If its only for baking I would not worry too much about the final polycount. As long as it fits its good. Just think practical.
I used 64 sides for this, maybe you can try it with 32 and it would still look fine. And you don´t need to use a six sided cylinder as a cutout. Yes, a subD quad will not be a perfect circle but as long as it looks good?
If its only for baking I would not worry too much about the final polycount. As long as it fits its good. Just think practical.
I used 64 sides for this, maybe you can try it with 32 and it would still look fine. And you don´t need to use a six sided cylinder as a cutout. Yes, a subD quad will not be a perfect circle but as long as it looks good?
Thanks for tip but how does it look after baking? It doesn't have to look perfect since I won't need it for close cam.
This is what I came up with after reading Your notes. Those holes are capped inside but other than that, I think it looks okey.
For the lowpoly it depends on how close you can get to the object. Normally these holes and the small gap won´t be part of the lowpoly geometry. A normalmap can be used for those details.
For detail on circular objects like that I prefer to model the detail (in your case I would go with an 8 sided hole) on a cube or a flat plane, then duplicate the mesh in a straight line with the pattern and spacing you want, and then use a bend deformer to bend it 360 degrees into a cylinder.
Another approach for something like this can be Double Smoothing, been invented for quite a long time
basically, double smooth will add a bunch of control edges and smooth your mesh at the same time, so you can remain the cylindrical shape and have hard edges but don't need to mess with the cage mesh
But still, you'll have to manually add some control edges for double smooth to work properly and of course to control how hard the edges will be
That describes what Perna was saying, by adding the new loop and deleting the original, you've lost some of the cylindrical shape. By shifting part of one control loop into a structural loop of another, you're going to have a mismatch of form.
By using the method you have been using but avoid adding/removing extra edges to the cylinder as you DID add an extra edges, the cylinder edges are no longer equidistant, thus causing unequal smoothing (probably not the right word but you get the gist)
Shini, why don't you just do it the way Wiki did?
He shows the wireframe right there.
Over the last few weeks you've received more help than anyone else on polycount, but you tend to ignore the advice and do things your own way, then complain that it doesn't work. You have created several threads where people give you advice or feedback and you just ignore them. How long are you going to go on like that? :poly006:
per here is something im struggling to understand. on this pic youve quoted, the edges of the extrusions arent lined up with the edges of the cylinder. i take it the extrusions are "out of place" and the cylinder edges are still equidistant from eachother? also, do the extrusion edges need to then be slightly further from the center (more out than the cylinder sides) to account for shrinking done by the subd?
Lining up plane changes with segments is something that at first makes sense to the human brain because we like to look for patterns like that, but it doesn't make sense in mesh construction because control loops will need to be added later. These control loops will then cause segments to shrink. So what you want to do is line up control loops with the segments. Don't line up plane breaks with the segments.
oh thanks yeah seems right thinking about it now.
That's an emergency tweak. So you only turn to that solution if it's absolutely necessary. It shouldn't be something you design towards in the first place, because then you're designing towards failure, I guess?
So you're absolutely right that the radius will be wider where you have the hard corners, so you'll generally just want to add sufficient geo that it won't be noticeable. It's barely noticeable with the absolute minimum geo, so it's unlikely to be a real issue
again thank you very much. you really did change my view on how to approach SubD both for baking purpouses and accuracy.
Actually Wiki's example has the same unevenly spaced segments as Shin's does.
*runs out of room to avoid Per throwing shoes*
thats what im slightly struggling to wrap my head about still. shouldnt you in this example use a cylinder with double the sides, so it provides the control loops for you? no need to shift edges around then
my way, letting the cylinder be the control loops. (do mind this isnt thought throu, just thrown together, you need to adjust the cylinder sides so it works for you)
Just a friendly reminder that I thought needs to be thrown out (something I need to remind myself as well)
Perna more than likely did not MANUALLY DO EACH segment and rather did a single extrusion section(4 sides) and copied the rest around to get equal quality and to save the aggravation of doing it PAINFULLY SLOW.
This won't work for many shapes, but if you've already laid out too much, you could duplicate, rotate a bit and snap points. It's still better to do things right the first time.
Perna, are you using Marius's Radial Symmetry modifier or are you doing radial symmetry manaully, or perhaps with a custom system of wired parameters and attribute holders?
Im modeling an Oshkosh Matv, having a hard time with the rear cargo edging. The area just above the MA6 stamp with the holes. I can use either modo or 3ds. Sorry for the low res
I'm really not mocking here, but I want to clarify .. you're having problems with the rectangular holes punched through the rectangular piece of metal? What specifically is the issue?
