Someday.....someday soon this [n-gon's are bad] myth might just be dispelled once and for all.
One reason this myth is still alive and kicking is that quad's-only actually is a requirement — or so I'm told — for film (Pixar) with meshes that deform. So it's not unreasonable to assume that advice gets repeated out of context and you get people busting a gut trying to make a hard surface asset that's only for baking and won't deform with quads only. But like with anything you're told, the best thing you can do is put it to the test.
@bitinn since it's on the grid, you can add an edge to the middle of your bevel and snap it to the grid if i understand you correctly. Then use Connect on the previous two.
Sorry I should have qualified my question better. I meant going from my original picture to this:
I usually do this by extruding the edge to point 2 grid line intersects, and use multi-cut tool to cut out the extra part. I was wondering there are any faster options:
@Klawd I gave it a shot, and that asymmetrical extrusion was indeed confusing. The solution would've been quickly apparent if there were any front view references online, but I couldn't find any for this object (Kriss Vector M4 Stock Adapter). I think it worked out okay besides the manual loop scaling in order to connect a few of the top-right corner edges of the front circle to the extrusion. I didn't use booleans except at the very end for the bottom cutout.
Smoothing groups were a pain to get right for quad chamfer. There's also quad chamfer-specific pinching where the front circle meets the top extrusion. The tightness of the support loop behind the front circle results in a max quad chamfer amount of 0.19 as well.
@karnaj if you're having issues with q chamfer being too tight you can either switch to standard chamfer or as a last resort add an edit poly above q chamfer and below your tsmooth and do some tweaks to relieve it.
Hello! I think its a good topic to ask that question. I have simple mesh and I want to make equal distance between edges without moving red verts. How to do that?
@logosm this is not the purpose of this thread. This is more a question on how to use the basic modeling tools in Max.
Select the top/bottom edgeloops and use the 'space' tool in the loop tools dialogue in graphite modeling tools.(You may have to select each section and hit the 'make planar' button, and reapply smoothing groups, afterwards)
Hey folks! Anyone have an Idea how to get a shader ball like this! It can be downloaded for free but I want to model it for study purposes! I am thinking to start with the base. Look at the attachment and please give me a path to follow! The suspension en pistons are not necesary!
@Doguib7 The context of this thread is help with specific shapes, such as asking why you are getting pinching in a specific place, or how to model a particular detail. We also expect to see some effort and thought laid out first, if you're asking for how to get started, make a new thread, your question is too broad for this thread.
I have a variation on the standard question in this thread about indenting a shape from a cylinder. Bear with me! I know about offsetting the cylinder side so that they act as edge loops. What I'm actually curious about is the subsequent control edges from the shape you're indenting.
Say I want to indent a very sharp square into my cylinder. I'd therefore want to have control edges running alongside the corners of the square, so that subdivision leaves the corners nice and crisp. But you can't let them ever escape on to the cylinder (at least the ones that run parallel to the cylinder edges) because that would mess the curvature! So would the appropriate solution be to just have them meet up at a single point before the edges flow back to the cylinder proper? This would make a 6-sided star, so I'm curious if that's negligible or not, and if there's a cleaner way to go about it.
I'd experiment with this myself but I'm not really in a position to do so right now: Instead I sketched out this 2D version of the topology (i.e. laying everything flat in the xy plane, with each z-axis layer scaled in the xy plane so you can see it)- I hope it gets across what I'm talking about. The dotted lines are those that define the cylinder (being used as control loops). You can see that the innermost square has 12 vertices- 4 for the regular points you'd want from a square, and 8 more for the associated control edges.
Sorry if this has been covered before- I've seen cases similar but none that seem to address this explicitly. If the problem statement isn't clear enough I can wait until I can actually model it up.
@Zablorg Is this what you meant? Please give a clear explanation of what you're asking and straight to the point. Also please show us some of your 3D work because we don't know where you're struggling with. Thanks.
@Zablorg Is this what you meant? Please give a clear explanation of what you're asking and straight to the point. Also please show us some of your 3D work because we don't know where you're struggling with. Thanks.
Not quite! That's an indent in the flat side of a cylinder, whereas I'm more talking about a protrusion/indentation out of the curved face(s).
I appreciate that my description was probably pretty abstract, mostly because I couldn't get to a computer. I probably should have waited, with that in mind. Anyway, now that I can show you, here's what I'm working with:
As you can see, the actual interfacing between the protrusion and the cylinder is looking good, because of application of Perna's lessons. But, say I want the protrusion to look more cubic, like its cage mesh. To do that I'd need some edges around the corners to define them more sharply.
