Great thread! This is my first time here, and it's been such a help! I'm trying to get better at high poly modelling because I've never really spent much time doing it. I'm building up my portfolio just now, and my modelling kind of suffers.
So this model I'm working on right now, has these vents on the end of a cylinder. I realize I could do them as floaters, but I really want to get better at modelling. How is this poly flow looking so far? Is there something I'm not doing that's really obvious? I haven't really touched the bit at the right, so that's a bit of a mess.
Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give!
Great thread! This is my first time here, and it's been such a help! I'm trying to get better at high poly modelling because I've never really spent much time doing it. I'm building up my portfolio just now, and my modelling kind of suffers.
So this model I'm working on right now, has these vents on the end of a cylinder. I realize I could do them as floaters, but I really want to get better at modelling. How is this poly flow looking so far? Is there something I'm not doing that's really obvious? I haven't really touched the bit at the right, so that's a bit of a mess.
Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give!
It would be helpful if you provided more angles of the problem area. Also, those triangles that aren't on a flat surface need to be resolved
Loving this thread! Here's my first contribution if you will.
Someone may have done something like this already, but I'm wondering how you would approach an entrenchment like this, specifically how to maintain a smooth transition in the red area
Not exactly like your image but no edge at the indentation. You get the idea. Bend a plane a little to make the curvature, then extrude the edges and work your way out.
I'm a hobbyist really interested in playing aroung with Maya. I've started plans to make a virtual yacht and pier for a really special friend of mine but I would really want to get it done right in a proper way without misconceptions.
I've been poking my nose into tutorials and decided to do a test on a wooden plank. I just wanted to know if i did it right and understoof what it means to create a 3d model that works and can be rendered out not just in maya but perhaps unreal engine as I plan to do my lightings there
The link below shows 5 screen shots of my maya and photo shop.
I started by creating the form of the plank and hardening its edges by inserting edge loops. I made sure that everything of the plank would be quads as I heard lighting doesn't work well with none 4 sided polygons.
After which I planar mapped each face of the plank and sew them back together with their corresponding edges so the texture would flow to all faces properly.
I then created a texture map in photoshop and soften the potential areas with seams using a healing brush. I exported it as a tga and created a grey scale as a bump map.
Which resulted to the fully colored plank in the 2nd picture. Apologizes for their mis aligned chronology I'm not sure why it turned out this way.
I really would like to know if I'm on the right track when it comes to modelling and if this piece is functional to be used to construct the Pier I have in mind. Really appreciate the time the community takes to look into this and thanks you for all feed backs!
Hanzhefu: The only way to make the transition smooth is to gradually curve into the depression. Planar intersections will of course always create an edge.
However, note that the image is a concept. In other words, the artist may have intended for a planar surface but 2D cheats a lot, intentionally or not, so it would be up to you to decide which choice is more consistent with the overall look of the piece.
The shading of the vertical piece seems to indicate curvature.
Not exactly like your image but no edge at the indentation. You get the idea. Bend a plane a little to make the curvature, then extrude the edges and work your way out.
i’m searching for a way to sub-d model a sphere with 2 cuts, one of which is tilted in an uneven angle. The sample image is a quick export from nurbs-modeler MOI, but the mesh is totaly useless when subdividing it. I tried the whole weekend to model the cut properly but I failed, the sphere gets always distorted.
You should use a spherified cube rather than a normal sphere that has poles. I used a cube, added a turbosmooth with a couple of subdivs, spherified it and relaxed it, then deleted the bottom and used a script "regularizer tool" to make it a even circle then extruded downwards and thats it, then booleaned the angled part (could have used slice plane)welded some segs and deleted some useless verts after the boolean and tadaaa. Its not all quads and shit but it subdivides perfectly. All this using 3ds max Im shure it can be done using less geo than what ive used. Give it a try!
puh thats sounds like an easy task.. I'm working with Cinema4d, so no turbosmooth available. I did'nt thik of starting with a cube, I will try that (c4d got a sphere deformer, maybe this will work). I'll try tonight, thx.
puh thats sounds like an easy task.. I'm working with Cinema4d, so no turbosmooth available. I did'nt thik of starting with a cube, I will try that (c4d got a sphere deformer, maybe this will work). I'll try tonight, thx.
puh thats sounds like an easy task.. I'm working with Cinema4d, so no turbosmooth available. I did'nt thik of starting with a cube, I will try that (c4d got a sphere deformer, maybe this will work). I'll try tonight, thx.
Try HyperNURBs for a sub-d surface and use the sphereify deformer (I think that's what they're called in C4D?)
