Sometimes I get issues where edges are razor sharp for no reason. It's usually solved by putting on a turbosmooth with 0 iterations and collapsing. Might be a different issue though.
Having issues working out how to work the topology for this model. I tend to struggle when things start to have alot of holes etc and they all need to have varying fillets / roundness. Any recommendations?
Having issues working out how to work the topology for this model. I tend to struggle when things start to have alot of holes etc and they all need to have varying fillets / roundness. Any recommendations?
Yeah the sharper things are, the more likely they are going to have anti-aliasing issues. If you are going to do just offline renders, you can just crank up the settings.
I was going to, but I think I've messed up the ability to do. I usually start by just outlining the initial shape, cut my holes then begin to sub div, but I always end up with bad topology. I'm guessing my workflow is wrong for this?
I was going to, but I think I've messed up the ability to do. I usually start by just outlining the initial shape, cut my holes then begin to sub div, but I always end up with bad topology. I'm guessing my workflow is wrong for this?
Is not wrong, but you need to have a correct topology for the subdivision surface to work correctly, you don't necessarily need a quad-only mesh, but your edges have to retain the shape. You have to model it predicting how it will react after you subdivide it.
If you want, you can upload your model in .obj or .fbx into a file host (mediafire/mega/sendspace) compressed (7zip for example) so that I can take a better look at it.
Ok how do you model dem headlights (and tailights)?
While neither of the sphere topologys will help making the straight top to bottom details. the spherified cube topology edges goes to sides as you go farther from center and don't stay straight while the regular sphere is not working at all. I tried straightening the lines in the spherified one but that some how doesn't help much because the side planes have different flow.
any help is appreciated.
Ok how do you model dem headlights (and tailights)?
While neither of the sphere topologys will help making the straight top to bottom details. the spherified cube topology edges goes to sides as you go farther from center and don't stay straight while the regular sphere is not working at all. I tried straightening the lines in the spherified one but that some how doesn't help much because the side planes have different flow.
any help is appreciated.
Perna : Thank you for your effort. I downloaded it from your drive. The scriptspot one was down.
Shinigami : Yea now that you put it that way it seems really simple. I think my mind always had put the hole at the poles ! DUH ! thank you. but the having to know the general workflow helps alot, cause not all the headlights and tailights have near standard geometry shapes.
Another question, not much related to modeling, How to customize my create tab on the right of 3ds max to have my most used modifiers on top of it. I still waste time searching for those with their initials. Symmetry, FFD, Turbosmooth blah blah and want to customize my side tabs. Can any1 help me in that direction? I've seen that from a long time ago and never had a chance to find out how to do it.
And when there will be another mini challenge?! It seems everyone's busy...
Another question, not much related to modeling, How to customize my create tab on the right of 3ds max to have my most used modifiers on top of it. I still waste time searching for those with their initials. Symmetry, FFD, Turbosmooth blah blah and want to customize my side tabs.
Click "Configure Modifier Sets"
Set up as many buttons as you want, drag and drop modifiers to change layout
@Shini No worries dude, just trying to return to the community what it has provided to me. It wasn't that long ago I was posting in here getting frustrated Just wait until you start baking complex objects, and you can't figure out why your cage won't work or why you are getting horrid errors!
I messed with this shape for too long now, and I'd really like to see a pro's approach for this.
I tried with creasing tool, support edges (+support edges following topology) and 64 sides cylinder, but none of it is giving me the desired result.
I'm also open for resources to improve; scripts/tutorials
/Muk
Edit: how come that none's talking about open subdiv and creasing?
Because it nullifies most of the content in this thread. Heh. Seriously, I've switched over to psubs and creasing and I won't ever go back. Fuck edge loops. :P
Hey guys, I would like some help please. Working inside modo, Im putting the last touches on a knife model and ran into a problem aligning verts/edges along the blade. Is there a better way of aligning these since moving them individually is taking a long time and it ends up being wavy once its subdivided. Thanks in advance!
Just use ngons on the flat parts of the knife and then simplify the profile of the blades edge. Ngons on flat faces doesn't matter as it won't be seen anyway and it doesn't look like you'll do any sculpting on the knife.
Wow didn't expect anyone to actually build it, thank you Shinigami. I usually add all the control loops just before I'm done with the main shape but this time I ended up having to go back to the shape after that's why there's so many loops. I do agree with you though I would like to be better at minimizing my polygons there are way too many to deal with. I'll try minimizing when I get home. What part of the blade did you start with?
