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How The F*#% Do I Model This? - Reply for help with specific shapes - (Post attempt before asking)

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  • Kanni3d
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    Kanni3d ngon master
    @Filip5
    Yes, that's basically what you would end up having to do - model its shape and features, and build out its flat plane for the wall.

    Keep in mind, depending on what your end goal is, you don't need to have maintained and perfect quads in your work here, especially because I imagine you wouldn't be subdividing this.
  • Aaron1178
    Hey Everyone, I am wondering how I go about creating this inset detail without using a ProBoolean? which is what I have done to achieve my result. I am creating a high poly object for texture baking purposes.




    Cheers,
  • Filip5
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    Filip5 polycounter lvl 8
    Hey guys, another question. This doesn't seems to be right, but how to model it properly ?


  • levinberg
    Hi, new here ... very helpful thread. Any tips on where to start for the head of this lamp? Can't get my head around how to model because the base topology looks to me like sphere or cylinder whereas the indents/holes are so unrelated to the flow of edges in the base primitive. Any thoughts much appreciated :-_) / made a few attempts but really not worth showing because they are crap. thank you! 
  • Pedro Amorim
    Could you post the attempts that you made?
  • Tenshi
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    Tenshi polycounter lvl 13
    Do you guys knows any tips on how to model correctly a piece like this? Mean perfect quad geometry; don't want to use a lot of lines to make the top border more thin. thnks in adv

  • levinberg
    @perna @Pedro Amorim thanks for your replies. indeed sometimes something quite simple is sitting right in front of you , I had to look at it upside down :-). anyways, made first progess by working with a rotated sphere, the using extrude on some of the isolines to create the "holes"/slats. However, still looking at a few issues:
    1. is the approach one "slat" per isoline correct , or actually do i also need isolines between the slats?
    2. creasing on the base sphere
    3. my initial attempt for the slats was to inset/extrude polygons. however, this extrudes the holes to the local normal. in fact the lamp's holes (which look more like a boolean subtraction) are all happening in z axis only (as opposed to normal to the face) - thus i ended up extruding side (long) edges in z and capping manually the (short) sides by extruding edges in y and the welding. this is quite tedious was wondering if there is a quicker way.
    4. this geometry i cannot shell for same reason (holes are not in normal direction) so I do not know hot to give thickness to the lightshade / preferably even make it watertight.

    If i can make some more progress to understand the topology/method I will go back to zero to try and blockout base sphere/cylinder in correct shape and proportions and the proceed to make the slats.
    Thank you for any comments!

  • DenalCC1010
    Hello - new here.
    I've been consistently running into a problem on my current model where geometry goes from smooth to hard, but I'm not sure how to handle the transition without sacrificing one or the other. Here lies the root of the problem - I need this 90 degree angle to be hard, but doing so distorts the cylinder I'm working with.
    Here is a mesh view of what's going on - I am using a subsurf (depicted at lvl 2) and a bevel modifier. I've tried adding more loop cuts and such, since I understand this has a relatively low level of support, though they havent seemed to solve the problem and more often than not I end up creating too hard of an edge here (red arrow):
    Hopefully this is a lot simpler than I'm making it out to be, but nevertheless thanks for the help :]
  • BazaVamp
    Hi, new here. Looking for advice on trimsheet. Im modeling a bed, and not sure weither to do a trimsheet or a unique sculpt and bake it down.
    This is what I have atm. Started again to practice. I did this one with a trimsheet. Not sure which would be the right way to go about this. My edges are Chamfered and the cylindrical shapes have about 12 sections. Would this be better as a unique bake to try lower the edges, or trim sheet for the carved details. Or two materials? A trim and a bake? Thanks in advance for any advice. Hoping to keep at it and get employment.

    Here is a link to the artstation WIP






  • BladeSharpe
    struggling to remove light issues from my highpoly. Removing edges doesn't help
  • ApachEsH
    Hi, tell me how to achieve the shape highlighted in blue. We need a simple, quick method to get this form. With a minimum of handmade :)
  • lucasperes
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    lucasperes polycounter lvl 8
    Filip5 said: Hey guys, another question. This doesn't seems to be right, but how to model it properly ?