Basically, how would I get route vertical control edges for this protrusion? The following mockup solution results in some intense pinching, which I'd show but it obscures the wireframe.
I could probably have the left-most control edge run around the perimeter of the cylinder without issue, but I'm more interested in the right edge loop and how to terminate it appropriately.
Here's another solution I've tried. It seems to perform better pinch-wise, but results in some pretty wild bulging:
Keen eyes might notice that I've removed the lower edge loop running around the bottom of the would-be cube. Including it doesn't change the problem fundamentally, it just makes the bulge a bit tighter and more pronounced.
Zablorg: You can use as many segments around the cylinder as you want, and place them anywhere, without affecting the form. So in your last post, there's no reason to move both control points away from the corner like that.
Interesting. Not quite sure what this means, though - could you clarify what segments you're referring to? Are you suggesting I increase the resolution of the main cylinder and allow its edges to become the controls? That's what your tutorial that Pixel posted seems to do, at any rate. I had considered doing that, but I thought it might be overkill and was holding out for something else.
Or are you referring to edges that flow around the perimeter of the cylinder? I'm aware I can add those as I wish, but routing both controls in that direction seems difficult. One is already flowing in that direction, however, so routing it is trivial.
Anyway, the tutorial addresses what I was after, so I'd consider this "solved". Thanks all!
What's a non-destructive, simple way of making a woven basket? I got it working with 4 instanced strips, 2 vertical and 2 horizontal (one going underneath, one going outwards) . The problem with this is that I wouldn't be able to adjust the pattern size if I wanted without some manual work, like even replacing the whole base strips. Is there a more efficient way of doing this?
Hi Per, yeah, I usually do that too for game art And yes, there is a special reason I'm doing this, and it's because it was supposed to be for a render, where I was required to model the micro detail.
Thank you for sharing the video Per, I can't see it from this PC because YT is blocked, but I'll check it at home. It's a small background thing based from a low res image from the client so I don't think they're asking for anything too specific, and of course I chose something that was easier to do.
Also it's important to establish to which degree you want the object to be parametric. Which would the parameters be exactly?
EVERYTHING PAPA. I mean, that'd be the biggest dream, right? If not, it'd be nice to be able to adjust only the tiling of the effect.
My God, I should never doubt how crazy and simple and beautfiful you make even the simplest of assets. Thank you Perna, can't access DB here either so I'll check it out at home, where I'll probably reply back with some questions. This is crazy good stuff, thank you for your time.
@perna Tried opening this in 2015 and 17, no luck. So how did you make the baskets Per? Since you used a special modifier/plugin that's not native in Max, all I get when I open the scene are "Missing OSM" in the modifier stack where you used the mysterious tool.
@musashidan Thanks Dan, I'll check it out And don't worry, deadline's over. All this is to learn how to do a better job next time.
@perna , I wanted to ask you some Yes/No questions if you have the time to answer:
1-The first FFD box you called WIDE stretch, which doesn't really look like it does anything, you put there in order to adjust the width of the segment in order for it to later bend correctly into a circular shape? 2-You use the Clone modifier and not object instances because this way you can weld and do mesh operations with all clones, which you wouldn't be able to do with instances? 3-Unrelated subject, but I keep hearing meshsmooth is slower yet I see you frequently use it. I don't see the difference, in this case, with using TS. Did you use this simply because you're used to it and performance-wise it wouldn't affect a scene this small? 4-Do you have a dog and is he cute?
@Kerotronic This thread is mainly for 3D artists who are struggling with MODELING shapes etc. not Animation. Please read the thread title. If you're looking for Animation threads try visiting this link : "http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Animation" and look for tutorials you see fit.
How would you guys make a diamond-patterned bag with the least manual tweaking? I tried creating a bag from a quadsphere and twist it at the top, then convert that to splines, then mirror it for the opposite cross line.
The problem with this is the bag loses its pattern shapes at the bottom, plus it requires quite a lot of vert pulling. I also just created a subdivided plane and pulled the center down using soft selection, but it deforms awfully.
How would you guys make a diamond-patterned bag with the least manual tweaking? I tried creating a bag from a quadsphere and twist it at the top, then convert that to splines, then mirror it for the opposite cross line.
The problem with this is the bag loses its pattern shapes at the bottom, plus it requires quite a lot of vert pulling. I also just created a subdivided plane and pulled the center down using soft selection, but it deforms awfully.
Well I assume the bag would be tied at the bottom? So start with a regular sphere rather than a quad sphere so the strands connect at the center. Do a sphere, then delete the top half and extrude up to get the base shape before twisting.
