Soft vs Hard

Cristina

Hello all,

I attached some SSs to illustrate my problem. Now the first one seems really bulky and has somewhat of a rough feeling and the other has a uniform look, now my question to what should i be aiming (not only on this project but in general) a hard surface, a smooth one or a mix?





PS: This is my first serious project, want to go through it from begging to end, so i need all the advice you are willing to offer me.

chrisradsby

I don't really get what your goal is with this? Are you following a concept? some instructions? What you should be aiming for is your goal that usually is a concept or something.

It depends entirely on what you're trying to make. You'd probably need to give us more information before we can give you any decent advice on anything.

Cristina

Yes i have a concept i am following, my question was in this case of modeling a metallic hull, should i use more hard edges as in picture one, should i stick to a smooth modifier, or should i try to use smoothing groups?

Yozora

You should use whatever you need to make it look like whatever it's meant to look like.

It would help if you showed us the concept. But if you want to have harder edges you should insert extra loops nearer to the corners (the nearer you insert them, the sharper the corner will be). Or you can just use turbosmooth and tick the "smoothing groups" box and it'll preserve the sharp edges wherever theres a change in smoothing groups.

Read this to learn more about making high poly stuff http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=56014

Noia

You could use the hard one and then you could chamfer the edges that look too hard to you. Like the 90 degree ones so it looks like there's a tiny bit of wear.

bbob

Okay, there is a way to keep the edges crisp, while having smooth surfaces.

What you have to do is select the edges you want to be crisp, and give those a chamfer. Then slap on the turbosmooth or meshsmooth modifier.

ralusek

Hard = she's happy. Soft = she laughs at you.

When it comes to hard surface, if you plan on sculpting then you will likely turbosmooth (or soft). how you keep crisp edge to make it still appear hard while still getting the additional geometry in there is by adding edge loops near edges. the closer two edge loops are together near an edge, the sharper it will be. it's usually preferable to leave a little bit of distance between them, just so a tiny bit of light catches on the chamfer it creates.