    Hello my friend, I advise you to watch a video. Maybe he can help.

    Artist : Marek Denko
    Link : 
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGoK4vHviVY&t=134s


  • zachagreg
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    zachagreg ngon master

    ApachEsH said:
    Hi, tell me how to achieve the shape highlighted in blue. We need a simple, quick method to get this form. With a minimum of handmade :)

    Show us what you have made first then.
  • zachagreg
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    zachagreg ngon master
    struggling to remove light issues from my highpoly. Removing edges doesn't help

    That doesn't look like SubD that looks like you applied a smooth preview. Is this the case? If so you've done yourself a disservice and given yourself way to much geometry to reasonably work with. Also you don't necessarily carry your edges through like that you can terminate them lower along the surface. That way you're not using a huge amount of divisions to try to get that geo to hold.



  • BladeSharpe
    zachagreg said:

    That doesn't look like SubD that looks like you applied a smooth preview. Is this the case? If so you've done yourself a disservice and given yourself way to much geometry to reasonably work with. Also you don't necessarily carry your edges through like that you can terminate them lower along the surface. That way you're not using a huge amount of divisions to try to get that geo to hold.

    Actually I applied my smooth as I thought it looked good and then moved on. Your picture is what my preview smooth looked like and then after applying it I noticed the errors.. Im curious to what your geo looked like before you preview smoothed it. 

    This is what my low poly looked like (I pressed 3 to preview, looked good, so I went to Mesh-Smooth)
    Also, thank you!
  • zachagreg
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    zachagreg ngon master
    Fairly similar to what is shown on the smooth preview, but inset edges were tighter to the outside ones. similar to how yours is, I would recommend terminating those edges that run from the bump at the bottom before you reach the hole. That should remedy the stretching across that face.
  • BladeSharpe
    Wouldnt that create a big ngon?
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range

    BladeSharpe said: Wouldnt that create a big ngon?
    If an ngon causes no smoothing errors/shading artifacts on a flat surface plus also dependent upon properly implemented mesh generation technique, then a given shape and/or object should typically sub-divide or bake without a problem.

    Further relevant Info:
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    ApachEsH said:
    Hi, tell me how to achieve the shape highlighted in blue. We need a simple, quick method to get this form. With a minimum of handmade :)


    Hi there:

    Welcome too Polycount.
    Now just something to keep in mind when asking for help with subd modeling. There are a few simple rules for posting outlined on page 1 of this thread, basically it's expected that either an image of a attempt you've struggled with or a reference that you've no idea how to approach, is uploaded for others to offer feedback so really doesn't include someone else doing the work for you.

    Anyway regarding your query. A tip to get started, I recommend watching the vid I'd posted above, the author discusses among other techniques a boolean operand biased non destructive workflow which is especially useful when creating machined parts as opposed to manual editing.    
  • zachagreg
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    zachagreg ngon master
    @sacboi thank you for being more patient than i was. knowledge is knowledge :)
  • toma992
    Hi everyone! I am very new in 3D community. I am working/ learning on a model, of a building from NY City and I came to a problem, which is holding me back for a few days now and don't know how to get trough it. It's a piece of decor, which I don't really know how to model properly. It might look like a simple solution to some of you guys and I sure hope so, but for me it's an obstacle which I can't get over right now and it's stopping me from progressing further, because I really want to know how to do it the right way. I will attach the picture of a reference and one of my many attempts trying to make this. I modeled the main part (green part) and I already struggled to make the top curl one with it, but I somehow managed, although the topology doesn't look really good. I also tried to make it separately, but then it wouldn't be seamless as real thing from the reference. I will have some problems smoothing it I already figured, but I think that will be the easier part to solve. What is really bugging me right now is that I need opinion, if I should model the lower (blue) part into the main part (green) and if yes, how to do that without messy edges... or should I leave it separate as it is? But then I don't know, how to make the border between two seamless, so that it would still look like, it's one piece. If anyone has any ideas of how to properly make this, I would really appreciate it. Also would love some criticism on topology and how to do that better. Thanks in advance guys! :)

  • toma992
    How it looks smoothed
  • BladeSharpe
    sacboi said:

    If an ngon causes no smoothing errors/shading artifacts on a flat surface plus also dependent upon properly implemented mesh generation technique, then a given shape and/or object should typically sub-divide or bake without a problem.