I was modeling ear and quite much finished it. Not happy with the result. With 1 iteration of Turbosmooth, it still looks like pile of crap. Geometry is bad on top (right side) where ear pretty much connects with side face. There is more geometry on ear than is on sideface. So I had to do a lot tweaking there to make those 4-sided polygons work. Here is what it looks right now.
Maybe someone could come up with better solution. I don't want to change sideface much; only the part around the ear (top right part more precisely).
Im modeling an Oshkosh Matv, having a hard time with the rear cargo edging. The area just above the MA6 stamp with the holes. I can use either modo or 3ds. Sorry for the low res
You can make a box with 1 length, 3 width and 3 height segments. Before deleting middle faces inset them to give those edges some geometry. Then bridge the hole and choose one horizontal edge of the hole. Ring that edge to choose all horizontal edges and choose connect edges with 2 segments and 90+ pinch (depending how sharp you want this middle hole to be). Do the same for vertical edges. If you don't do the previous, you will end up with round hole middle of your box. You should get something like that. Just dublicate it as much as you want.
@Sodamntrue That was spot on, the center being rounded was one of the major issues I ran into, thank you!
Sorry for being so vague,this is what I have so far. Is the topology stretching going to be a problem later on when baking or texturing? The other issue I have is modeling the bottom portion, where the railing curves to make a connection with a bar, sort of like a door hinge. Im having an issue creating that without creating a mess with the already created model's topology.
Hey guys, is there a good and fast way to model something like this?
First off, post an image of what you have done so far. Seriously people, we can't help you if you don't show us what you're having trouble with. The point of this thread isn't to simply write tutorials for random objects, so put in that initial effort and try to model it first and then post your results.
These stupid holes are driving me nuts
Well, for a game, you wouldn't actually model the holes in this belt as holes, assuming you're putting the belt on a character, you would model simple floater shapes with a shallow indent instead, and let the normal map do the work.
First off, post an image of what you have done so far. Seriously people, we can't help you if you don't show us what you're having trouble with. The point of this thread isn't to simply write tutorials for random objects, so put in that initial effort and try to model it first and then post your results.
Well, for a game, you wouldn't actually model the holes in this belt as holes, assuming you're putting the belt on a character, you would model simple floater shapes with a shallow indent instead, and let the normal map do the work.
Sorry, my mistake. I will post properly next time.
So this is what I made
I placed a test floater beside it, I assume this is the right way to do it? So It'll all be in the normal map and I just have to paint it black in texture or make it transparent with alpha?
Sorry, my mistake. I will post properly next time.
So this is what I made
I placed a test floater beside it, I assume this is the right way to do it? So It'll all be in the normal map and I just have to paint it black in texture or make it transparent with alpha?
Your first mistake here is trying to model the belt and the rivets as one object. Generally the rule of thumb is that if its made of more than one piece in real life, make it out of multiple pieces in 3d. In this case, each little rivet can simply be an instanced mesh that you place in the correct position.
I would fake the hole and paint it black (or leave it alone, its very unlikely to be noticeable). Its important to think about how large this would actually be in game, unless you're creating a belt simulator, these little holes would take up a pixel or 4 of screenspace at most, and probably not even be visible at most normal distances. To fake the hole, just model in a slightly inset bevel shape but make sure its capped off.
If you absolutely need to model the hole all the way through, do the same as above but make sure the belt geometry is dense enough that you can delete some faces where the holes are.
Hi guys,
how would you model the highlighted part of this grenade, for a hi-poly hard surface model with smooth-mesh-preview/ turbo-smooth/sub-d? (concept by Atomhawk)
I mean, in order to get those nice insets (not in line with the cylinder "native" loops!), would you start with a poly cylinder with enough geom + extrusions or with a poly plane + edge extrusion + bend?
I'm using Maya and I think I'd rather use the second technique: model the surface extruding plane edges, smooth if necessary and then bend it
By the way, what would be the best way to retopo a holed belt like that (assuming that the holes are real holes)? Since the pattern repeats, is there any way to cheat and save uv space? Sorry if I'm asking in the wrong place...
By the way, what would be the best way to retopo a holed belt like that (assuming that the holes are real holes)? Since the pattern repeats, is there any way to cheat and save uv space? Sorry if I'm asking in the wrong place...
Are you making just a belt, or will the belt go on a character? If on a character, you don't need to worry about the holes, the pants or whatever will show up behind the holes, which are too small to be modeled into the lowpoly. Let the normal map do its job.
Are you making just a belt, or will the belt go on a character? If on a character, you don't need to worry about the holes, the pants or whatever will show up behind the holes, which are too small to be modeled into the lowpoly. Let the normal map do its job.
