Sub-division help needed, pretty-please

Polygoblin · Jan 2011

Hey there! Thanks for taking the time to view my post.

I'm having an issue with the little grooves on the slide of this Glock 19. I haven't been able to get the hard edges of each groove to cooperate without compromising the soft bevel on the top of the slide. Hard to explain, so I made some visual references.

Anybody have any ideas??? Thanks you in advance.

megalmn2000 · Jan 2011

Did you try to make some floating geometry?
Maybe it will works.

Polygoblin · Jan 2011

Yeah, That's kind of a "last-effort" thing since the occlusion pass F's up, but I'm nearing that result. I've tried some other things suggested at GA.net, but to no avail

However, I managed to get it to behave slightly better than this pic, so I'm wondering if it's noticable enough to spend more time addressing? I may be getting Not sure, but I'm not ready to admit defeat yet! :P

mdeforge · Jan 2011

What's wrong with this?

It's probably screwing up because you have useless edge loops there.

EDIT: There's a little bit of pinching there, but an extra control loop below it would fix that.

Polygoblin · Jan 2011

Stradigos wrote: »

What's wrong with this?

That big hard line that you get running down the length of the barrel.

mdeforge · Jan 2011

Why is that a problem? Not being rude, just curious as to what your beef is.

Polygoblin · Jan 2011

@Stradigos - On a Glock 19, there is a soft bevel that runs the length of the slide. Having a hard line there will be very noticable, so I can't use that solution.

However, I believed I have cracked the riddle! By separating the groove faces, and smoothing the slide alone, I believe I have successfully cheated my way out :P

Thank you for your time and input, everybody!

mdeforge · Jan 2011

No edge is ever perfectly hard. Just put the edges really close together to harden it out. That four edge loops approach renders well, but it's ugly otherwise. If your doing this piece to show off good high poly modeling, I'd recommend against it. At the very least, use separate geometry and try and fix your AO bakes you were saying didn't work right earlier. It just seems like your adding a ton of geometry just to get these edges right.

And what's going on with your edge flow near the bottom right, and center right of that image???

I guess if you intend to bake this for a low poly you don't need to be so concerned, but still... good habits.

Polygoblin · Jan 2011

Stradigos wrote: »

That four edge loops approach renders well, but it's ugly otherwise. If your doing this piece to show off good high poly modeling, I'd recommend against it. At the very least, use separate geometry and try and fix your AO bakes you were saying didn't work right earlier.

It was just a method that gave me the least amount of error. I was asking for advice on how to address it because I knew it was ugly, so thanks. Oh, and I did separate the geometry. That's what my newest update shows and describes. Maybe read first? :poly124:

Thanks again, Stradigos

mdeforge · Jan 2011

It looks like it's still one mesh to me. The edge flow around says so. We may be talking about two different things.

Top arrow: What did you make into a separate mesh? It wasn't the grooves unless I'm retarded. Which is quite possible.

Middle arrow and bottom arrow: Sadface.

Polygoblin · Jan 2011

Your right, I'm totally lying :poly124: [/sarcasm]

pior · Jan 2011

Strad, no its not one mesh anymore - he split the green parts out for the mesh discontinuity to let the bevel run smooth , while keeping the ndents sharp on the other side of the split. It's a bit if a hack and could cause problems BUT it seems to work perfectly fine here.

Poly : There are other way to achieve this look, if you feel like experimenting. I am becoming quite a voxel fan for that kind of stuff. In 3DCoat, you could import the main shape (perfectly round bevel) then subtract the indentation.

Good old nasty booleans can work just fine too. Also, sometimes low or mid poly modeling without subD is totally good enough for that kind of surface detail.

marks · Jan 2011

Or you could just do it the simplest way, as described in Stradigos' original post - and just use more geo in your cage mesh. If you want to retain the soft bevel running down the length of the slide - don't use 3 or 4 edges to define it. Use 20. Then you have to work REALLY hard to screw it up.

Danielmn · Feb 2011

hey man, saw this post today
and thought this might help
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56014&page=55

Polygoblin · Feb 2011

@Danielmn- The issue is resolved, but thank you

Besides, that hard line running down the length of the barrel is not supposed to be there. That's what makes it such a conundrum :poly124:

@pior- Thank you

I believe you can do some basic mesh subtraction like that in zbrush too, but I can't remember what it's called. I'll try it out next time (which will be soon)

Sub-division help needed, pretty-please

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