I need help with hard surface piece ( part of lighter )

Lonely_Zero

Hello everyone.

I have troubles figuring out how to do this thing. 

So it has one hole on top, two vertical ones on the sides, three horizontal ones in front and two rectangular insets on sides. Also beveled corner. And it's all curved. Fun stuff.

At first i've tried to do holes without smoothing blockout at all. But i got this kind of pinching.

So my first idea was to put support loops / bevels and smooth it once and only then add insets and holes. I got this. Pinching was not as bad, looked fine to me.

Next logical step in my head was adding thickness to it. It kinda worked but it was looking janky on the inside. Also after cutting topology and adding support loops i got some serious pinching again.

Can you explain to me how should i approach this one? In terms of order of actions and topology. Because of the amount of problems i can't even figure out if i'm doing it all wrong or just missing some part of the process or...

Thanks in advance.

Lonely_Zero

I've also tried to use conform to fix the later pinching but it didn't really work. To get at least some effect i had to smooth it a couple extra times.

PolyHertz

This is more a thread for this thread: https://polycount.com/discussion/56014/how-the-f-do-i-model-this-reply-for-help-with-specific-shapes-post-attempt-before-asking/p184#latest

But to answer your question, you simply need more segments when defining your shape (before cutting the holes in).

gnoop

I usually just transfer vertex normals from a shape before  holes.   Works perfectly fine even for extremely low poly things , lods etc.  

Never understood really why people do all those support loops and extra geo puzzles.  My guess it's because 3d soft had clunky normal editing tools before.   Still the normal theft script in max had been around for decades.

 Recently tried moi3d and it's same approach there : vertex normals  came perfectly fine , no shading artifacts at all  whatever triangulation is behind.  

 The only issue is you have to be careful not to mess them  with accidental editing afterward and let other people know  the shading is based on explicit normals.  

sacboi

To simplify the process:

- I'll suggest modeling these small details flat, then bend into shape applicable to reference

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2699128#Comment_2699128

- Additional info, generating complex sub divided geometry 

https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2735138/#Comment_2735138

wirrexx

@sacboi <-- Is right

however, while in Rome... So this is how i would do it. Bear in mind, more dense, less issues.

I'd start with a box.

I'd cut it in the middle (even squares)

Punch a square hole on top and use smoothing groups (smooth edges)

and turbosmooth ones.

I cut in the shapes.

I add the support loops were it's needed.

As you can see, my first try has bulges and issues, because of the density. I could easily conform that shape to a base with higher density.

Two last pictures are the same workflow, but i turbosmoothed it 3 times instead of 2 times liek the first.