Modelling baroque/intricate geo - workflow

dzibarik · Mar 2014

After I finish my current project I want to model some baroque furniture to push my boundaries further and put what I've learned over the time to test. Here is an example of what I'm going to do:

I tried to do some baroque elements in the past but never got deep into it because I was still struggling with modelling tools so I haven't figured out how to model such intricate details properly. I think I'm going to this in the most tedious way - model with polygons strips and then bridge/adjust geo.

So what's your way of doing such complex models? Most people will sculpt it probably but I'm willing to model it to improve my skills.

Bruno Afonseca · Mar 2014

Splines maybe? You'll go crazy doing that by extruding polygons.

beefaroni · Mar 2014

I think you should sculpt out your models. This type of detail will be much easier to do with inside of Zbrush (use a lot of subtools/extract meshes). Unless you're doing CRAZY up close renderings, super super high level accurate detail on the piece isn't necessary.

Instead of tedious, I maybe would replace that with a waste of time (sorry!). There are better models that you could tackle that would improve your modeling skills. If you can find the Hard Surface Challenge thread, that would be a good way to improve your modeling skills (in terms of edge flow and creasing) week after week and receive good critique.

Edit: I've linked two Zbrush tutorials. Gives some other options besides using the dam standard brush with extracts.

http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/lesson/environments-with-seth-thompson/

http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/lesson/projection-master/

imperator_dk · Mar 2014

Dont think it as bad as people make it out to be to do by via classic polygon modelling. Precision is not a big deal in stuff as jam packed with detail as baroque furniture. If you know your way around bend and ffd modifiers in max you can kit bash your way along fairly quickly as a lot of ornamental stuff is repeated shapes.

ZacD · Mar 2014

Take a look at this thread, http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101239

You do not need to do any crazy sculpting. I think sculpting would actually end up looking more muddy. Model the repeating shapes and don't worry about matching everything exactly. Just make sure the larger curves are smooth.

beefaroni · Mar 2014

@ZacD - Thanks for linking that thread. Good stuff.

I still stand by sculpting (or more specifically, modeling in Maya > GoZ > sculpting out the final details that may be too time consuming); however, ZacD and imperator_dk bring up good points.

dzibarik · Mar 2014

@ZacD yes, I skimmed through this thread in the past (being envious of Snefer's excellent skills) and wondered how he did these shapes. He uses modo too so I'm quite curious about how he did it. Modo doesn't have FFD and spline modelling there sucks so workflows will be quite different from what I saw in 3d MAX.

[HP] · Mar 2014

imperator_dk wrote: »

Dont think it as bad as people make it out to be to do by via classic polygon modelling. Precision is not a big deal in stuff as jam packed with detail as baroque furniture. If you know your way around bend and ffd modifiers in max you can kit bash your way along fairly quickly as a lot of ornamental stuff is repeated shapes.

+1

Add3r · Mar 2014

perna wrote: »

Yup. Unless you want the detail to hold up for a crazy high resolution texture, these kind of details are typically fast to model out by hand.

It can be very fast to model out, because:
-You don't need to model out transitions, the shapes should look perfectly fine if intersecting
-You just model out some simple poly strips and use a shell modifier to give mass
-Typically you just need to make it look similar, not identical to your ref
-You can reuse geo and use modifiers to change their path - quickest way to make lots of this stuff, just kitbashing it together.

Not sure why people are talking about splines, and Zbrush would likely take much longer than simple poly-modeling. Of course, what you could do is model out some very clean decorative parts, then use zbrush to instance and modify those if you want.

This +2 lol. I would like to add, like perna said, you dont have to model out transitions. If you are baking down, then just clean up transition in photoshop if you are picky about the intersections. Super quick paintover stuff you can do on NM/Spec/Diffuse/etc while in photoshop.

Just break it down to the big shapes/objects. Model out something fairly simple with enough geo to bend cleanly, and then just FFD/modifier your way to victory.

Ark · Mar 2014

Pretty easy to cover up the intersections with the round_corners shader in MR to get a nice filleted look.

Grusti · Mar 2014

Viscorbel make very very good tutorial about modeling that type of things

iniside · Mar 2014

I agree. It should be fairly easy, if tedious to do it with splines.
Splines will be much easier than zbrush though ;p.

What you will need, is good ortographic reference, you can put in viewport. After that it's just matter of draw spline, extrude along it, repeat.

Or good understrand of math behind those patterns. Whichever you prefer.

dzibarik · Mar 2014

IlyaIvanovArt wrote: »

Viscorbel make very very good tutorial about modeling that type of things

thanks, they are kickass.

dzibarik · Apr 2014

Started doing shapes

The first one is pretty simple even though my workflow was pretty convoluted. I had to use a couple of scripts to finish this but it's entirely doable with default toolset of every package.

Going for this:

Modelling baroque/intricate geo - workflow

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