first model: simple pillar
I've modeled a simple pillar, even though one thing that's bothering me is I can't create those two cylinders on either side of at the top, because I don't know how I'm supposed to without creating n-gons and other mess ups. Basically, I simply don't know how to go about it.
The entire mesh so far is made up mostly of cylinders from bottom to top, using mostly extrudes/bevels/scaling to get some detail in until I reached near the top. I then made a box and did a few extrudes/scales until I got the shape I wanted, then did a boolean to join the two objects...not a good idea.
Once I did there were a ton of extra verts and weird ngons and things like that. after a while I managed to fix them all but I still can't figure out what it was I did that caused that to happen.
How can I go about getting those cylinders to cleanly be attached to, or extruded from the existing mesh I currently have without creating n-gons? I should also mention I'm trying to keep this low-poly even though there's a lot of divisions going on, I only added them because of the stupid n-gon problems. the only reason I'm trying to avoid them is because from my understanding n-gons are a bad thing to have in video game assets, though I can never seem to find out why either.
Here's what I have so far
The entire mesh so far is made up mostly of cylinders from bottom to top, using mostly extrudes/bevels/scaling to get some detail in until I reached near the top. I then made a box and did a few extrudes/scales until I got the shape I wanted, then did a boolean to join the two objects...not a good idea.
Once I did there were a ton of extra verts and weird ngons and things like that. after a while I managed to fix them all but I still can't figure out what it was I did that caused that to happen.
How can I go about getting those cylinders to cleanly be attached to, or extruded from the existing mesh I currently have without creating n-gons? I should also mention I'm trying to keep this low-poly even though there's a lot of divisions going on, I only added them because of the stupid n-gon problems. the only reason I'm trying to avoid them is because from my understanding n-gons are a bad thing to have in video game assets, though I can never seem to find out why either.
Here's what I have so far
Replies
i wouldnt bool for lowpoly though.
just keep it two seperate meshes and attach them to one another in the end, just before exporting.
on top of the shading issues you dont want to have too many tris in animated objects, because they wont deform well. game engines actually break up your mesh into their tris in the end, at least thats what i heard.
1) Regular 12 sided cylinder, the number of sides isn't specific you can use whatever you want I happen to like 12 sides because they divide easily and are round enough for low poly work.
2) Using swift loop or connect add two edges.
3) Select half of the polys in the middle of the cylinder.
4) Extrude with a value of 0.0 and then move the polys along one axis, this is just to keep things flat, extrude will often project along a common angle and on a cylinder those angles are not perfect.
5) Make planar on X.
6) Apply the symmetry modifier.
If you start to model it before you understand the shape/form then you'll go wrong.
The issue is there are multiple profiles here in several dimensions.
The top cap is square, then the next profile is rounded around the front, but squares off each side and flows into the cylinders at each side.
Then the decorated profile under that is properly round with straight intersections into the side cylinders.
So I'd block it out with nice high density shapes first and make sure it's flowing right.
Then when you go over with your low polys you have a guide pre-made to work to that you are confident are correct in form so you are not spotting issues or having to change stuff too much after you have started.
Here is my effort with 8 sides... not sure I'd model in those swirls though if I were making it 8 sided, but I'd probably profile the front of the cylinder so it pushed forward and sat level with the cap square, then use texture shading to give it the 3d feel.
Booleans with Pro-boolean can be useful but you need to know what you want and will get from them to make best use of them as has been said above.
Maybe see it as a good blocking out tool to get a nice mesh to conform your low-poly one to for example.
Cheers
Dave
Dave even as a blockout (is that your blockout?) that already looks amazing. I really like the swirl design and as you mentioned yes, the profiling at the top made this difficult for me. I want all my objects to connect clean such as in yours but I'm not sure the proper tools to go about it. As Mark mentioned I currently have my two cylinders "hovering" or intersecting with the larger cylinder in the middle of the pillar and the profile above it but they aren't actually attached/connected yet, because I don't know how to go about doing so while keeping all tris with no n-gons (even though it's not a rule it's something I'd like to practice now as to not to develop bad habits i suppose)
I wen't ahead earlier without the pillars, and attempted my first UV unwrap. I'm not totally sure how right it is. I used the cylinder unwrap from the bottom to the top cylinder, planar for the bottom surface of the top pillar and cube for everything else at the top (reading this just hurt my own head)
I'm not quite sure what to look for but I think this is correct?
Blocking out would be like drawing each obvious shape as a simple Max primitive.
In the attached image I've just drawn in the cylinders for all the main parts.
The top is just an appropriately sized rectangle.
The bit underneath the cap is another rectangle with an FFD modifier with 5 width segments and 2 in the other two dimensions. Then I've just tweaked the shape in frontal profile to give it the V shape, and then from above I've pinched the sides back so they flow into the swiss-roll shapes at each side.
Then the swiss-rolls are a spline helix with an extrude modifier, and then a shell modifier on top of that. Play around and you'll get a feel for them working together (note that the back end is incorrect but you'd just model the front 1/4 and then symmetry modifier it around)
Simply building the model up like that with basic primitives might take 10 mins but you make sure you understand the form first which can be half the challenge.
That in itself is useful, but when you come to model over the top it's much more intuitive to see how the mesh should build up with a nice polygon flow that suits your end needs!
It all depends what you are modelling really, as you get better you'll read the pictures better and maybe go right in and build the model right off that you will use in the end.
But there will always be models where you want to block out eventually no matter how good you are at reading the model from photos/reference.
Plus all those blocking out skills for accurate modelling will be valuable for general 3D sketching out/blocking out for environments or level design to get a feel for shapes/forms etc before making a decision on final assets etc.
Dave