I started to work on the Hard Surface Challange but I came across a point which I can not quiet figure out how to do correctly. Also how do you guys go about lining about multiply cylinders with different divisions on a complex model like this ?
I m struggeling with this part.
So far what I got but it is not the same shape and I tried with a few different setups but just can not get to line up correctly with the cylinders subdivisions.
You are using way to complicated geo for that piece. I started with a 40 side cyl, deleted 4 fifths so I can work on only a slice, and carved in an 8 sided recession. Hope it helps Have a look:
took a week of trial and error found out a way to get it perfect i didn't set any hard edges in it yet, afterward i found some areas with dents only seen from the side.
This is a handle to a pistol I've been working on tonight. In Maya, I can get a cylinder to twist with a nonlinear deformer, but getting that rounded cap attached, and having the opposite end open up into a rectangle, is a nightmare. The twist has 4 grooves, where 2 open up onto the left and right sides of the gun's body, and the other 2 open up to the top and underside. The end cap is squashed oval shape.
I'm probably about to just make it out of several peices and see what I can mush together in zBrush, the retopo in maya.
Thanks for the quick reply. Regarding the handle, this is where I was when I made the first post. I stopped working on that and moved on to other parts in the meantime. This pistol doesn't have many photos of itself out there, so I'm making guesses at much of the finer detail with the wheel mechanisms.
I think what I'll end up doing is modeling the body up until the handle, extrude that edge out, extract, and deform. The ball on the end is still somewhat of a mystery, other than building it out vert by vert.
Thank you. I blocked out the shape in the beginning for proportions but no so much for testing smoothing. My approach here is to build a mesh that I'll use to smooth for the high poly, then step back and clean up geometry and use it for the low poly. Reopening it to work on it some more just makes me want to start over. =/
Currently in the middle of cutting the shelf into this side, and then extruding it out, where I'll start welding the wheel housing into it from some cylinders.
so build each piece as if it was going to be physically assembled from them, rather than building a couple of contiguous meshes out of extrusions? Seems like good practice at the very least. A lot of my previous work has been to build a low-mid poly which is targeted for the final in-engine asset, and then using that as a base for creating the high poly, but this pistol is absolutely the most complex thing I've attempted so far.
Thank's for your words so far, I'm going to try building out the parts piece by piece like you said. If you have the time, I'd love for you to criticize any of my previous works. It's mostly all been melee weapons so far, so my janky workflow has been able to handle them lol
So I just can not wrap my head around this and was looking all over the internet but found few things.
So modeling on curved surfaces, if a want to have a cubic shape extruded in and I apply the bevel I always get this familiar shape. I know that if you go really high on the poly count the pinching is not that bad but is there another option to this ? Here it is mostly visible on the inside. Here is what I want to achieve.
So how do you properly model these things on a curved surface ? The problem a lot of people would bring it into Zbrush but I want to learn modeling in Maya more in depth.
you mean adding more geometry in the initial state right? but what to do if geometry was poorly planned and i have worked on this object for so long (added details etc) that I cannot add more geometry without it getting fucked up? How can I still support the edges with his amount of geo without creating the diagonal pinch?
Then you will need to place the geo and adjust the smoothness before you add the inset and hope for the best
Dirty: My best advice is block out the entire gun before doing any hipoly work. The difference in efficiency (speed), ease of construction and end result will be like night and day. The way you approach it now will likely end with you not finishing the mesh out of sheer frustration.
Not a blockout for proportions but for construction. It should contain all major and medium surfaces at high precision (these will NOT be remake but will serve as foundation for your hipoly), but no fine detail and no work done on merging or transitioning between shapes. It's the absolute best thing anyone can do to improve their modeling game.
you mean adding more geometry in the initial state right? but what to do if geometry was poorly planned and i have worked on this object for so long (added details etc) that I cannot add more geometry without it getting fucked up? How can I still support the edges with his amount of geo without creating the diagonal pinch?
Start that area over then, if it was really that long ago, you should be able to re-create it much more intelligently and quickly, the exercise itself will be worthwhile as well.
Learning when to stop polishing turds and simply remake stuff is a good skill. If it's going to take longer to polish the turd than to make a nice clean mesh from scratch, do it! Holding onto to old work for sentimental reasons isn't going to help you.
Hell, once you've redone it once, do it 3 more times to see how fast, and how efficient you can get. Do that about 10,000 more times and we'll start calling you Per.
How would you model a low poly version of this bullet chain?
Right now I'm with 11790 polys with a 30 bullet chain that I'll be using four times, so it's still a pretty crazy number. I have thought about baking them into a normal map for a cylinder, but I don't know how without making a mess. Any halp?