I've been having issues modeling the bottom piece of this machine head for a guitar I'm working on and I can't believe that it's beating me. The model itself isn't too difficult but I can't seem to figure out a good topology flow to keep crisp lines once I add a turbosmooth modifier. Any advice? I'm not concerned with modeling the hole that the screw would go through but just getting them crispy lines.
i took a stab at it. it is pretty symmetrical to start. then i just used a bunch of booleans to cut the cylinders shapes into the top and into the side. be careful though, you say you want those nice crispy lines, but actually the bevels aren't super sharp in most areas
this isn't the most clean model, but it should give you an idea of some of the topology. i do have a little pinching where the piece is extruded out of the main cylindrical shape, i should have started with a cylinder with more edges
I've been having issues modeling the bottom piece of this machine head for a guitar I'm working on and I can't believe that it's beating me. The model itself isn't too difficult but I can't seem to figure out a good topology flow to keep crisp lines once I add a turbosmooth modifier. Any advice? I'm not concerned with modeling the hole that the screw would go through but just getting them crispy lines.
Thanks!
Make sure to post up your attempts so we know where you're at.
I recently made one of these actually, try starting with the main circle shape and give it plenty of sides to work with, 32+. The difficult part is if you want to make the 'twisting' part and the rest of the piece together, you can just use the shrink wrap bevel method if you find making a continuous mesh too much of a headache.
A great way to start hardsurface shapes is to visually sketch a wireframe overtop of the object, it can help you plan for edge flow and topology.
It might be as easy as laying in 3 cylinders where they need to be, and then figure out the best way to connect them together. It's probably not as bad as you're imagining.
regarding booleans. Booleans werent friendly to me initially but i remember visiting a thread where they did some cool magic with booleans. They just require clean ups which is way more comfortable than modeling it/find other ways.
Wow amazing thanks, I'll download the obj shortly and have a look the bottom is actually cylindrical too which makes it even more bulbous.
Your method is extremely similar to what I'm currently trying so cheers; have you got a link to that thread by any chance? I've been through pernas Dropbox folder and some great stuff there
Hey folks, looking for a little advice. I have a vert with 5 edges causing some ugly creasing on my subd model. I've tried slicing the topology up a few different ways but haven't found a solution that doesn't cause even more pinching. I'm sure there's a really obvious solution I'm missing, but I'm stuck!
Also attached a reference of the faceted hexagonal cap on the gap pump nozzle I'm trying to make.
run meshcleanup command couple of times or check whether it disappears at higher subdivision levels.
if you're intending for baking a normal map then I wouldn't be worried about small errors like these. they will be less visible in the normal map especially once the diffuse and other textures applied.
@igi - I've run mesh cleanup and upped the subdivisions several different ways and still get minor creasing. I know an error that small won't show on a bake - especially with the density of sharing a texture with an entire gas pump. I'm just checking if there was a better way I could have constructed the geo so in the future I can avoid that problem if it does happen on a more prominent form.
@igi - I've run mesh cleanup and upped the subdivisions several different ways and still get minor creasing. I know an error that small won't show on a bake - especially with the density of sharing a texture with an entire gas pump. I'm just checking if there was a better way I could have constructed the geo so in the future I can avoid that problem if it does happen on a more prominent form.
Even though your error looks like caused by some illegal geometry (double edges, some floating vertices etc) rather then sub-d based, I gave it a go. looking decent to me:
I am sure there's a better way to do that but still this could work as an easy fix:
There are various ways to do that, but they all consist in the end on model the mesh and then move it on place.
The first consist in aligning the whole scene to the normal direction of a planar face in the model, in this case the one you have select will work fine.
This will give you the ability to look at the like it was in a 0-90° angle, facing you directly in the orthographic views. Don't know if 3ds Max can do that, XSI for sure (good job Autodesk!)
The second is to manually rotate your reference to get the best view possible, use an instance if you don't want to move the original, so that you can easily trace it (if you remove the triangulation it will better to see it), if it's what you want to do.
The third is to model your mesh while looking at the reference, and the move it on the correct position, but since you seem to have difficulty in getting the correct shape, I'd suggest you to try the second method, is not the most precise, but it's the easiest to do.
