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

narticus

Mine's kind of elongated, but the results are close to what I was aiming for. Also did it in about 30 min (in between actual work, I'm at the office). Thanks for the help Perna and Pedro, this was a fun little exercise. Before now, I hadn't really used booleans efficiently.

Pedro Amorim

awesome! thumbs up

Mark1457

Bartalon wrote: »

I find that with screws, it's much easier to use fewer sides on the helix and creased edges instead of support loops. In my example the helix has 8 sides. The lower side count allows deeper threads to tie off at a smoother angle where the threading ends. There are some minor visual artifacts near the tie-off point, but that's likely not to be an issue unless the shot is very close, at which point another turbosmooth iteration would resolve the problem.

perna wrote: »

Mark: They end near a flat surface. Within a flat surface you can literally do whatever you want, as there's no way to get bad shading on a flat surface. So if you need to terminate those loops, that's a great place to be doing it.

Thank you, this helped a lot.

karasuzanu

How can i model this. help pls.

WarrenM

Really?

Colddeez

Shinigami,

Granted I'm no expert, but I didn't see the one section that has the "Aimpoint" which is more flattened out than the rest. I can't think of a better description. However, looks awesome! I was really impressed by the shape and had to try it out myself!

cadgonegames

Hey guys,

Been trying to get this shape made as accurate as possible, but there isn't much in terms of reference for me to work from other than this image!



I'm trying to make the clamp connection element, which I've dissected, but i'm having issues getting the multiple curves in, which one always breaks.

Here's what I've got...






I just can't seem to get the smoothing right at the strut parts, not at the top. I think its something to do with how my loops are?

Any help would be great!

CoD67

Any one knows how to model this kind of pattern ?

SuperFranky

CoD67, please try do it yourself first and post what you have done before asking in this thread.
I'll give you a tip: duplicate and bend

CoD67

Hi SuperFranky I'm not asking for the whole model , I'm just asking for the pattern of the handguard ( These diamond holes in between the rails ) . Here's what I got so far .

And yes , I did spend 2 hours scratching my head but still no luck . This is the closest one that I can get

cadgonegames

Made some progress on the bottom part, looking right now, but the corner piece running towards to the top is too flat, and the connection at the top is just plain wrong atm!






Using the above topology I ended up with this... its kinda like this but maybe needs a little more roundness on the corner pieces?

Anchang-Style

cadgonegames wrote: »

Hey guys,

Been trying to get this shape made as accurate as possible, but there isn't much in terms of reference for me to work from other than this image!



I'm trying to make the clamp connection element, which I've dissected, but i'm having issues getting the multiple curves in, which one always breaks.

Here's what I've got...






I just can't seem to get the smoothing right at the strut parts, not at the top. I think its something to do with how my loops are?

Any help would be great!

Maybe like this:

cadgonegames

Thanks Anchang, that worked well for the bottom section, still a bit messy up top, but I might be able to work something from it

Edit: top being the bottom the image! hah

Moatasem

CoD67 wrote: »

Hi SuperFranky I'm not asking for the whole model , I'm just asking for the pattern of the handguard ( These diamond holes in between the rails ) . Here's what I got so far .

And yes , I did spend 2 hours scratching my head but still no luck . This is the closest one that I can get

AdvisableRobin

CoD67 the simplest way to make the shape is break it up into two. Since the rail and the holey-tube-can'trememberthename are two pieces in real life.

Create the pattern as a plane and make it so you can tile it. My topology isn't optimal and yielded some smoothing errors so I would try simplifying yours.


Give it some depth and any additional geometry.


If you are using Max I think you can use a Bend, I'm not sure how it works. If you are using Maya switch from Polygon to Animation and under Create Deformers you can create a Non-Linear Bend deformer. In the channel box rotate it and expand the bend1 node and play with the curvature. Make sure to delete your history after that otherwise it'll go wonky when you try to move it.