Right now the unfinished high-poly is at 90k. It may reach 130k as maximum, more or less. My goal is making the low-poly with 20k as max., so I think 2k for the four chains (23 per link) should be enough.
This is what I've come up with for the bullet (36 polys I think), and then there would be the connection between the bullets. It would still be too much.
Planes would probably be too crappy for something I'm planning to make the first piece of my portfolio
Back again! I'm trying to make the borders for the relief art on this barrel, but the corners aren't behaving. When I do it with beveling, the shape pinches across the length of the barrel. When I add edge loops as you would on a panel, it distorts the curvature of the barrel and bore. Is a better solution to go very high poly and use bools? I plan to bring everything into Zbrush in the next step, dynamesh, and add wear and tear. Normally I'd handle this with nDo, but I wanted to make some guide lines for my bake in order to save some guess work later down the road.
Geo as it stands
Geo with bevel
Geo when smoothed
Geo with the "correct" edge loops added to support the corner, as they wrap around the entire mesh.
But they break up the rounded shape of the bore and create a bulge on the side.
my example can be a bit of a overkill but here goes nothing. start out with a 16 sided cylinder. edit poly modifier on top and to get the main shape out. added in a couple of edges to square out the hole shape and created the indent to have supporting edges. added one turbo smooth above it and used smoothing groups. another edit poly modifier to clean out the overkill mesh and at last meshsmooth (turbosmooth) to get the hp.
ah, so the solution is to actually commit new geo through smoothing at various steps to keep the overall curvature, and then use those new edgeloops to work from. I wonder how that's going to impact the rest of the mesh down at the other end. Thank you
The rule of thumb is simply to have the right amount of geo at the curved part. Do not overdo it with millions of millions just to get that shape 100% sharp. get it right enough so the bake will be flawless. this one i did simply by doing a 16 sided cylinder again, found out i did not get the hard edge i wanted, so i started again with a 24 and turned out better than the one in the bg which as 34 sides.
Yeah this is working way better. I made a bool version that looks pretty nice, but maya's basic tools for that are a pain in the butt. Thanks for your help
edit - i had to add some creasing in the corners to get it sharper but still GG overall. Now I'm attaching it to a beveled cube which is... fun...
Hey everyone. I am modeling the "Sting" sword, which often appered in the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings saga. But I have no idea how to model the uper end. After several attempt I end up with this unsatisfying result. Do you have any tips?
CRVR: You forgot to tell you what exactly is unsatisfying about that result. Can't help you unless you state very specifically what the problem is.
Okay sorry about that. Still new here. Well my model should be way more rotund at the top like in the picture (blue area). It is also squezzing to much (red area).
CRVR: I personally don't follow still. What's stopping you from just making the shapes more rotund and less squeezy or whatever, if you've identified the problems already? I'm not seeing a technical question about modeling here.
I hope you realize that it's impossible for us to tell how well you've matched with the reference as the pictures and screenshots are taken at strange angles with too much perspective.
Okay I got you! Sorry, but I am still new to poly-modeling. Still so much to learn. Thanks!
I use Zbrush and I would like to know how to sculpt these two textures, my main issue is when trim dynamic and hard polish decide to dig while trying my make a nice curved (Gradient?) formations like in the first image,
Not sure if this thread is for sculpting, but whatever. Hand painted textures, much like concept art, are 2D - obviously, but the rules of perspective aren't as set in stone as in 3D. I don't think you'll be able to reproduce these 1:1, but you could end up with something similar. As usual with sculpting, you start with simpler shapes and layer the detail on. If we desaturate and blur the image we can see what this early stage might have looked like (this is just to help us see the pattern easier)
Ideally you would be able to do this with the naked eye, but this does make it easier. Looks like warped shards to me. You can see the subtle depressions and peaks that seem to be shared across the shards more clearly here too. Try placing some 'shard'-type shapes down then using the move tool to warp them to start with?
- You're simplifying the main shell cylinder to a simple box while modeling tiny ridges with actual polygons. This is highly inconsistent. Target one detail level for the entire lowpoly. Using gross simplification in some areas and super-high detail in others is going to be highly inefficient and also look horrible. Those ridges are less than a 10th of an inch in width, so the polygon detail won't even be seen except in extreme closeups, yet having a box shape for your shell will look very bad in the same extreme closeup. To sum up: All your detail must look equally good in the same view. -So your target is half the tricount. That's easy - just get rid of the unnecessary tiny detail. With the shell shape as a box, make a single extrusion in the rear and the entire front can be a pyramid shape. -Don't optimze in isolation. If you need more detail for the belt, optimize the main gun better. I'm sure there's lots of potential for it. 20k is a LOT of triangles, and the final baked lowpoly should look virtually indistinguishable from the hipoly to be considered AAA quality.
