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How The F*#% Do I Model This? - Reply for help with specific shapes - (Post attempt before asking)

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  • waedoe
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    waedoe polycounter lvl 8
    hey guys having trouble with this stock trying to decide the best way to make these edge loops go, any ideas? i dont know where to host my .obj either, but i have one. any help would be appreciated, im kinda new to sub d and find it extremely fun but puzzling at moments

    14kiq74.jpg

    dzej6.jpg
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    2icbnnl.jpg
    ????

    bear with the 'paint' paint over, haven't installed anything on windows 7 yet.
    I don't have that much experience with sub-d modelling so this is only a guess :)
  • waedoe
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    waedoe polycounter lvl 8
    im also having a few problems here

    2ly52d3.jpg
    29c2e6t.jpg
  • myles
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    myles polycounter lvl 14
    Seems like a good place to use floating geometry there waedo,

    I used a simple indented poly wrapped around a spline that matched the surface of the object I was creating. I'll send you the max file as you're using 2010.

    Capture-3.jpg

    http://www.4shared.com/file/145109001/d4bf39b7/FloatingWrappedGeo.html
  • waedoe
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    waedoe polycounter lvl 8
    right i relize that it would be a god place to use a floater, how ever i got it in place and made the correct edge loops to where i dont need a floater. that turbo smoothing error i cannot figure out. the model itself is fairly messy, im still roughing out alot of it.

    heres the file

    http://www.easy-share.com/1908302482/stock.obj
  • OBlastradiusO
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    OBlastradiusO polycounter lvl 11
    For the Subd newbie here's a quick tube connect example I just created modo.

    pipesamp.jpg
  • DEElekgolo
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    DEElekgolo interpolator
    How would I get some nice abstract details on a surface that do not compliment it at all?
    Areas I am talking about are high lighted in red. I am mainly talking about the back area.
    88194757.png
  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    it always depends on what you wanna do, do you want to create a lowpoly where those details appear in the normals or do you want to create a highres mesh with all those details in it?
    as for the first, you could do a lot with floaters, if you really have to model it, well then do the basic shape first and then go in and add the details. But don't do it as a single mesh, i mean that doesn't make sense and gives you more work to do then needed, basicly cars are not made from one single piece so do it in as many pieces as you need
  • Baj Singh
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    Baj Singh polycounter lvl 9
    I spent some of yesterday going though this thread for advice as I don't usually do any hard surface sub-d modelling and must say its a pretty invaluable source for information.

    Heres something I did as a high poly which I will generate a normal map soon (asset to be thrown into Unreal 3 engine). The model is based on a piece of Quake 4 concept art for a crate.

    b4untj.jpg

    If anybody is interested in seeing the .obj file you can find it here:

    http://download745.mediafire.com/d0y0jdqc9bvg/ytylvl4y0y3/crate.obj

    Cheers.
  • waedoe
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    waedoe polycounter lvl 8
    Noob question but im perplexed on the best way to model this for my m4 pistol grip, the beveled diamonds... heres a pic of how it should go:

    Uploaded_633899478002912500_File.jpg
  • ZacD
  • Dr Stench
    waedoe wrote: »
    Noob question but im perplexed on the best way to model this for my m4 pistol grip, the beveled diamonds... heres a pic of how it should go:

    Ghehe, why is everyone making an M4 assault rifle:poly124: If you need any more help with technical stuff feel free to ask. Im making sub-d model of the entire C7 (which is basicly the same as m4 and m16) + interior for ze dutch army training simulation.
  • waedoe
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    waedoe polycounter lvl 8
    ok so another problem, trying to boolean these holes in and i cant figure out the right way to get the edges to flow.


    2zghhyh.jpg


    5zinus.jpg

    6f73g9.jpg

    v5fu6o.jpg

    any ideas guys?
  • RickFX
    make the cylinders 8 sided, and target weld the vertices near to the edges of the hole to the edges of that.
  • frubes
    circleinasqaure.jpg

    ok first up, you dont need to model all the holes. Only do one and duplicate it all the way down because the model is repetative.

    1: Make the diagonal cuts shown by the red lines
    2: Chamfer the Blue vertice to make your cylinder
    3: You should end up with something looking like the green line
    4: Remove the red lines with the yellow squiggles on them to give you qauds.