    I'm a little late replying! Thank you for the video. Only issue is that it isn't a flat surface.. it actually curves and I think that's the issue. I linked another two pictures below!
    Really brief explanation. This is a handle of my knife (who would have guessed) and I couldn't get the curve right. So I took my low-poly. Smoothed it, and then used a deform-lattice to get the curve I wanted and this issue arose. I'm sure im doing this wrong...
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Ah ok then, first of all I'm curious if you're modeling off a reference or own design, if indeed the former can you post an image because likewise was not obvious?
  • BladeSharpe
    sacboi said:
    Ah ok then, first of all I'm curious if you're modeling off a reference or own design, if indeed the former can you post an image because likewise was not obvious?
    Lol I guess not. I do indeed have reference but I also have the knife in my hand.. so its easy for me to just reference that.

  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range

    toma992 said:
    Hi everyone! I am very new in 3D community. I am working/ learning on a model, of a building from NY City and I came to a problem, which is holding me back for a few days now and don't know how to get trough it. It's a piece of decor, which I don't really know how to model properly. It might look like a simple solution to some of you guys and I sure hope so, but for me it's an obstacle which I can't get over right now and it's stopping me from progressing further, because I really want to know how to do it the right way. I will attach the picture of a reference and one of my many attempts trying to make this. I modeled the main part (green part) and I already struggled to make the top curl one with it, but I somehow managed, although the topology doesn't look really good. I also tried to make it separately, but then it wouldn't be seamless as real thing from the reference. I will have some problems smoothing it I already figured, but I think that will be the easier part to solve. What is really bugging me right now is that I need opinion, if I should model the lower (blue) part into the main part (green) and if yes, how to do that without messy edges... or should I leave it separate as it is? But then I don't know, how to make the border between two seamless, so that it would still look like, it's one piece. If anyone has any ideas of how to properly make this, I would really appreciate it. Also would love some criticism on topology and how to do that better. Thanks in advance guys! :)

    How it looks smoothed

    Hello, welcome to the awesome world of Subdivision Hard Surface modeling :)

    Starting out nowadays the amount of available online resource can be a confusing grind to sift through so to make the process a tad easier, here's some pointers I've managed too pickup along the way. So regardless of complexity beginning with as few faces as possible to initially blockout a basic shape is usually best practice to follow and since this is a symmetrical ornate object we're then able to utilise the symmetry/mirror modifier to only focus on just modeling one half. Now there are various methods or techniques of approach to achieve a close enough copy but again lets continue to keep it simple:

    1. Firstly as an example workflow, lets start working on a section of your ref by adding a plane, loopcut and delete half ensuring that the pivot point is centrally located which will allow for correct shape symmetry once the modifier is enabled:



    2. Next, to roughly sketch an outline, we'll need only a single vertex so delete three verts and begin evenly too extrude a path (important to disable clipping as well):



    3. Once outline complete, further roughout other relevant internal details whilst maintaining even edge spacing, the shading benefits of which will become apparent when subd is applied:



    4: Conventional use of support loops to preserve hard edges are in this instance not used since sculptural objects are mainly soft edged:



    5: Now the fun part, lets start pulling this object into shape, by simply using a manual technique of grabing/moving selected edge loops along the applicable axis I would occasionally implement when quickly concepting an idea:



    6. Apply subdiv (lvl 3) alongside shade smooth for mesh validation plus If required add additional loops to tighten a given edge or detail



    Lastly a cross post video link via a similar discussion "What's the Best Way to to make Filigree and Ornamental 3D Objects?" (by the way lots of useful info offered there) that highlights in time-lapsed format an alternate step by step generation of more complex objects:


    Hope this was helpful
    Cheers.     
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Thanks for that, will get back to you in the morning, just after midnight here and I need sleep :)
  • zachagreg
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    zachagreg ngon master
    @BladeSharpe So what you want to do is nail your curvature first and then put in that hole. Trying to model a curved surface around a hole will usually result in errors in your mesh. A hole is subtraction by nature. It's also a secondary form to the form of the handle which would be your main form.

