@Dvids You got the shape of the decocking lever wrong, it's not rectangular at the top but rather one continuos curve. I've attached some references that might help. It's always good to get a lot of refs from different angles to get a better idea of the overall shape. I'd build the whole lever first and do the serrations last, boolean + cleanup is a valid approach.
(It's also worth considering if you really need to model the serrations. Those are really shallow and you'd only see the silhouette change at specific angles and extreme close-ups. Doing this detail in texture would be easier. All depends on the project scope and requirements)
You are absolutely right that I misinterpreted the shape. Was doing this at 4am last night lol, think I got sleepy. I also didn't have reference showing the backside of the lever - may I ask where you found that? Just google or a specific source?
I re-created the whole thing and started with the back transition using a cut off cylinder. This way I got the main shape right before even worrying about the serration. I also understand that they are less deep in real life - I am intending to exaggerate them a little on purpose to get a nice looking normal map. If this was for production, I would not model these but solve it in Painter, but since this is a personal project with the objective to practice good topology and sub-d modeling, I am doing as many details by hand as I can.
This is the second attempt. Still have to clean up the edgeflow but got the main shape correct this time.
okidoki Thank you for actually going ahead and modeling it. Turns out I just needed better reference
Actually went back to the base mesh and built it again. This is the cleanest I managed to come up with so far. There are still ngons along the edge which I can't find a smart way to resolve, but the shading actually seems to be working regardless, so I'm just gonna leave them for now.
Funny side note - I'm modeling this handgun because 8 years ago, I abandoned the same project. I managed to find the old project files and threw them in to compare it to what I am doing today. For this declocking lever specifically.. let's just say the version from 8 years ago acurately reflects my frustration with sub-d modeling at the time 😆
Replies
You are absolutely right that I misinterpreted the shape. Was doing this at 4am last night lol, think I got sleepy. I also didn't have reference showing the backside of the lever - may I ask where you found that? Just google or a specific source?
I re-created the whole thing and started with the back transition using a cut off cylinder. This way I got the main shape right before even worrying about the serration. I also understand that they are less deep in real life - I am intending to exaggerate them a little on purpose to get a nice looking normal map. If this was for production, I would not model these but solve it in Painter, but since this is a personal project with the objective to practice good topology and sub-d modeling, I am doing as many details by hand as I can.
This is the second attempt. Still have to clean up the edgeflow but got the main shape correct this time.
okidoki
Thank you for actually going ahead and modeling it. Turns out I just needed better reference
Funny side note - I'm modeling this handgun because 8 years ago, I abandoned the same project. I managed to find the old project files and threw them in to compare it to what I am doing today. For this declocking lever specifically.. let's just say the version from 8 years ago acurately reflects my frustration with sub-d modeling at the time 😆