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is traditional surface modelling still relevant?

ArcaneLeo
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ArcaneLeo polycounter lvl 2
couple of month ago i try using parametric modelling on fusion 360
and it was a mind blown experience, and now i a bit lose motivation using traditional surface modelling
especially for hard surface

surface modelling can take a lot of time just for making a simple thing or adding a simple detail
create a multiple scatter hole on your object surface can give you enough headache and
and sometimes it take 5-6 hour just to create a detail
but to create something organic, i like surface modeling

parametric modelling on other hand is so fast, you can add any detail easily, the workflow is nondestructive
, the best part is, it is parametric, your object shape is constrained, so you can change your object parameter value,
without destructing your object
the cons is, its has too many poly, triangle shape, probably you need to retopo before use it
,all i can say is, it is a future of modelling
its accurate, user friendly, reuseable, parametric

and now, i discourage, lose motivation, depressed
whenever i do hard surface modeling with surface modeling, i feel like a dumb person,
just to create simple stuff, i need to do ton of edge selection, cut and weld, play smart with edge loop, moving vertice and edge
its tedious, and its wasting time

so i need to know some insight from you guys,
am i really wasting my life with this pointless surface modelling??
and why Autodesk didn't implement parametric modeling on 3dmax or maya

parametric modelling use t-spline, and tspline owned by autodesk, it could be huge if
we can do parametric modelling in max or maya and use some algorithm to somehow make it proper topology topology like zremesher 
, yet autodesk didnt make any move about it
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  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    max has a very powerful parametric system - assuming you're not talking about magic fillets for your booleans. it can also load and work with CAD data non-destructively


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  • ArcaneLeo
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    ArcaneLeo polycounter lvl 2
    really?? i didnt know max capable to work with CAD data non destructively, guess i need a google work
    its good if there a workflow using CAD and max, but it would be heavy retopology work i guess,

    3dmax have parametric? you mean modifier stack?

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  • Obscura
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    Obscura grand marshal polycounter
    Lot of people might argue about this, but traditional hard surface modeling has its beauty in my opinion, and personally I still do it a lot of times. I find it relaxing (if you know what are you doing). Similarly to newcomers with substance painter, I would say it really doesnt hurt if you know how to do it without without fancy tools for dummies. Skipping traditional workflows regardless of the topic, whether its modeling or texturing makes huge gaps in their knowledge, and this clearly shows on the questions on the internet. Maybe its irrelevant for you because you started earlier, but I wanted to point this out. Don't misunderstand me, those new tools are great, but they don't help with learning the fundaments.
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  • ArcaneLeo
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    ArcaneLeo polycounter lvl 2
    yeah, i want to keep using surface modeling as well, i use surface modeling for my daily job,
    but i find it a bit tedious, but nothing can beat the beauty of well created surface modelling

    my main issue is traditional surface modeling take a massive amount of time,
     i feel a little bit down, the parametric modeling are so effective,
    but because its a tool for engineering, its lack of flexibility, also i imagine there will be massive
    retopology work and export

    but if max or maya can adopt parametric like fusion360, it would be perfect tool for hard surface,
    for now, probably stick with surface modelling, until there a new method 

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  • Obscura
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    Obscura grand marshal polycounter
    One more thing came to my mind regarding this. If you make your highpoly using traditional methods, it usually gives you a very good base for your lowpoly. Sometimes you only need to remove the support edges and you are done. This is really important, whether its for a game or anim or whatevee because it is very hard, usully impossible to work further with the raw highpoly. Even in animation, they work with a "medium poly" cage mesh, and its subdivided upon rendering. So doing operations with it doesnt have to be done under 1 fps. Fusion 360 mesh wont give you this and if you are able to extract a usable lowpoly from it fairly quickly, you have superpowers or something. I think the best use case is concept design, where none of this matters. But even then, id be more happy if the concept artist could give me a mesh that I can do things with, other than recreating it on top, from scratch. Oh well.
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  • poopipe
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    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    ArcaneLeo said:
    really?? i didnt know max capable to work with CAD data non destructively, guess i need a google work
    its good if there a workflow using CAD and max, but it would be heavy retopology work i guess,

    3dmax have parametric? you mean modifier stack?

    I mean surface tools, spline based modelling and so on.  You can't go to the extent of controlling fillets and bevels as unique components of an object but you can exert control over topology and maintain a completely non destructive pipeline if you construct it correctly.   You can uv most of this stuff parametrically  as well. 
    The modifier stack is part of it but the real power comes from modelling with splines. 

    WRT cad.  It has container objects that allow you to live import cad constructions and adjust surface tessellation parameters etc.  You obviously need to have a cad package to create them but it's a lot better than converting them to geometry and having to clean up just to run a bake etc. 
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  • ArcaneLeo
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    ArcaneLeo polycounter lvl 2
    @Obscura
    you're right, that's why i didn't convert my workflow, like you said, fusion is more suitable for concept work
    but for real production work, its still more premature, and wasting much more time for recreating the mesh
    thanks, now i got my confidence back, I realize its no pointless to use surface modeling further,
    thanks for your insight obscura

    @poopipe
    oh yeah, i forgot there a spline-based modeling, i hardly ever use that tool, from what you said its sound promising,
    from what i know CAD tool use spline-based as their core parametric modeling
    thanks, gonna check a few youtube tutorial for enlightenment

    really?? that a good news for me, i don't know there are a tool for CAD like that, especially if you can adjust parameter
    and stuff
    , thanks for noticing it to me poopipe


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