@EarthQuake Hey Joe, thanks for answering. Your suggestion is perfectly viable, though I was thinking of trying to keep the pattern even at the bottom, as if the thing was tied at the top instead. Got any ideas?
I'm trying to model a low-poly bird that will be rigged for a game, but I'm not sure whether the topology would be sufficient for rigging. I've done google searches on bird topology and wing topology, but most of them were above my poly limit. I'm trying to keep the model under 1k polys. I do know that the wings should be able to flap, the beak should able to open and close, and the eye should be able to open and close. The eye not need to be able to rotate.
Basically how do I keep the wings, eye, and mouth riggable while still staying within the 1k poly limit?
@perna Sorry if I wasn't clear. Yes, I am incapable to do that shape correctly, though I'm still thinking on how to do it. The ideas I came up with were lame and pathetic.
The first attempt is smoothing badly because your edges don't flow along with the shapes of the knife. Your second attempt is better, but you're overcomplicating things by adding way too many loops in order to define the curve of the blade. When you add two edges so close together like you did on the side there, you're gonna end up with that pinching effect. Try and keep your edge flow simple and even for a nice clean result.
Here's how I'd do it. Green edges first to define all the outer extremities of each shape. I would use a copy of my reference image plane and just use the cut tool for simplicity. Second, starting adding the blue edges that define the outer curves of the blade (top to bottom). Use only as many as you need in order to define each curve. That makes it less of a hassle to give them somewhere logical to end up. Third, add the desired depth by dragging the polygons that are flat outwards. Fourth add the blue edges that follow the curve of the blade. Scale them inwards to give the blade a shwooshy shape. On the top bit that's not as "cutty", do some trickery so you'll end up with quads that will allow the edge loops to go all the way. Notice that I fucked up a bit so two of my blue lines ended in triangles. Instead of going back to planning stage, I chose to terminate them into triangles on flat surfaces so they're fine. Oopsie, and doesn't look very nice, but fine. Add the orange edgeloops to the blade. Everything should go fine. Because I fucked up, I had to do double edgeloops on the flat side of the blade. You can do better in planning, but It's flat so it's fine. Finally on the huge messy ngon by the grip, just inset it twice to get double edgeloops. Now that sucker is as flat as can be, but it's concave as all hell. You can fix that by cutting it into smaller, convex ngons. Because you did double edgeloops on that flat surface, they cannot contribute to the shape, and because you made all the little ngons convex, they can't bleed out onto the edge
Replies
I usually do this by extruding the edge to point 2 grid line intersects, and use multi-cut tool to cut out the extra part. I was wondering there are any faster options:
Smoothing groups were a pain to get right for quad chamfer. There's also quad chamfer-specific pinching where the front circle meets the top extrusion. The tightness of the support loop behind the front circle results in a max quad chamfer amount of 0.19 as well.
Select the top/bottom edgeloops and use the 'space' tool in the loop tools dialogue in graphite modeling tools.(You may have to select each section and hit the 'make planar' button, and reapply smoothing groups, afterwards)
Thanks in advance!
I have a variation on the standard question in this thread about indenting a shape from a cylinder. Bear with me! I know about offsetting the cylinder side so that they act as edge loops. What I'm actually curious about is the subsequent control edges from the shape you're indenting.
Say I want to indent a very sharp square into my cylinder. I'd therefore want to have control edges running alongside the corners of the square, so that subdivision leaves the corners nice and crisp. But you can't let them ever escape on to the cylinder (at least the ones that run parallel to the cylinder edges) because that would mess the curvature! So would the appropriate solution be to just have them meet up at a single point before the edges flow back to the cylinder proper? This would make a 6-sided star, so I'm curious if that's negligible or not, and if there's a cleaner way to go about it.
I'd experiment with this myself but I'm not really in a position to do so right now: Instead I sketched out this 2D version of the topology (i.e. laying everything flat in the xy plane, with each z-axis layer scaled in the xy plane so you can see it)- I hope it gets across what I'm talking about. The dotted lines are those that define the cylinder (being used as control loops). You can see that the innermost square has 12 vertices- 4 for the regular points you'd want from a square, and 8 more for the associated control edges.
Sorry if this has been covered before- I've seen cases similar but none that seem to address this explicitly. If the problem statement isn't clear enough I can wait until I can actually model it up.
I appreciate that my description was probably pretty abstract, mostly because I couldn't get to a computer. I probably should have waited, with that in mind. Anyway, now that I can show you, here's what I'm working with:
As you can see, the actual interfacing between the protrusion and the cylinder is looking good, because of application of Perna's lessons. But, say I want the protrusion to look more cubic, like its cage mesh. To do that I'd need some edges around the corners to define them more sharply.