Illustration:
Here's what happens if you model the front as a pyramid. The error area A is tiny compared to the already existing error area B, so you can easily live with it. Error area C is also smaller than B, so same deal.
This is what you want to do for a lowpoly - maintain the same size error areas (difference between hipoly and lowpoly) throughout.
BTW, you said your sketch would come out as 36 tris. Count again
Okay, I get it now. Just a couple more things: Should I bake the highpoly bullet onto the low or let it be as it is? The hp ended with 138k without the bullets and has a lot of support loops. How should I make the lp for the main parts in this case? Removing the loops? Retopo? I have never done anything so big and want to make sure of how to face this before making a full retopo for a non-symmetrical model. Also, is 20k that much? What would be a more reasonable one? I still don't know which is an acceptable number for this kind of assets.
Sorry for the late response and thanks, you are saving my butt.
Ruf, firstly not sure why you keep stating how many polygons are in your hipoly?
And why would you exclude certain parts from baking?
You're asking how to make a lowpoly, whether to remove loops and so on. My best suggestion would be to start with a significantly simpler asset to practice the basics. At this point you shouldn't be concerned with making some complex, impressive asset.
There's nothing unreasonable or unacceptable about 20k triangles. It's just a number.
Learn to walk before you try to run. It's going to save you a lot of time. Make something much, much simpler.
I'm asking how to make a lowpoly in this situation, because as I said I've never done anything more complex. With a simple asset I would just remove some loops or make a retopo for some pieces, but I'm not sure how should I handle something with that amount of loops and more irregular surfaces without destroying some parts or spending a lot of hours for a bad bake. I just want to know one way of doing it that I know will get me a good result and then continue from there, that's all.
Replies
So this model I'm working on right now, has these vents on the end of a cylinder. I realize I could do them as floaters, but I really want to get better at modelling. How is this poly flow looking so far? Is there something I'm not doing that's really obvious? I haven't really touched the bit at the right, so that's a bit of a mess.
Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give!
Someone may have done something like this already, but I'm wondering how you would approach an entrenchment like this, specifically how to maintain a smooth transition in the red area
https://streamable.com/maux
Not exactly like your image but no edge at the indentation. You get the idea. Bend a plane a little to make the curvature, then extrude the edges and work your way out.
I'm a hobbyist really interested in playing aroung with Maya. I've started plans to make a virtual yacht and pier for a really special friend of mine but I would really want to get it done right in a proper way without misconceptions.
I've been poking my nose into tutorials and decided to do a test on a wooden plank. I just wanted to know if i did it right and understoof what it means to create a 3d model that works and can be rendered out not just in maya but perhaps unreal engine as I plan to do my lightings there
The link below shows 5 screen shots of my maya and photo shop.
http://imgur.com/a/gKzTK
I started by creating the form of the plank and hardening its edges by inserting edge loops. I made sure that everything of the plank would be quads as I heard lighting doesn't work well with none 4 sided polygons.
After which I planar mapped each face of the plank and sew them back together with their corresponding edges so the texture would flow to all faces properly.
I then created a texture map in photoshop and soften the potential areas with seams using a healing brush. I exported it as a tga and created a grey scale as a bump map.
Which resulted to the fully colored plank in the 2nd picture. Apologizes for their mis aligned chronology I'm not sure why it turned out this way.
I really would like to know if I'm on the right track when it comes to modelling and if this piece is functional to be used to construct the Pier I have in mind. Really appreciate the time the community takes to look into this and thanks you for all feed backs!
i’m searching for a way to sub-d model a sphere with 2 cuts, one of which is tilted in an uneven angle.
The sample image is a quick export from nurbs-modeler MOI, but the mesh is totaly useless when subdividing it.
I tried the whole weekend to model the cut properly but I failed, the sphere gets always distorted.
How would you do such a thing?
I used a cube, added a turbosmooth with a couple of subdivs, spherified it and relaxed it, then deleted the bottom and used a script "regularizer tool" to make it a even circle then extruded downwards and thats it, then booleaned the angled part (could have used slice plane)welded some segs and deleted some useless verts after the boolean and tadaaa. Its not all quads and shit but it subdivides perfectly. All this using 3ds max
Im shure it can be done using less geo than what ive used. Give it a try!
the script:
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/loop-regularizer
I'm working with Cinema4d, so no turbosmooth available.
I did'nt thik of starting with a cube, I will try that (c4d got a sphere deformer, maybe this will work).
I'll try tonight, thx.