    What I've done here is place an edge loop horizontally and vertically where I wanted the hole to be after I've made my curvature for the handle. I then chamfered the vertices twice to make an octogon and bridge the faces. Cleaned up my face geometry and made my poles. You can see  I didn't even bother with the bottom ones as it smoothed just fine.

    I also noticed my original hole was a bit small but scaling along normals maintains my planar geometry for those faces and scaled the hole up.

    Lastly I put in my chamfers and reinforcing loops by polyBevel with no chamfer.



    Handle still has that bowing shaping to it but because I created that shape first and then worked to maintain my planar faces there is no inkling of the hole from above.
  • BladeSharpe
    Well @zachagreg and @sacboi after your help and about 4 hours of messing with it I got it to a better place. I figured out some of my faces were not straight and I think that was causing issues. and using some ngons I got it to look better. (im going to be making a lowpoly anyways)
    Here is my "fixed" pieces and im kinda just giving up on making it perfect.... I wish I could but really im not sure how to fix the lighting issue on the rest of the handle now as ive tried sliding vertexes around way too long lol and I would rather not rebuild it! [Thanks a lot you two!]
  • Thanez
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    Thanez interpolator
    Tenshi said:
    Do you guys knows any tips on how to model correctly a piece like this? Mean perfect quad geometry; don't want to use a lot of lines to make the top border more thin. thnks in adv



    @Tenshi Hey buddy! Perfection you say? I can get you closer to that.
    If you start off with a low-segment, evenly spaced curve and turbosmooth it up to where you want it to be, you'll end up with a way more consistent curve.


    You inserted a loop into the curve at the bottom to make the bottom edge sharp, but in doing that, you've also ended that curve on both sides of the edgeloop you inserted.
    Instead when you make your curve, extend it beyond where you want it to end. Then use the curve's already established geometry as the edge loops by cutting/ending the curve beyond that edgeloop. 


    Then it's all about making all the straight edgeloops. These are spaced 0,4mm from each edge. Inset the face by 0,4. Then target weld those verts back where they came from.

    There, evenly spaced supporting edgeloops, exactly 0,4mm from their respective edges. The support loops on the curve are actually part of the curve, therefore they aren't deflecting the curve.

    If you want to get even closer to perfection, look into double-edgeloops. They don't work well on curved surfaces though.
  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    20 sided cylinder cut off  1/4
    12 sided cylinder cut off 1/4 Small manual tweak to get the shape close to the bigger cylinder
    8 sided cylinder cut off 1/4 even with manual tweak the curved shape will not be as perfect as a cylinder with correct amount of segments.


  • SDMXI
    I'm using blender but the principles of Sub-D modelling applies right.
    Trying to model the tail of the car, struggling with the circled bit here

    My attempt, some edges are assigned bevel modifiers.


    Now I can sort of get away with using bevel modifier, but still tons of artifacts. I want to learn how to properly plan such geometry, especially where multiple hard edge meet at one point.
  • natec
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    natec polycounter lvl 14
    Is that a MR2 222D or similar? Not sure how much reference you have, but I would take a look at a few more angles. Seems like the green line should be all one continuous curve with the same fillet. The yellow lines might be slightly different, and then you need to spread out the loops in the blue corners. The lower part of the bumper has that really tight loop that can be removed since its a much smoother curve there.
  • SDMXI
    natec yes MR2 222D. Actually gathered a bunch of ref photos. I'll try your suggested layout, thanks.
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    @BladeSharpe looks like you're almost there.