    Hey presto, one circular hole.
  • RickFX
    12111s.jpg
    12112i.jpg
    12113u.jpg
    12114.jpg
    12115s.jpg
    12116.jpg

    Edit: frubes way seems more clean to me, but not as easy to use on more than between 3 edges.
  • frubes
    from recolection Rick, when you smooth that you will get pinching at the points where the 4 edges converge?

    On the subject of edge count its always best to work with as few edges as possibe to create the shape you are after. This is especially true when working with reflections as any imperfection in the surface will break the reflection. The more edges you have which are not conformed perfectly to the surrounding topology will just server to multiply the imperfections.
  • Noors
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    Noors greentooth
    Here is the front of a walther ppk slide.
    Well i'm being a bit psychotic about it as it's not that bad. But still i have some pinch. So i guess if i want to make it better i have to add loops like in pic2 but it tends to fuck my circular shape and also the curve of the right bevel. I've let 5 egdes poly as it's for now what works the best. Watyathink ?
    ppkjb.jpg
    well that's maybe not really visible on the pic but it pinches ^^
  • OBlastradiusO
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    OBlastradiusO polycounter lvl 11
    perna wrote: »
    more geo
    more geo
    more geo

    Sorry, I couldn't hold it in anymore. Seriously guys, 90% of the problems in here are solved by using denser cages. Please stop thinking someone will give you an award for optimizing the polycount of your hipoly cage.


    He's right. I had to learn the hard way.
  • G3L
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    G3L polycounter lvl 9
    yeah the higher polycount is sometimes the only way to get stuff working. i gotta thank Perna and some of the other polycounters for instilling that in my head since I was soooo worried about polycount even when im in high res mode.
  • Noors
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    Noors greentooth
    well it's not really about optimizing, it's just the more edges you deal with, the more painful it becomes to keep curved shapes. In my exemple, if i add a loop to correct the angle, i have also to subdvide all the "cannon" twice to keep my shape a perfect circle. And then it becomes painful to handle those edges on the back of the slide, so gah. But i'll give it a new try tomoz ^^
  • Ghostscape
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    Ghostscape polycounter lvl 13
    Noors wrote: »
    well it's not really about optimizing, it's just the more edges you deal with, the more painful it becomes to keep curved shapes. In my exemple, if i add a loop to correct the angle, i have also to subdvide all the "cannon" twice to keep my shape a perfect circle. And then it becomes painful to handle those edges on the back of the slide, so gah. But i'll give it a new try tomoz ^^

    If you're trying to mix hard edges and curved surfaces, its best to rough in the curved surfaces with a very low edge-count, and then subdivide that so you have enough edges to work with for the hard-edged stuff. edges spread smoothing and distortion across # of edges, not distance, so by adding more edges you minimize each new edge's effect on the shape, allowing you to get tight hard that don't bleed smoothing/curvature to the other parts of the mesh.

    You don't need to do this with boxy models but with curved surfaces it is essential.
  • Laughing_Bun
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    Laughing_Bun polycounter lvl 17
    whoaw.jpg

    I have a question perhaps someone can help me with. I want the nice smooth curve that is shown in picture one, and it seems that the only way i can get that is through the elimination of a support loop, which creates problems with the cut out area.

    Then in Pic 2 it looks a lot better with the support loop, the problem is i have a really nasty hard edge where it should be nice and smooth like in pic one. Any suggestions on how to handle this?
  • EarthQuake
    triple/quadruple the amount of sides on your cylinder, that will help.

    again just use more geometry =D
  • jocose
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    jocose polycounter lvl 11
    I'm playing around with the best way to insert a body seam into a rounded surface that goes against the models topology. You can see what I'm talking about here:

    herefz.jpg

    The two ways I have come up with doing this are:

    1) Create a bunch of triangles and 5 sided polygons along the seam that goes against the topology, but only do so when you have enough geometry to hide any bumpy bits that might occur. (that's what I did in the image there)

    2) Model the rough outline of the body seam into your base mesh before you start subdividing so that you never have to go against the topology in the first place.