This is a quick model made while looking at your reference, not very precise but similar enough, to make it simple I made the cut at 45°, but you should make it at the angle the main machine panel is.
there's some weird shading / shape at some places near the bottom, maybe it's due to non optimal triangls ? Anyway the smaller tubes I've first used booleans on, then I only kept the perfectly matching shape and put in back on a copy of the bigger piece I had made before using boolean, as floating geo. I could try to just stitch it all together, don't know if that's useful though ?
Any comments are welcome! Please let me know of the things I can improve
Thanks for the exercise !
You don't need 5 edgeloops to make it round 1 to 2 is enough.
The "front pipes" have smoother tip transition (move edgeloops further apart).
The pipes also have transition with the rest of the rocket launcher (you can use same trick as Millenia did).
Also to maintain the overall roundness of cylinder you need extra (untouched) edgeloop between each hole.
Use "more sided" cylinder so that you won't have to use triangles to create holes. (it resulted in quite weird shading in the bottom part [closer to tip] of the mesh)
Hello Guys, How to go around model this thing? I actually have done it like the pictures you see, But I was wondering how do you guys would do it cause it took me around 2 hours and I'm not still fully satisfied.
(Sorry for attaching the image my using host was down)
You don't need 5 edgeloops to make it round 1 to 2 is enough.
The "front pipes" have smoother tip transition (move edgeloops further apart).
The pipes also have transition with the rest of the rocket launcher (you can use same trick as Millenia did).
Also to maintain the overall roundness of cylinder you need extra (untouched) edgeloop between each hole.
Use "more sided" cylinder so that you won't have to use triangles to create holes. (it resulted in quite weird shading in the bottom part [closer to tip] of the mesh)
Hey ! Thanks for the crits ! That helps, I'll try to tinker with it some more or just try it again since it seems my base cylinder wasn't quite right. I just didn't get the "Millenia trick"? Don't know what that means could you elaborate please (or point me in the right direction hehe).
Really nice exercice and looking forward to the next one anyway !
Hi, wouldn't mind some advice on making the metal window joining to the glass.
I'm modelling in blender, and ending up using a subsurface modifier with a bevel modifier to give a bit of finish to the edges of the microwave. Unfortunately these same modifiers seem to keep the sloping window edges sharp rather than rounded. Also the corners aren't getting enough geo and are looking particularly faceted.
Replies
Ive exported as OBJ and reimported and it worked then... was apparently just a max bug... ugh
Ref:
http://starttraffic.co.uk/image/cache/data/product-photos/barriers/avalon-barrier/avalon-barrier-standard-front-orange-1000x1000_0.jpg
Are you going to use subdivision surface on it?
Yes, too sharp can cause jaggies. http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Normal_map#Modeling_The_High-Poly_Mesh
I was going to, but I think I've messed up the ability to do. I usually start by just outlining the initial shape, cut my holes then begin to sub div, but I always end up with bad topology. I'm guessing my workflow is wrong for this?
Is not wrong, but you need to have a correct topology for the subdivision surface to work correctly, you don't necessarily need a quad-only mesh, but your edges have to retain the shape. You have to model it predicting how it will react after you subdivide it.
If you want, you can upload your model in .obj or .fbx into a file host (mediafire/mega/sendspace) compressed (7zip for example) so that I can take a better look at it.
Slapping an Edit Poly modifier above and collapsing might also work, as well as an Edit Normals modifier (select all and unify).
While neither of the sphere topologys will help making the straight top to bottom details. the spherified cube topology edges goes to sides as you go farther from center and don't stay straight while the regular sphere is not working at all. I tried straightening the lines in the spherified one but that some how doesn't help much because the side planes have different flow.
any help is appreciated.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/slicer
Shinigami : Yea now that you put it that way it seems really simple. I think my mind always had put the hole at the poles ! DUH ! thank you. but the having to know the general workflow helps alot, cause not all the headlights and tailights have near standard geometry shapes.
Another question, not much related to modeling, How to customize my create tab on the right of 3ds max to have my most used modifiers on top of it. I still waste time searching for those with their initials. Symmetry, FFD, Turbosmooth blah blah and want to customize my side tabs. Can any1 help me in that direction? I've seen that from a long time ago and never had a chance to find out how to do it.
And when there will be another mini challenge?! It seems everyone's busy...
Click "Configure Modifier Sets"
Set up as many buttons as you want, drag and drop modifiers to change layout
I tried with creasing tool, support edges (+support edges following topology) and 64 sides cylinder, but none of it is giving me the desired result.
I'm also open for resources to improve; scripts/tutorials
/Muk
Edit: how come that none's talking about open subdiv and creasing?
