[3DS Max] Spherical objects… are there better ways to model this?

Lights

Hey there guys, I’m new to Polycount and just looking for a little guidance. I’m in my last semester of art school and I’m currently putting together a character/prop modeling portfolio.

One thing I wanted to get you guys opinion on was how you would go about modeling the body here. I went in and used booleans and some slice plane action to try and get the holes where I wanted, but I’m just wondering if there are better ways to do this that don’t lead to such messy topology.

Concept by Mole Wang:

Any and all tips are welcome. I have more of the concept blocked out, so if more images of that would help let me know. Thanks a lot!

Neox

always keep the clean spherical base, you can retopo or project right onto it. you do not have to follow the original topology this way

Lights

Neox said:

always keep the clean spherical base, you can retopo or project right onto it. you do not have to follow the original topology this way

Hey thanks for the reply. Okay so what your saying is just make sure I have the clean sphere as back up but otherwise what I'm doing is fine. Just want to make sure I understood correctly. 

Eric Chadwick

If this is an asset meant for use in a game engine, this topology isn't great.

But if you're not using it for real-time, instead rendering stills/animation, then it's probably ok.

Ghogiel

Lights said:

Neox said:

always keep the clean spherical base, you can retopo or project right onto it. you do not have to follow the original topology this way

Hey thanks for the reply. Okay so what your saying is just make sure I have the clean sphere as back up but otherwise what I'm doing is fine. Just want to make sure I understood correctly. 

Have a spare higher density sphere project to. It's a backup for the curvature of the spherical shape more so than back up topology.

What I probably would do is cut all the shapes for the holes and panel lines, either manually or with booleans. Then once that's done, The important part is is doing something like blast it with the conform brush onto the surface of the higher density sphere you keep as a back up. If you plan ahead you can get a solid shell to work with, even add support loops and other supporting geo to get the curved surface really clean.

Basic idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuGW5lmSCZc

You might find you need more edges on the circular cutouts to get panel lines to intersect without deforming the roundness of the circular cutots, so it'll be a little tedious at times cleaning up, but you will be able to get back to a clean spherical curve when ever you need and no matter what you do to the geo.

coven

Any reason to not use the spherify modifier in this case?

Lights

@Eric Chadwick Yes I do intend to create a real time model. my end goal is to create something similar to say the Overwatch style.

@Ghogiel thank you for going into such detail. Using the conform brush makes so much sense I don't know how I didn't think of it. Also thank you for adding that part where you used chamfer to create some control loops because I was struggling internally with how to get a clean bevel on the topology I have. Using chamfer simplifies it so much. Again I don't know why I'm blanking on this stuff so hard, smh.

Thank you guys.

Lights

@coven yea spherify modifier was what I originally was going to use but I was a little worried that it would slightly skew the shape of the openings in the sphere. I was probably just overthinking things though. 

Ghogiel

coven said:

Any reason to not use the spherify modifier in this case?

Not really imo. It's worth pointing out in this case because it's exactly what its for (at least in my practice).

Both ways you want to leave the internal extrusions until last. With both you would need to "mask" what you don't want affected if later you need to modify the topology, the spherify you would make face selections to transfer up the stack, eg avoiding the internal extrusions, and you would hide faces with the conform way.

The conform trick is helpful with any other similar situations involving curved surfaces not spheres, so it's also worth pointing out as general workflow concept