    I'm curious how you guys would approach this problem.
  • Ben Apuna
    Another way to go about doing that is to keep the outline of the hole as a separate model. Just make sure there are some overlapping faces that conform to the geometry outside of the hole so that when you subdivide they look merged and smooth.

    Looks like you're using Modo, sometimes a quick background constraint + geometry snap can be used to get the two models to conform to each other rather easily.
  • Dr Stench
    jocose wrote: »
    I'm playing around with the best way to insert a body seam into a rounded surface that goes against the models topology. You can see what I'm talking about here:...

    ....The two ways I have come up with doing this are:

    1) Create a bunch of triangles and 5 sided polygons along the seam that goes against the topology, but only do so when you have enough geometry to hide any bumpy bits that might occur. (that's what I did in the image there)

    2) Model the rough outline of the body seam into your base mesh before you start subdividing so that you never have to go against the topology in the first place.

    I'm curious how you guys would approach this problem.

    I'm not really sure what you mean, could you explain in a better way? Perhaps you should also show what you mean by the second solution (and a subdivided result). All I know is that you don't want geometry as shown in your image. That's really bad.
  • tarik3d
    Vailias wrote: »
    mayademshapes.jpg
    yes you can do it, but its a pain. and rather inexact by the most straight forward method There are a few better ways I can think of with the side bits either via temporary bone deformation, or just more tweaking of the ffd cage during the path deform. However anyway you slice it this particular set of deformations isn't simple in maya, which is disappointing.

    MayaDemShapesTut.jpg


    Hi All,

    This like really cool but can you do something like stage 10 in 3ds max with some sort of a plugin or something rather than just a FFD box?

    Cheers

    Tarik
  • Ghostscape
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    Ghostscape polycounter lvl 13
    He's grabbing an edgeloop from the curved piece, converting that to a path, and using a path-deform in 3ds Max.
  • tarik3d
    oh i mean stage 10 where one object perferctly fits onto the other
  • Dr Stench
    I don't think it fits perfectly. Which is fine when used as floating geometry.
  • tarik3d
    it just looks like a neat feature, be good if i could use the technique in max
  • MattW
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    MattW polycounter lvl 16
    tarik3d wrote: »
    it just looks like a neat feature, be good if i could use the technique in max

    You can, like said above, path deform
  • Vailias
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    Vailias polycounter lvl 18
    lol that tut was built to attempt to replicate things you can do in max in maya. :)
    The image link was posted on page 6 but heres a repost for the max workflow (image not mine)

    You can do it in max in fewer steps see
    howto01.jpg

    The other thing you can do is select the main shell, copy it and convert it to an edit patch object, then apply a patch deform modifier for even more control over the surface placement.
  • tarik3d
    omg this is amazing :) never seen this tool before, NICE!
  • tarik3d
    Actually ive got it to work one way by making a quad patch grid but if I already have a editable poly and then convert it to a editable patch my box with the patch deform mod on it says it is an illagal patch :s
  • Vailias
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    Vailias polycounter lvl 18
    try using a "turn to patch" modifier first before applying an "edit patch" modifier. May make the patches legal.
  • Playdo
    jocose wrote: »
    I'm playing around with the best way to insert a body seam into a rounded surface that goes against the models topology. You can see what I'm talking about here:

    herefz.jpg

    The two ways I have come up with doing this are:

    1) Create a bunch of triangles and 5 sided polygons along the seam that goes against the topology, but only do so when you have enough geometry to hide any bumpy bits that might occur. (that's what I did in the image there)

    2) Model the rough outline of the body seam into your base mesh before you start subdividing so that you never have to go against the topology in the first place.

    I'm curious how you guys would approach this problem.

    I too would like to know the cleanest way to approach a shape like this. Firstly, from what I've gathered, there should be less geometry.

    If the main shape was cylindrical then the horizontal loops could be easily adjusted to form cleaner geometry. How would this be approached if the main shape wasn't cylindrical but nearly spherical? I'd like to see Earthquake's take on this. From what i've seen he has a nice clean style.
  • Dr Stench
    Vailias wrote: »
    lol that tut was built to attempt to replicate things you can do in max in maya. :)
    The image link was posted on page 6 but heres a repost for the max workflow (image not mine)

    You can do it in max in fewer steps see
    howto01.jpg

    The other thing you can do is select the main shell, copy it and convert it to an edit patch object, then apply a patch deform modifier for even more control over the surface placement.