Awesome question.
I had not thought of that topology.
I've been having issues modeling the bottom piece of this machine head for a guitar I'm working on and I can't believe that it's beating me. The model itself isn't too difficult but I can't seem to figure out a good topology flow to keep crisp lines once I add a turbosmooth modifier. Any advice? I'm not concerned with modeling the hole that the screw would go through but just getting them crispy lines.
Thanks!
this isn't the most clean model, but it should give you an idea of some of the topology. i do have a little pinching where the piece is extruded out of the main cylindrical shape, i should have started with a cylinder with more edges
Make sure to post up your attempts so we know where you're at.
I recently made one of these actually, try starting with the main circle shape and give it plenty of sides to work with, 32+. The difficult part is if you want to make the 'twisting' part and the rest of the piece together, you can just use the shrink wrap bevel method if you find making a continuous mesh too much of a headache.
A great way to start hardsurface shapes is to visually sketch a wireframe overtop of the object, it can help you plan for edge flow and topology.
if anyone has any advice on how to initially get the 3 cylinders correctly joined it would save me a ton of time and headache!
then I tried using a cylinder; extrude, reshape and sym.
Like this;
(maybe I should of used less edges? It looks like its eventually gonna lead down to a pole and pinch when I need chamfers there
Wow amazing thanks, I'll download the obj shortly and have a look the bottom is actually cylindrical too which makes it even more bulbous.
Your method is extremely similar to what I'm currently trying so cheers; have you got a link to that thread by any chance? I've been through pernas Dropbox folder and some great stuff there
Also attached a reference of the faceted hexagonal cap on the gap pump nozzle I'm trying to make.
if you're intending for baking a normal map then I wouldn't be worried about small errors like these. they will be less visible in the normal map especially once the diffuse and other textures applied.
Even though your error looks like caused by some illegal geometry (double edges, some floating vertices etc) rather then sub-d based, I gave it a go. looking decent to me:
I am sure there's a better way to do that but still this could work as an easy fix:
The purple object (right) is mine at it's current state.
I tried edge modeling using local orientation but scaling the edges in doesn't work out well.
Could someone point me in the right direction of what to do? Angled face makes things a bit more complicated for me (I think..)
The first consist in aligning the whole scene to the normal direction of a planar face in the model, in this case the one you have select will work fine.
This will give you the ability to look at the like it was in a 0-90° angle, facing you directly in the orthographic views. Don't know if 3ds Max can do that, XSI for sure (good job Autodesk!)
The second is to manually rotate your reference to get the best view possible, use an instance if you don't want to move the original, so that you can easily trace it (if you remove the triangulation it will better to see it), if it's what you want to do.
The third is to model your mesh while looking at the reference, and the move it on the correct position, but since you seem to have difficulty in getting the correct shape, I'd suggest you to try the second method, is not the most precise, but it's the easiest to do.
This is a quick model made while looking at your reference, not very precise but similar enough, to make it simple I made the cut at 45°, but you should make it at the angle the main machine panel is.
My take on it, qs a first timer;
there's some weird shading / shape at some places near the bottom, maybe it's due to non optimal triangls ? Anyway the smaller tubes I've first used booleans on, then I only kept the perfectly matching shape and put in back on a copy of the bigger piece I had made before using boolean, as floating geo. I could try to just stitch it all together, don't know if that's useful though ?
Any comments are welcome! Please let me know of the things I can improve
Thanks for the exercise !
Just a small critique if I may.
Had to take a stab at it myself...
High-Poly
http://i.imgur.com/8vaOwhk.jpg
Wireframe:
http://i.imgur.com/DXTaI0k.jpg
Edit #1: There's actually some smoothing artifact when viewed from different angles. I plan to bake this down to a Low-Poly when it's done.
It's a RECEIVER EXTENSION NUT.
Help?
Only i suggest an 60 sided cylinder, you have enough support edges all around, if not, then more sided cylinder if details are smaller.
(Sorry for attaching the image my using host was down)
Hey ! Thanks for the crits ! That helps, I'll try to tinker with it some more
Really nice exercice and looking forward to the next one anyway !
I'm modelling in blender, and ending up using a subsurface modifier with a bevel modifier to give a bit of finish to the edges of the microwave. Unfortunately these same modifiers seem to keep the sloping window edges sharp rather than rounded. Also the corners aren't getting enough geo and are looking particularly faceted.
Any suggestions?