You´re welcome!
I started to work on the Hard Surface Challange but I came across a point which I can not quiet figure out how to do correctly. Also how do you guys go about lining about multiply cylinders with different divisions on a complex model like this ?
I m struggeling with this part.
So far what I got but it is not the same shape and I tried with a few different setups but just can not get to line up correctly with the cylinders subdivisions.
Have a look:
this site will basicly answer your question:
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2467260#Comment_2467260
took a week of trial and error found out a way to get it perfect i didn't set any hard edges in it yet, afterward i found some areas with dents only seen from the side.
I'm probably about to just make it out of several peices and see what I can mush together in zBrush, the retopo in maya.
Currently in the middle of cutting the shelf into this side, and then extruding it out, where I'll start welding the wheel housing into it from some cylinders.
Thank's for your words so far, I'm going to try building out the parts piece by piece like you said. If you have the time, I'd love for you to criticize any of my previous works. It's mostly all been melee weapons so far, so my janky workflow has been able to handle them lol
https://www.artstation.com/artist/nicholashunter
So I just can not wrap my head around this and was looking all over the internet but found few things.
So modeling on curved surfaces, if a want to have a cubic shape extruded in and I apply the bevel I always get this familiar shape.
I know that if you go really high on the poly count the pinching is not that bad but is there another option to this ?
Here it is mostly visible on the inside.
Here is what I want to achieve.
So how do you properly model these things on a curved surface ? The problem a lot of people would bring it into Zbrush but I want to learn modeling in Maya more in depth.
Learning when to stop polishing turds and simply remake stuff is a good skill. If it's going to take longer to polish the turd than to make a nice clean mesh from scratch, do it! Holding onto to old work for sentimental reasons isn't going to help you.
Hell, once you've redone it once, do it 3 more times to see how fast, and how efficient you can get. Do that about 10,000 more times and we'll start calling you Per.
I'm having some troubles modelling this.
I'd like to achieve all quads... but it seems impossible to me.
model it with a triangle and then subdivide like:
Or, model it with tri, and remove edge.
How would you model a low poly version of this bullet chain?
Right now I'm with 11790 polys with a 30 bullet chain that I'll be using four times, so it's still a pretty crazy number.
I have thought about baking them into a normal map for a cylinder, but I don't know how without making a mess.
Any halp?
My goal is making the low-poly with 20k as max., so I think 2k for the four chains (23 per link) should be enough.
This is what I've come up with for the bullet (36 polys I think), and then there would be the connection between the bullets. It would still be too much.
Planes would probably be too crappy for something I'm planning to make the first piece of my portfolio
Geo as it stands
Geo with bevel
Geo when smoothed
Geo with the "correct" edge loops added to support the corner, as they wrap around the entire mesh.
But they break up the rounded shape of the bore and create a bulge on the side.
start out with a 16 sided cylinder.
edit poly modifier on top and to get the main shape out.
added in a couple of edges to square out the hole shape and created the indent to have supporting edges.
added one turbo smooth above it and used smoothing groups.
another edit poly modifier to clean out the overkill mesh and at last meshsmooth (turbosmooth) to get the hp.
this one i did simply by doing a 16 sided cylinder again, found out i did not get the hard edge i wanted, so i started again with a 24 and turned out better than the one in the bg which as 34 sides.
edit - i had to add some creasing in the corners to get it sharper but still GG overall. Now I'm attaching it to a beveled cube which is... fun...
This second image I can't even begin to explain.
As usual with sculpting, you start with simpler shapes and layer the detail on. If we desaturate and blur the image we can see what this early stage might have looked like (this is just to help us see the pattern easier)
Ideally you would be able to do this with the naked eye, but this does make it easier. Looks like warped shards to me. You can see the subtle depressions and peaks that seem to be shared across the shards more clearly here too. Try placing some 'shard'-type shapes down then using the move tool to warp them to start with?
Just a couple more things: Should I bake the highpoly bullet onto the low or let it be as it is?
The hp ended with 138k without the bullets and has a lot of support loops. How should I make the lp for the main parts in this case? Removing the loops? Retopo? I have never done anything so big and want to make sure of how to face this before making a full retopo for a non-symmetrical model.
Also, is 20k that much? What would be a more reasonable one? I still don't know which is an acceptable number for this kind of assets.
Sorry for the late response and thanks, you are saving my butt.
With a simple asset I would just remove some loops or make a retopo for some pieces, but I'm not sure how should I handle something with that amount of loops and more irregular surfaces without destroying some parts or spending a lot of hours for a bad bake.
I just want to know one way of doing it that I know will get me a good result and then continue from there, that's all.