    Exspanding upon zachagreg's well thought out examples that really is a key aspect to think about or in other words pre-planning prior to modeling anything, will mostly mitigate potential problems from occurring, any how a few additional points to keep in mind:



    1. Where possible I'd advise at this stage to mainly model off references, rather than using a free style 'eyeballing' method which requires a ton of practice and experience to capture a near enough copy of the subject so for this exercise I drew a 'blueprint' from your posted pics upthread and analyzing the main shape we'll start with a plane:



    2. Now couple of things to note, if while sketching your model extra edge loops are necessary to outline a detailed profile, then by all means add them, because sufficient geometry is a main consideration to support a well designed topology, well at least from my experience. Also transformation action constrain too axis will confine either vertical or horizontal segments alignment, therefore minimising mesh surface 'peaks and valleys' a typical cause of shading artifacts.



    4. With the mirror modifier applied and we'll then validate/check that our edges are properly aligned along their applicable axis then hopefully the object should as expected shade correctly once sub-divided (lvl 3)





    5. In my opinion seems fine plus importantly via GI preview mode, no noticable shading problems.

    Cheers.

  • BladeSharpe
    sacboi said:
    @BladeSharpe looks like you're almost there.

    Exspanding upon zachagreg's well thought out examples that really is a key aspect to think about or in other words pre-planning prior to modeling anything, will mostly mitigate potential problems from occurring, any how a few additional points to keep in mind:


    Cheers.

    Hello again, yes perfect! I agree I did not pre-plan my layout enough. I was working of a very very high res side profile photo I took for reference, lining it up almost exactly. (posted below) but sadly I neglected getting a top down reference photo but that was okay in my head as I did have the real thing in my hand. (I agree I should have taken a top down photo) anyway yes this is how I will be approaching the other three knives to come. I really appiciate the help with getting it fixed with the hole and the side shading is due to slight differences in the vertices.

  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Just a quick mention I forgot to add in my post above. So when required if moving selected loop cuts during the course of manually editing a mesh and object faces are explicitly non conformed too a given axis plus also importantly, to maintain uniform edge spacing, I'd also utilised Blender's - special menu transform function 'Edge Slide'.

    Simply because it's attribute allows for movement over one or more edges across adjacent faces with few restrictions, as opposed to 'Constrain To Axis' hence a handy tool shelf option to have if dealing with multiple 'uneven' poly strips.
     

  • BladeSharpe
    sacboi said:
    Just a quick mention I forgot to add in my post above. So when required if moving selected loop cuts during the course of manually editing a mesh and object faces are explicitly non conformed too a given axis plus also importantly, to maintain even edge spacing, I'd also utilised Blender's - special menu transform function 'Edge Slide'.

    Simply because it's attribute allows for movement over one or more edges across adjacent faces with few restrictions, as opposed to 'Constrain To Axis' hence a handy tool shelf option to have if dealing with multiple 'uneven' poly strips.
     

    Thanks I really appiciate that, I use Maya and I use edge slide all the time. very useful!

  • RocKenny
    Hey, I know this issue will seem very basic, but I have been struggling with understanding this topology a little, i understand how to intersect cylinders with cylinders and squares etc, but I seem to be unable to understand how to terminate edges in this specific scenario (I was trying to model a gun cylinder, this was just a quick recreation of the issue)

    I apologize if it was answered here already in some shape or form, i havent found anything like this though. 

    PS : I am not afraid to use Ngons, wanted to use quads to better understand model building though (The triangles i have are easy to remove to form a quad so i ignored them in this case)
  • Krychazz
    Hi, How would I model this? I use Blender and HardOps and tried to use boolean but I can't really get a good result, any tips?

  • zachagreg
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    zachagreg ngon master
    @RocKenny So it might not be an issue because that square cuts the length of your cylinder but generally you don't want to just extrude outwards because it can mess up your curved surface. So what I've done is inset those top two faces first then extruded and used the already existing geo as my lower support loop. I then terminated my edges on the flat faces to avoid pinching in the corners.

    I went ahead and killed any ngons I had to show you that you don't need to use them so to speak. The second reinforcing edge isn't really needed for this one but it helps to clean up the top reinforcing edges and avoid the ngon. Here is the smoothed version.
     For the upper one just cut into that vert where the weird quad appeared and then follow your reinforcing edges up and over and under the square piece. You've got a naturally corner at that section anyways so you will so reinforce the corner when doing so.