    Very nice. But I still fail at step 1.:poly122:
  • .Murder
    how would one go about modeling this shape, want to use it as a base for a cool sci-fi space ship thing (Maya btw) Spy1.jpg
  • disanski
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    disanski polycounter lvl 14
    table%3EThis is an awesome tread guys. I am currently having problem with 2 hard edges crossing at 90 degrees and transitioning to a surface without edges on the other side of the edge. I am uploading a screengrab. Thanks in advance for the help.

    EDIT: it happens to me for tenth time- just after i make a post somewhere and go back to my model i solve the issue .... not fair :) i am just talking to myself like this - not sure if this is healthy :)here is how i solved my HUGE problem

    table%3EBf2HMYi1L2H6amv6F1skig?feat=directlink
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    disanki you just need more geo ( more cilinder sides when creating the primitive. )
  • disanski
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    disanski polycounter lvl 14
    After reading this tread for a while I went back and I doubled the sides of the cylinder :) Obviously still not enough. Thanks Johny.
  • disanski
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    disanski polycounter lvl 14
    5pbTP_VJTfa4UNw2Szv4uA?feat=directlinktable%3EHello again I am still reading here and I have another problem. Here is the image.
    The biggest problem I am having is to terminate edge if I don't wont it to run across the whole object. And if it is planar it is not a big deal it looks good most of the time but if it curved geometry then I am stuck. This is just an example I know the pinching is not to bad in this case but just theoretically trying to find the answer.
    could it be not enough geometry again? Lets say it is a cylinder then I could add some more edges but sometimes I try to select an edge it takes forever. Also how can I add more geometry to existing object. If I just use connect edges options they appear just on the middle between the 2 existing edges and that destroys the curvature and if i have to adjust it by hand to keep it smooth it takes long time.
    Thanks again in advance. very helpful information here but it looks like I need to practice more.

    Edit : You can see I am pretty new here and I realize this is silly question, but how can I have my image show up in my post ?

    4177097447_cbb429300a_o.jpg
    4177097447
  • r4ptur3
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    r4ptur3 polycounter lvl 10
    disanski - try pulling the triangle down one more loop? you can most likely hide it on the side of the model where it is flat.

    to post in image inside a thread use [ img ] image url here [ /img ] with no spaces between [ ] and img.

    hope this helps!
  • disanski
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    disanski polycounter lvl 14
    Thanks r4ptur3. The images are working now. :) I tried your suggestion and it does look a bit better but still not perfect. ( I am not trying to make it look perfect just to understand what am I doing wrong) it is very minimal pinching but I have to add a lot of this so at the end it will look like a mess. What else could I do with it? This side of the object is curved as well. There is no flat part. Thanks again.
    4177912166_b423ea60ab_o.jpg
  • keizza
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    keizza polycounter lvl 18
    .murder:

    this is ONE way you can do it. what i did was created the circular peice you see in your photo. then i cut it in half and mirrored it as an instance. then i simply selected the edges i wanted to extrude and extruded them. then i used a relax on all the verts. then finally i messed around w/an ffd or lattice for maya or whatever.....and voila. NOW....this model is just for example. ie: it's ugly and the center would need work of course but....i just made it in a couple minutes for example. hope it helps.

    murderp.jpg
    Shot at 2009-12-11

    once you have this, you can just extrude the open edges and tuck 'em under.
  • disanski
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    disanski polycounter lvl 14
    Thanks a lot for your time. This is very helpful as well. I realize I did not explain what my final goal was. I will play with it a bit more and see what I come up with. I will make separate thread so I don't fill up this great thread with unnecessary stupidity.
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 14
    I am loving this thread! good job, man!
  • Dippndots
    hey guys I'm having this odd smoothing issue seemed like it fit in here since its in the sub-d version of the model. everything is in quads and there's no edges on top of each other.

    here are some pics
    low poly
    lowpoly.jpg

    hi poly
    Hipoly.jpg
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