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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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  • HAWK12HT
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    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 11

    Hey all,

    Long ago someone here shared the cheat sheet to use for number of sides but I cant find it on older pages, so like in example above

    shape on left has 20, 16 and 12 sides for large medium and small details, changing the radius to align the segments and running boolean required minimum cleanup and subdivides ok. (Got this from previous posts)

    On right I tried with 24, 20 and 16 thinking 4 being a magic number and it all fall apart for the smallest shape. I can make it work by lowering its sides and changing radius however it will not always be ideal to scale the parts if they dont match reference. I want to understand the maths behind choosing sides for intersecting cylindrical details. Thank you.


    EDIT: I explored further and made it work, there are slight inaccuracies but not enough to impact normal map bake. Still need to figure out why certain number of sides work.


  • KebabEmperor
  • HAWK12HT
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    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 11

    Thank you, I follow Frank's guide religiously however I am looking for that cheat sheet / trying to understand the number logic (20,16,12 sides) as shown in my post. It was shared very long ago and the images are not showing on older pages here.

  • KebabEmperor
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    KebabEmperor polycounter lvl 2

    Not sure what that is but it is usually about size of the cylinder (half the size, half the segment count) + experimenting. Not sure if that's maya or max but in blender we use screw modifier to be able to change segment counts to match other cylinders so we can try & fail easily.

  • Dinacatrom

    Hey guys, im trying to get a clean typology here but i've tried a bunch of different approaches but im kinda stuck.

    im trying to model these air vent things on a locker but i cant really figure out what the best approach is here.

    ive watched a couple tutorials but they all do it differently and non really work for me, so it would be appreciated if somebody could lead me in the right direction :D


    thanks in andvance!

  • ZacD
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    ZacD sublime tool

    You just need a flat evenly spaced loop around the vent before connecting it back to a flat grid.

  • Dinacatrom

    i'm sorry but im not sure if i understand... i tried but it turned out like this:


  • okidoki
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    okidoki polygon

    Maybe like so (all quads):


  • wirrexx
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    wirrexx ngon master

    nothing wrong with that, you just need to make sure that you have the supporting loops at the right places and thikness would help too



  • Raphael_Bouch

    Hey folks, I am trying to model this Viper MK VII from Battlestar Galactica but I can't bring myself on how could I combine all these booleans together

    I tried to make the topo line up with loops and stuff but it still turns out rather messy after clean up.

    The rear also has to be empty to put the engines inside and I don't know if doing it the boolean way is wise or should have I made it all one piece ?

    Thanks in advance for any help !

  • HAWK12HT
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    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 11

    @Raphael_Bouch I dont know how it looks from reference images however when it comes to vehicles its best to have them in seprate parts as in real life unless you are doing super tight low poly with limited vert count budget.

  • Raphael_Bouch

    Hi, sorry forgot to add the refs ^^' ; Well a simple google search and there you have it

    You see aside from the "hood" at the rear and a few other parts all shapes seems to flow into each other seamlessly. I'm making a high poly mesh so I'd like to avoid any "smash that geo inside and no one will notice". Would be much more easier if it was a fire arm since those are made of hundreds simpler separate parts bolted together lol.

  • christrom

    Hi folks, I've been practicing the ol' cutting a cube out of a cylinder, and thanks to @FrankPolygon's tutorials I have arrived at a place I'm very happy at. I then wanted to try a cube from a sphere, and I have figured a way to make it work for me. Would you mind just looking over it to see if it is the most optimal way of doing it?

    Started with a quad sphere and offset extruded the cube.

    Bevelled the edges that were selected in the first picture, and set the bevel to 2 segments, but used radial mitering.

    Corners ended up like this

    I used multi cut

    and then deleted the centre of the two tris

    smooths pretty well.

    Would you do the same, or is there an easier approach? Many thanks in advance.