CoD67

Thank Moatasem and AdvisableRobin . I pretty much got the idea .
Here's my pattern

How it's look on the *unfinished* handguard .

Wireframe

AdvisableRobin

If you are planning on adding the gas chamber holes as part of the low poly, I'd consider either hardening up the highpoly's curves or you'll have to do some fancy geometry work so your lowpoly has enough geometry to support the curves and bevels.

XAavBp

Could someone help me figure this sphape so far i've been stuck with the pinching

commador

The pattern looks good, but now the handguard is no longer circular, and the rails on the side are half the size they should be. Get the scale resolved and you've got it.

CoD67

New update based on your advices . Is it ok now ?

Dave Jr

I've read a few pages and learnt that Booleans are obviously an incredible way of getting form out fast;

I also read from a thread a couple of years back that perna did a write up on this. Don't suppose anyone has got it or knows where I can locate it? The scoop hard surface model produced in 20 minutes via Booleans (found a couple of pages back) got me incredibly intrigued.

narticus

I'd love to see a compilation of all of Perna's posts from this thread. He could probably get it published.

WarrenM

Here you go:

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134116

It's in his sig.

Dave Jr

Cheers for that warren, I've just gone through it and struggled to find a lot of info into this Boolean technique any idea where I could read up on it more?

Scizz

Seeing a lot of boolean being used. At a time wasn't using booleans a last resort kind of thing?

metalliandy

Scizz wrote: »

Seeing a lot of boolean being used. At a time wasn't using booleans a last resort kind of thing?

Booleans have always been perfectly fine on surfaces that are flat/dont deform and while it is true that you can still get messy results with them, that is more often than not due to using poor geometry (incorrect number of sides etc.) and expecting miracles because magic.

I think it was mainly a fallacy that was constantly regurgitated by people without questioning why it was apparently bad. Unfortunately misinformation seems to spread faster than the truth as people tend to accept easy information that is reinforced on a forum because it's much easier than having to do the grunt work of actually learning about the subject. :P

WarrenM

I think it was mainly a fallacy that was constantly regurgitated by people without questioning why it was apparently bad

Never use n-gons, man. Your mesh will implode and spawn a demonic hell baby who will delete your max file. True story.

OBlastradiusO

I think booleans are good for complicated flowing objects.

ElectricEchoes

Hey guys, I've been struggling to create the shape of this cartridge slot without messing up the smoothing with those sharp corners. I don't even want to show how bad my attempt turned out lol. Any ideas on how to go about it?

Sorry if this is a stupid one, I just can't seem to get it right. Thanks!

XAavBp

I tried with a boolean and changed its topology to something semi-decent since I want to smooth it a bit but I still cant seem to fix the corners can anyone give me a hint ?





Here's my file

http://www.mediafire.com/view/o4cctm5i4t6ta3k/Sphere__Shape.obj

Colddeez

XAavBp,

Personally, I'd go with a quadsphere (which can be made by making a cube and upping the Sub-Ds) so you can get clean quads to cut out. Something I threw together really quickly...





hope that helps!

XAavBp

I tried the Quad shpere too but as your result show i wasn't able to make the shape circular enough compared to a regular shpere the smoothed cube just seem too flat on the corner

.Wiki

XAavBp wrote: »

I tried the Quad shpere too but as your result show i wasn't able to make the shape circular enough compared to a regular shpere the smoothed cube just seem too flat on the corner

The normal subdivided cube will never be a perfect sphere, but you can just subdivide a cube 2 times and then shrink wrap it onto a sphere to get a more spherical shape.

ZacD

I'm kinda surpised 3d packages don't have an option for a geosphere yet, I normally keep a 2x subdivided geo sphere in my scenes to duplicate when needed.

Fingus

In Maya I just take a cube and Bevel the edges with the Offset (Fraction if you're in 2015) set to the maximum value, and with Merge Vertex on. It's not 100% perfect, more like 95%, but good enough for modeling.

Actually, here is some MEL I just quickly slapped together.