  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    RocKenny said:
    Hey, I know this issue will seem very basic, but I have been struggling with understanding this topology a little, i understand how to intersect cylinders with cylinders and squares etc, but I seem to be unable to understand how to terminate edges in this specific scenario (I was trying to model a gun cylinder, this was just a quick recreation of the issue)

    I apologize if it was answered here already in some shape or form, i havent found anything like this though. 

    PS : I am not afraid to use Ngons, wanted to use quads to better understand model building though (The triangles i have are easy to remove to form a quad so i ignored them in this case)
    First stage is to identify your two meshes that we can merge.
    Second step is to make sure to use our cylinders topology can be used to support the box on top of it.
    Third steps is boolean and a small clean up.
    Fourth step is to use a chamfer on all the edges to create extra supporting loops.
    Fith step is to add a turbosmooth.

  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    Krychazz said:
    Hi, How would I model this? I use Blender and HardOps and tried to use boolean but I can't really get a good result, any tips?

    Find the problem. Try to tackle it from different perspective. It's a cut from the current cylinder.
    One thing I've learned this year is. Identify the problem and find a solution.
    You have the solution which we will call  Z. That is the end result.
    You already have X which is the cylinder.

    You just need to find the Y in the allegorithm.  x+y = z. Yes farfetched. But but.


  • Krychazz
    Thank you so much! I was going for it similar way but i was chamfering my cutter object
  • RocKenny
    Thank you both very much, i shall practice further. Superb help
  • IronLover64
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    IronLover64 polycounter lvl 2
    I'm having trouble with these shapes. How should I model them? Software (Blender)
  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    I'm having trouble with these shapes. How should I model them? Software (Blender)

    barely visible what you are trying to show there tbh. Which shapes exactly? where do they connect?
  • IronLover64
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    IronLover64 polycounter lvl 2
    wirrexx said:
    I'm having trouble with these shapes. How should I model them? Software (Blender)

    barely visible what you are trying to show there tbh. Which shapes exactly? where do they connect?
    The first picture is trying to merge the two mesh as one model. Booleans don't work because of how narrow the angle is. The second one is my attempt at making a cockpit on incompatible topology. Boolean was the most accurate, but it creates shading issues just under the red glass (I used every trick I know of and nothing helped. The third one is attempting to punch multiple holes on a mesh with higher poly curves. I want to find the best solutions with minimal problems.
  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master
    wirrexx said:
    I'm having trouble with these shapes. How should I model them? Software (Blender)

    barely visible what you are trying to show there tbh. Which shapes exactly? where do they connect?
    The first picture is trying to merge the two mesh as one model. Booleans don't work because of how narrow the angle is. The second one is my attempt at making a cockpit on incompatible topology. Boolean was the most accurate, but it creates shading issues just under the red glass (I used every trick I know of and nothing helped. The third one is attempting to punch multiple holes on a mesh with higher poly curves. I want to find the best solutions with minimal problems.
    Show us the entire thing or at least a reference of what you are trying to achieve, right now it is very unclear.
  • IronLover64
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    IronLover64 polycounter lvl 2
    wirrexx said:
    wirrexx said:
    I'm having trouble with these shapes. How should I model them? Software (Blender)

    barely visible what you are trying to show there tbh. Which shapes exactly? where do they connect?
    The first picture is trying to merge the two mesh as one model. Booleans don't work because of how narrow the angle is. The second one is my attempt at making a cockpit on incompatible topology. Boolean was the most accurate, but it creates shading issues just under the red glass (I used every trick I know of and nothing helped. The third one is attempting to punch multiple holes on a mesh with higher poly curves. I want to find the best solutions with minimal problems.
    Show us the entire thing or at least a reference of what you are trying to achieve, right now it is very unclear.
    Picture 1 shows the second mesh where the front body slope just fuses into the main wing in the bottom middle of the aircraft. The second shows the holes in the tank skirt. Pic 3 shows what the cockpit is meant to look like.
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