Working Multitool Subdivision Modeling

Joel Gafford

Greetings all. I've been posting daily on my sketchbook here for a while, but I'm going to start working on weekly 3D projects as well.

I'm going to model a fully rigged Leatherman "Wingman" multitool modeled with subdivision surfaces. Here's what it looks like (I actually own one and have been referencing and measuring it).

I would love to get some critiques. Thanks!



And here are two renders of the low polygon proxy model I plan to rig today to test range of movement. Credit to sIBL HDRI sets for the free HDRI reflection map.

Joel Gafford

Got the range of movement down, and now I'm working on getting everything made into a subdivision surface.

http://joelgafford.com/images/projects/wingman/Wingman_Video_1.mp4

B_Korth

Looking forward to seeing the high poly version.

AlexRodriguez

I would revisit some of the modeling, some areas on your model are very flat and the edge seperation is not there on a couple pieces. There are a few spots on the tool itself that are a flat areas

The knife can use a couple more support loops and bended down to make the actual blade part. The right side look like it all 1 piece and not separated out, lastly the front clamp piece (forget the name) indents and down so it rotates. Would love to see a wireframe to gauge the model better.

I would also look at the weekly hard surface challenge to increase your abilities to breakdown hard surface objects, there also a Digital Tutors tutorial on modeling a switzarmy knife that a good watch

Joel Gafford

Thanks for the feedback, B_Korth and AlexRodriguez, it's very helpful.

Everything before this post was just the proxy model with no subdivisions to test out the movement of the pieces to see if they intersected wrongly. Here's some screenshots of the subdivision model with the wires showing. I used pixar subdivisions with edge weights in some places to avoid a billion edge loops. For the final details I plan to use displacement maps.

Cay

Is pixar subd / edge weighting something to consider? or is it actually better to do it with manual edge loops? I was wondering about it some time ago... I have done it the manual way in the past simply for practice, but it sounds pretty awesome

Joel Gafford

I try to do most of my subdivision modeling with only edge loops and quads, but sometimes it's honestly not worth the effort of wading through the weird topology that you have to create in order to do it. It depends mostly on the purpose of the final object on whether you want to use n-gons and edge weights. Some programs don't like them. But when you can use them, they are very helpful!

Cay

alright then, thanks!

Joel Gafford

Here are the final renders! I hope you guys like them. Credit to sIBL Archive for the wonderful free HDRI maps. They're great for reflections!