Basically, how would I get route vertical control edges for this protrusion? The following mockup solution results in some intense pinching, which I'd show but it obscures the wireframe.
I could probably have the left-most control edge run around the perimeter of the cylinder without issue, but I'm more interested in the right edge loop and how to terminate it appropriately.
Here's another solution I've tried. It seems to perform better pinch-wise, but results in some pretty wild bulging:
Keen eyes might notice that I've removed the lower edge loop running around the bottom of the would-be cube. Including it doesn't change the problem fundamentally, it just makes the bulge a bit tighter and more pronounced.
Interesting. Not quite sure what this means, though - could you clarify what segments you're referring to? Are you suggesting I increase the resolution of the main cylinder and allow its edges to become the controls? That's what your tutorial that Pixel posted seems to do, at any rate. I had considered doing that, but I thought it might be overkill and was holding out for something else.
Or are you referring to edges that flow around the perimeter of the cylinder? I'm aware I can add those as I wish, but routing both controls in that direction seems difficult. One is already flowing in that direction, however, so routing it is trivial.
Anyway, the tutorial addresses what I was after, so I'd consider this "solved". Thanks all!
http://www.onnovanbraam.com/index.php?tutorials/polygon_modeling_6_techniques_2/
EVERYTHING PAPA. I mean, that'd be the biggest dream, right? If not, it'd be nice to be able to adjust only the tiling of the effect.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/mcg/mcg-cane-basket
Tried opening this in 2015 and 17, no luck. So how did you make the baskets Per? Since you used a special modifier/plugin that's not native in Max, all I get when I open the scene are "Missing OSM" in the modifier stack where you used the mysterious tool.
@musashidan
Thanks Dan, I'll check it out
https://www.itoosoft.com/freeplugins/clone.php
@perna , I wanted to ask you some Yes/No questions if you have the time to answer:
1-The first FFD box you called WIDE stretch, which doesn't really look like it does anything, you put there in order to adjust the width of the segment in order for it to later bend correctly into a circular shape?
2-You use the Clone modifier and not object instances because this way you can weld and do mesh operations with all clones, which you wouldn't be able to do with instances?
3-Unrelated subject, but I keep hearing meshsmooth is slower yet I see you frequently use it. I don't see the difference, in this case, with using TS. Did you use this simply because you're used to it and performance-wise it wouldn't affect a scene this small?
4-Do you have a dog and is he cute?
Tbh your question is really vague...
Its like round cut, but thanks for that, I will give a try by keeping same cutting looping system.
Can anybody help me by telling me how this animation was created ?
thank you
The problem with this is the bag loses its pattern shapes at the bottom, plus it requires quite a lot of vert pulling. I also just created a subdivided plane and pulled the center down using soft selection, but it deforms awfully.
Basically how do I keep the wings, eye, and mouth riggable while still staying within the 1k poly limit?
Here is also the reference I was looking at:
Also, not a modeling problem as per the thread.
The first try:
the second try:
a quick render for seeing the problems:
with ngons:
you can clearly see sharp edges where i not want them to appear if i wont use ngons ._. this is very frustrating.
hope one of you wants to help me :>
edit: the reference is: http://www.foxcutlery.com/n/files/u01e41/fox_trapper.jpg
Here's how I'd do it.
Green edges first to define all the outer extremities of each shape. I would use a copy of my reference image plane and just use the cut tool for simplicity.
Second, starting adding the blue edges that define the outer curves of the blade (top to bottom). Use only as many as you need in order to define each curve. That makes it less of a hassle to give them somewhere logical to end up.
Third, add the desired depth by dragging the polygons that are flat outwards.
Fourth add the blue edges that follow the curve of the blade. Scale them inwards to give the blade a shwooshy shape. On the top bit that's not as "cutty", do some trickery so you'll end up with quads that will allow the edge loops to go all the way.
Notice that I fucked up a bit so two of my blue lines ended in triangles. Instead of going back to planning stage, I chose to terminate them into triangles on flat surfaces so they're fine. Oopsie, and doesn't look very nice, but fine.
Add the orange edgeloops to the blade. Everything should go fine. Because I fucked up, I had to do double edgeloops on the flat side of the blade. You can do better in planning, but It's flat so it's fine.
Finally on the huge messy ngon by the grip, just inset it twice to get double edgeloops. Now that sucker is as flat as can be, but it's concave as all hell. You can fix that by cutting it into smaller, convex ngons.
Because you did double edgeloops on that flat surface, they cannot contribute to the shape, and because you made all the little ngons convex, they can't bleed out onto the edge
Så var eventyret ute.