2015:

polyCube -sx 1 -sy 1 -sz 1 -n "qSphere";
$cubeSphere = `ls -sl`;
select -r $cubeSphere.e[0:11];
polyBevel -oaf 1 -f 1 -sg 4 -fn 1 -mv 1 -mvt 0.1;
DeleteHistory;

2014 and below:

polyCube -sx 1 -sy 1 -sz 1 -n "qSphere";
$cubeSphere = `ls -sl`;
select -r $cubeSphere.e[0:11];
polyBevel -o 0.5 -sg 4 -fn 1 -mv 1 -mvt 0.1;
DeleteHistory;

I may write a proper one later that auto detects your maya version, and lets you specify how many divisions you want.

XAavBp

I came up with this result using a quadsphere still some issues with pinching around the corners

wirrexx

Colddeez wrote: »

XAavBp,

Personally, I'd go with a quadsphere (which can be made by making a cube and upping the Sub-Ds) so you can get clean quads to cut out. Something I threw together really quickly...





hope that helps!

look at Coldz. his got a ngone there, sometimes n-gones are wonderfull!

Dave Jr

struggling to comprehend this at the minute;

ref:


What I've got;


I know Booleans are used quite often in this case; but as I typically avoid using them I wouldn't know how/why.

Edit: I know I've got 2 turns looked better

throttlekitty

Dave Jr, that looks fine to me. If you're baking to a normal map, it doesn't matter if you keep those as two objects. If you want it all as one, try extruding/bridging the bottom edges of your coil.

Colddeez

Dave Jr.

I completely agree Throttle Kitty. However; I'd just find a cleaner way to end the edges of your threads so that their mesh is smoothed out into the main body of the cylinder. But if you're looking to bake this, then floating geometry should work just fine.

Is there reason why you'd want to make them into a single mesh? Just curious

Dave Jr

Colddeez wrote: »

Dave Jr.

I completely agree Throttle Kitty. However; I'd just find a cleaner way to end the edges of your threads so that their mesh is smoothed out into the main body of the cylinder. But if you're looking to bake this, then floating geometry should work just fine.

Is there reason why you'd want to make them into a single mesh? Just curious

I just wanted to learn how to form shapes together using Boolean. Recently I've seen all sorts on here like scoops etc made extremely quickly. I've always avoided using Booleans and didn't realise they could be so handy.

Fingus

If you haven't already I suggest you take a look at MeshFusion in Modo. It's a different kind of boolean system. The advantage is that it's non-destructive and you can do very complex intersections. But the downside is that it returns a rather dense mesh, so it's good for highpoly but not so much for lowpoly.

reedweinstock

Does anybody know how you would do something like velcro?

Mr Digital

reedweinstock wrote: »

Does anybody know how you would do something like velcro?

I will use particles, not sure exactly how he did.

Nosslak

As long as the area is flat and it looks good there won't be any problem (as long as the part doesn't need to deform). The only thing that matters with the highpoly is that the shading looks smooth, if it does just go right ahead and bake it.

samboats69

st

AdvisableRobin

The end result topology of a highpoly object doesn't really matter, so long as the shading and smoothing looks fine. You've only really got to worry about topology when you are still in the modeling phase and are trying to keep it clean so you can easily add in detail or if you plan on sculpting it.

I'm curious about the panel lines, are those just riveted into the model or did you model each 'piece' itself and then fit it all together?

commador

AdvisableRobin wrote: »

I'm curious about the panel lines, are those just riveted into the model or did you model each 'piece' itself and then fit it all together?

Looks like its separate parts. Much easier to create stuff that way.

Falkrum

Hello, guys! Need your help to find out how to work with sperical objects, orbs in sci-fi and industrual style.

Something like this



Maybe this one too.



I want to work with HexaSphere, separate couple pieces, make it hight detailed and copy to rest of surface of orb, but how? Some tips in Maya?

SuperFranky

Looks like a good start, what do you think you're doing wrong?