The belt will be pretty big and sit in the middle. It's a belt that has all the stuff attached to it, but it sits on the bare skin. It's quite big and I though it'd be cool to have real holes at least where you can see the skin through them. I'm planning for a next gen character, so I assumed it's worth it for extra detail.
From that description I assume it's for the Sexy Big Boss. If you really want the skin to show through I would just keep them in the texture and either make the holes transparent in the material, or just put a skin texture in there.
Just because it's next gen it doesn't need to be overkill/wasteful.
Well, next gen character or not, I think you should still keep scale and viewing distance in mind when deciding what to model into the low and what to bake into the normals. These holes are only a few MM wide in reality, so again, unless you plan on doing belt closeup shots or something I wouldn't bother.
This should be fairly easy to figure out though, throw the highpoly belt on the character, and make a render at the target viewing size and resolution, then measure how large(in pixels) the holes in the belt actually are.
As is the detail and edge width you have modeled in looks like it will struggle to hold up when baked down to a texture, let alone warrant matching geometry in the low.
Well, next gen character or not, I think you should still keep scale and viewing distance in mind when deciding what to model into the low and what to bake into the normals. These holes are only a few MM wide in reality, so again, unless you plan on doing belt closeup shots or something I wouldn't bother.
This should be fairly easy to figure out though, throw the highpoly belt on the character, and make a render at the target viewing size and resolution, then measure how large(in pixels) the holes in the belt actually are.
As is the detail and edge width you have modeled in looks like it will struggle to hold up when baked down to a texture, let alone warrant matching geometry in the low.
I\ve never thought about it like that. This is eye opening to me. Million thanks :thumbup:
From that description I assume it's for the Sexy Big Boss. If you really want the skin to show through I would just keep them in the texture and either make the holes transparent in the material, or just put a skin texture in there.
Just because it's next gen it doesn't need to be overkill/wasteful.
As you can seee the basemesh is pretty low detailed ( especially the hole )
So when you bake it down wont you get ugly black lines that indicate that the low poly is to low detailed!
this is quite OK-ish result i know that. But there are the black lines iam refering to
Your unsmoothed high poly "basemesh" isn't your low poly mesh. It IS a great starting point however. Add more geometry where you need it to support the shapes well.
I hope this is the right place to post this. Here goes...
I am new to video game modeling (and to this forum altogether...) and I`ve been trying to bake a normal map to a lowpoly surfboard I made. I used XNormal`s cage baking to do this. My question is regarding these artifacts in the planar surfaces of the board, like so...
I can`t understand where do these artifacts come from...
Here is the wireframe...
Here is the original map...
And here is the green channel of the image, where you can see the artifacts more clearly...
And finally the red channel...
So, that`s what`s bugging me. I hope anyoe in here can help me with this one...
Replies
If its only for baking I would not worry too much about the final polycount. As long as it fits its good. Just think practical.
I used 64 sides for this, maybe you can try it with 32 and it would still look fine. And you don´t need to use a six sided cylinder as a cutout. Yes, a subD quad will not be a perfect circle but as long as it looks good?
Thanks for tip but how does it look after baking? It doesn't have to look perfect since I won't need it for close cam.
This is what I came up with after reading Your notes. Those holes are capped inside but other than that, I think it looks okey.
Excuse the mess in the center part. I also did only some quick welding so my edges may not align perfectly to the cylindrical shape.
basically, double smooth will add a bunch of control edges and smooth your mesh at the same time, so you can remain the cylindrical shape and have hard edges but don't need to mess with the cage mesh
But still, you'll have to manually add some control edges for double smooth to work properly and of course to control how hard the edges will be
Add more geo, then?
The main thing is...
If you want a super duper clean result than go for a higher edge count for your cylinder, thus making you not require any edge loops in that context
ALSO I should NOT be laughing at Perna's comment but I can sense his current emotion
dont worry about a triangle, it will be fine. just try it like on the picture perna posted.
per here is something im struggling to understand. on this pic youve quoted, the edges of the extrusions arent lined up with the edges of the cylinder. i take it the extrusions are "out of place" and the cylinder edges are still equidistant from eachother? also, do the extrusion edges need to then be slightly further from the center (more out than the cylinder sides) to account for shrinking done by the subd?