  • christrom

    Thanks again Frank. There really should be a tip button on here as you are giving away such valuble information for free. Have you ever considered a YouTube channel? You'd get loads of subscribers. I've worked into the original mesh and got rid of the extra support and it holds fine. I should have really thought about using the existing geometry in your cylinder example, as the last screenshot on here is doing very much the same thing. As long as the geometry is dense enough it really doesn't affect the silhouette. Thanks again, you should be charging for this! I would gladly pay.

  • SignalFlare07

    Hey guys! First time posting here so I'm sorry if this has been asked and answered before buut I'm having a real hard time producing a good looking result cutting details into curved surfaces like so:

    .

    I've tried a few different methods, and haven't really come up with a satisfactory solution. Shape I'm going for has a slight horizontal arch that fades and flattens out the further up the vertical arch it goes, and then cutting details into said surface.

  • christrom

    Homework done :) Thanks again Frank

  • SignalFlare07

    Made a new attempt that I feel got a little closer but still feeling significant distortions around the corners of the inset details

  • HAWK12HT
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    HAWK12HT polycounter lvl 11

    so I made a very rough boolean opeartion, after that I did manual cleanup for edge flow on open area for engine section just to give you an idea.

    There are number of approaches you can take though,

    You can try spline cage method for modelling this as one highpoly mesh, most commonly used for modelling cars.

    However I would make a proper blockout of main shapes, run a boolean and split parts, clean the split parts making sure the border edges dont move and add details. This way it wont be "smash that geo inside"

    I am sure you are using more reference images instead of that blueprint you shared as its really hard to read. I would suggest looking into scale modelling groups on Facebook for more break down photos of this model. That will greatly help in modelling.

    Since its symetriacal design so model just one half as this will not overwhelm you. Remember there are no shortcuts, you gotta keep pushing pulling verts all day :D


  • Raphael_Bouch

    Hey, yeah that's what I ended up doing, thought you wouldn't reply ! :D

    Thanks for the detailled explanation and taking your time to redo a model for me, +1 on you !

  • Octavio

    @Thanez Hello!! thank you so much for resolve my question, I know I´m little bit a picky person jeje.

    jaja don´t worry I can wait, and yeah for sure! I´m interested.

    So Thanez let me share you another problem it suppossed to be easy but still I´m having problems… first I´m aware that I can resolve it with te boolean process that u already teach me but I think it could be more faster with the align working pivot.

    1. I goal is to keep the planar and avoid to all cost non-planar geo.

    The problem is if I take the front faces and I rotate them I got a lot of Non planar faces

    2. So I use the working pivot in one of the edges and move the vertex along that direction in order to preserve the planar faces:

    So one part its fixed the main problem is that te direction of the bottom vertex are not matched with the direction of the top vertex (I mean the diagonal direction created from the working pivot)

    So I´ve used the same process but I know that it will not be ACCURATE.

    Please tell how can I do it accurate, along the diagonal edge from the top in order to have all my faces Planar.

    This is my main resource

    Files:

    Thanx for the help.
    cheers everyone

  • Thanez
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    Thanez interpolator

    Hey buddy, glad you're back :)

    I'm gonna try and do a video this time because I usually spend something like 5-15 minutes modeling something to show you, but 40-50 minutes to write it all up to get my thoughts in there correctly, in order to avoid the norwenglish you'll soon be witness to.

    When It's done processing on youtube, you can see it here:

    While that's uploading I can point out how that resource you posted is really good. Those are some NEATO tricks I use constantly. They do work really well for him because the edges he's aligning all exist on a flat plane on the XY axis: In essence, he's working in 2d. Your edges are not on a flat plane, you're in 3d. When you try and force polygon 1 to be planar, you're at the same time affecting the vertices that make up the polygons next to it, shifting those polygons out of planarity. It's an issue.

    Aaaand this took me 25 minutes instead of 55 minutes. I think I'll do this more in the future if it's helpful.

    Edit:

    Here's that previous model I promised to upload: Octavio some sort of squished oval cone transition or something.max

    And if you're at all interested, here's today's model:

    Octavio planar problem del to.max

  • slocapz
  • Octavio

    @Thanez

    Hello!! Glad to reply my result of your first tip :)
    so here is my example with the awesome help that you provide me about the boolean operation:

    I´ve had implement the facet shading and it helps me a lot.

