What would be the best way to model these shapes?

Aasmund1986

Im going to model this helmet:
What would be the best way to shape out these shapes? Curves?

Eric Chadwick

What are you going to do with the model... Export it to a game engine? Render it in Maya? Use it to bake textures (normal maps, AO, etc.)?

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Character_Modeling

Aasmund1986

It will be used with UnrealEngine for VFX. Creating normals ect will be done in Substance. I tried with curves which went like ****. Maybe deformers could do the job?

Mant1k0re

I know that's not the type of helmet you're after but this tutorial gave me the basics to model helmet-like props on my own afterwards. I suggest you check it out, it's rather short too. In particular it made me discover Set Flow in Max, pretty useful when doing this kind of object.

Eric Chadwick

That's great.

For more about how this kind of modeling works, I suggest checking out this page:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Subdivision_Surface_Modeling

Aasmund1986

Thanks for the links, I managed to get the shape I want somewhat:


Still looks like **** :P But Im not that good at armor stuff.

Eric Chadwick

I would suggest learning how subdivision works. Your helmet reference picture has a mix of curved and angular pieces, which are easy to generate with subdivision surfaces, once you understand how it works. It's super powerful, really worth the time to learn.

The first few videos here will get you started. Plus the football helmet video posted above, that's a good one too.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Subdivision_Surface_Modeling

Eric Chadwick

Here's a nice example of how it works, from our member perna.

CharacterCarl

I'll just leave this here for reference and general inspiration:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fszg28q0gH0[/ame]

The workflow is different from yours and I definitely won't say ZModeler is the most efficient way of doing this but I think you can get something out of it in terms of topology and edge flow.

Aasmund1986

Modeling around a headmesh, great idea. Already begin to get better results

peanut™

Maybe breakdown the object in small pieces that are closely aligned to give the illusion of a single mesh. This is a small, small concept that is at the core of good modeling.

Aasmund1986

I went into 3D-Coat again and did a model there

cookedpeanut

Oh boy. I think you should learn the fundamentals of subdivision modelling before you start nabbing at little bits here and there in different programs.

Obscura

cookedpeanut wrote: »

Oh boy. I think you should learn the fundamentals of subdivision modelling before you start nabbing at little bits here and there in different programs.

:thumbup:

Mant1k0re

I find that understanding topology in particular is akin to learning a language - it's a cumulative process that spans over a long period of time, especially with so much contradictory information on the Internet.

It took me forever to understand that it's simply not possible to always have 100% quads in a model and that triangles are okay on a flat surface. Or that spacing your polygons evenly is also critical.

Someone should write a topology bible for game art sometime, a lot of the stuff you come across as a learning modeler applies to art for rendering or other. Not so much about games. And in many modeling tutorial, people tend to not comment at all on topology as they go or very little. It's regreatable, it's imo the most important concept to grasp early on for success later on.