*runs out of room to avoid Per throwing shoes*
thats what im slightly struggling to wrap my head about still. shouldnt you in this example use a cylinder with double the sides, so it provides the control loops for you? no need to shift edges around then
:'D
thank you for taking your free time to help us idiots xD
Perna more than likely did not MANUALLY DO EACH segment and rather did a single extrusion section(4 sides) and copied the rest around to get equal quality and to save the aggravation of doing it PAINFULLY SLOW.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, but but but, i mentioned that i didn´t tweaked the shape
But yeah, the best method for this would be to create the control loops first and then extrude. So you don´t have to tweak manually.
This thread makes for a good drinking game.
http://www.itoosoft.com/freeplugins/clone.php
I was modeling ear and quite much finished it. Not happy with the result. With 1 iteration of Turbosmooth, it still looks like pile of crap. Geometry is bad on top (right side) where ear pretty much connects with side face. There is more geometry on ear than is on sideface. So I had to do a lot tweaking there to make those 4-sided polygons work. Here is what it looks right now.
Maybe someone could come up with better solution. I don't want to change sideface much; only the part around the ear (top right part more precisely).
You can make a box with 1 length, 3 width and 3 height segments. Before deleting middle faces inset them to give those edges some geometry. Then bridge the hole and choose one horizontal edge of the hole. Ring that edge to choose all horizontal edges and choose connect edges with 2 segments and 90+ pinch (depending how sharp you want this middle hole to be). Do the same for vertical edges. If you don't do the previous, you will end up with round hole middle of your box. You should get something like that. Just dublicate it as much as you want.
1:50 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzupiKl8GS4
Hopefully that can help you.
Sorry for being so vague,this is what I have so far. Is the topology stretching going to be a problem later on when baking or texturing?
These stupid holes are driving me nuts
model a segment with proper geo and use array/cloning tools. Deform afterwards.
First off, post an image of what you have done so far. Seriously people, we can't help you if you don't show us what you're having trouble with. The point of this thread isn't to simply write tutorials for random objects, so put in that initial effort and try to model it first and then post your results.
Well, for a game, you wouldn't actually model the holes in this belt as holes, assuming you're putting the belt on a character, you would model simple floater shapes with a shallow indent instead, and let the normal map do the work.
So this is what I made
I placed a test floater beside it, I assume this is the right way to do it? So It'll all be in the normal map and I just have to paint it black in texture or make it transparent with alpha?
Your first mistake here is trying to model the belt and the rivets as one object. Generally the rule of thumb is that if its made of more than one piece in real life, make it out of multiple pieces in 3d. In this case, each little rivet can simply be an instanced mesh that you place in the correct position.
I would fake the hole and paint it black (or leave it alone, its very unlikely to be noticeable). Its important to think about how large this would actually be in game, unless you're creating a belt simulator, these little holes would take up a pixel or 4 of screenspace at most, and probably not even be visible at most normal distances. To fake the hole, just model in a slightly inset bevel shape but make sure its capped off.
If you absolutely need to model the hole all the way through, do the same as above but make sure the belt geometry is dense enough that you can delete some faces where the holes are.
how would you model the highlighted part of this grenade, for a hi-poly hard surface model with smooth-mesh-preview/ turbo-smooth/sub-d? (concept by Atomhawk)
I mean, in order to get those nice insets (not in line with the cylinder "native" loops!), would you start with a poly cylinder with enough geom + extrusions or with a poly plane + edge extrusion + bend?
I'm using Maya and I think I'd rather use the second technique: model the surface extruding plane edges, smooth if necessary and then bend it
https://www.youtube.com/user/per127/videos
Are you making just a belt, or will the belt go on a character? If on a character, you don't need to worry about the holes, the pants or whatever will show up behind the holes, which are too small to be modeled into the lowpoly. Let the normal map do its job.
Just because it's next gen it doesn't need to be overkill/wasteful.
This should be fairly easy to figure out though, throw the highpoly belt on the character, and make a render at the target viewing size and resolution, then measure how large(in pixels) the holes in the belt actually are.
As is the detail and edge width you have modeled in looks like it will struggle to hold up when baked down to a texture, let alone warrant matching geometry in the low.
That makes sense, thanks.
Your unsmoothed high poly "basemesh" isn't your low poly mesh. It IS a great starting point however. Add more geometry where you need it to support the shapes well.
I hope this is the right place to post this. Here goes...
I am new to video game modeling (and to this forum altogether...) and I`ve been trying to bake a normal map to a lowpoly surfboard I made. I used XNormal`s cage baking to do this. My question is regarding these artifacts in the planar surfaces of the board, like so...
I can`t understand where do these artifacts come from...
Here is the wireframe...
Here is the original map...
And here is the green channel of the image, where you can see the artifacts more clearly...
And finally the red channel...
So, that`s what`s bugging me. I hope anyoe in here can help me with this one...
Cheers