've tried', not, 'show us where you stopped trying'.
    There's a gap there. What have you tried to fill that gap?
    If you show us that, and show us what the problem with your result is, we can better help you.
  • kiran14
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    kiran14 null
    This is what I tried .
    I also tried adding a shell modifier to it and extruding it in inverse direction and then welding the dark green cylinder.  Which didn't help.
    If i showed you the versions that I have tried , due to welding this edges would be hard to demonstrate . 
    I can't make the other dark green cylinder separate ,as it should seem to a one object and I want to make it a high poly model.

    Sorry I am not good at english  Michael Knubben 
  • TheWiredFrame
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    TheWiredFrame polycounter lvl 7
    Decided to start modelling in Blender again, figured I'd try something "simple" at first so I picked a shotgun. This problem ought to be easy to solve for experienced modellers but I just can't quite grasp the workflow in Blender as to how to do it, even though I have a good idea of what it looks like and what the vertices should probably look like in the final state.

    My problem is this little curved/beveled section between the stock and the receiver:



    It's like a little curved corner that appears to be beveled/inset a little bit. Then there's the gradual curve of the bottom and top of the receiver to deal with at the same time, without screwing everything up.

    This is what I've tried so far:



    It's sorta close but I really think I'm going in the wrong direction. Started with a cube and used Ctrl+R a lot then merged some vertices.

    Maybe use some kind of face modelling technique? Or is that needlessly complicated?
  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    Decided to start modelling in Blender again, figured I'd try something "simple" at first so I picked a shotgun. This problem ought to be easy to solve for experienced modellers but I just can't quite grasp the workflow in Blender as to how to do it, even though I have a good idea of what it looks like and what the vertices should probably look like in the final state.

    My problem is this little curved/beveled section between the stock and the receiver:



    It's like a little curved corner that appears to be beveled/inset a little bit. Then there's the gradual curve of the bottom and top of the receiver to deal with at the same time, without screwing everything up.

    This is what I've tried so far:



    It's sorta close but I really think I'm going in the wrong direction. Started with a cube and used Ctrl+R a lot then merged some vertices.

    Maybe use some kind of face modelling technique? Or is that needlessly complicated?
    You need 1. better reference. 2 planning. I mean draw out the edgeflow in Krita, Photoshop or Gimp and understand how it's built. then it's easier for you to build it. .. 
    I'd build the whole stock and either boolean that part out. Or, cut it out. 
  • cromadbomber
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    cromadbomber polycounter lvl 10
    TheWiredFrame Model the receiver as continuation over that curve. Create a plane using low amount of polygons. SubD it and play around until you get the desirable result. Extrude the plane and finally do a difference boolean operation.
     

  • Deforges
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    Deforges polycounter lvl 11
    Hey guys, I've been learning modo and I guess there is more of a question for that as opposed to the shape. I'm trying to create the butt end of this knife where straight edges curve a bit. If I were in max I would form a bunch of FFDs and drag the middle edges until it looked good. I found I can do something similar with the lattice affector in modo but it doesn't seem "right" I'm wondering if there is an easier way to achieve what I want. If anyone can help me out I'd really appreciate it.





  • TheWiredFrame
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    TheWiredFrame polycounter lvl 7
    K, thanks for the ideas, I'll give it another few attempts and see how it goes.
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