    I can tell that in your example the final part its scalated in Z axis soo in that part naturally do u have nonplanar geo right? because you say in your first explination that "When you squish a circle like that, you make the edges of the polygons non-planar, revealing the fact that all quads are made of triangles. Turning on facets shading mode illustrates the issue perfectly. Here on the right, I stole your oval shape and remade the big part but without squishing it."

    Cheers 🤗

  • Thekezad
    Hello guys, I have been stuck here for days and I can't figure it out. The topology doesn't look good no matter what I try. I have tried many things, but none of them worked.

  • 0v5dv1yqqf
    Hello y'all,

    Beginner here, how do I connect a five sided polygon to a four sided in C4D? I'm studying to make a bottle, and the outline is the correct shape but I can't figure out for the life of me how to connect these edges and get rid of non planar polygons? A huge thanks in advance to the forum!


  • ZuMint
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    ZuMint polycounter lvl 3
    Hello y'all,

    Beginner here, how do I connect a five sided polygon to a four sided in C4D? I'm studying to make a bottle, and the outline is the correct shape but I can't figure out for the life of me how to connect these edges and get rid of non planar polygons? A huge thanks in advance to the forum!



    You can use boolean. Step by step in Blender: Bevel the edges > duplicate the triangle and separate to new obj > origin triangle to corner (use 3d Cursor is ok also) > rotate and scale triangle > solid and finally boolean with cube…
    Notice here when you rotate, use transform orientations by normal (create new custom if u like) and set pivot point to active, from here you can rotate or use shear tool. Hope this help…                       




  • 0v5dv1yqqf
    ZuMint said:
    Hello y'all,

    Beginner here, how do I connect a five sided polygon to a four sided in C4D? I'm studying to make a bottle, and the outline is the correct shape but I can't figure out for the life of me how to connect these edges and get rid of non planar polygons? A huge thanks in advance to the forum!



    You can use boolean. Step by step in Blender: Bevel the edges > duplicate the triangle and separate to new obj > origin triangle to corner (use 3d Cursor is ok also) > rotate and scale triangle > solid and finally boolean with cube…
    Notice here when you rotate, use transform orientations by normal (create new custom if u like) and set pivot point to active, from here you can rotate or use shear tool. Hope this help…                       




    Never thought of it, I will give it a try - thanks a lot!
  • Octavio
    Hey guys I´ve a very important question for Blender, How can u see in realtime your shading with non planar geometry. In 3ds max you can see this with these options:
     
    This is the result: 

    soo in Blender these geo is non planar but you can´t see that in the default shading:

    If I apply a triangulate modifier it works
    I would like to know if there is another way to see that problem. 

    Hope you can help me :disappointed:
    Cheers
    I´m really frustrated for this problem :( 
  • okidoki
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    okidoki polygon
    In Edit Mode you might wanna use Overlays -> Mesh Analysis: Distortion  to see unplanar faces.
  • rwsk
    hello everyone i'm beginner 3d modeller how to create basic low-poly model for this object


  • sacboi
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    sacboi insane polycounter
    rwsk said:
    hello everyone i'm beginner 3d modeller how to create basic low-poly model for this object
    Start with a cube and cylinder but firstly, don't assume that people are likely todo the work for you...

    i.e.   How The F*#% Do I Model This? - Reply for help with specific shapes - (Post attempt before asking)
  • SignalFlare07
    @FrankPolygon Thank you very much for the reply! Out of curiosity, what is the tool you're using to create the first boolean cutter? 
    I've been attempting it using lattices but it doesn't come out quite right. Using Maya 2024 by the way.  
  • FrankPolygon
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    FrankPolygon godlike master sticky
    @SignalFlare07 Glad the write-up was helpful. The lofted shape on the back of the receiver can be created with basic subdivision or with a series of bevel operations.

    Here's what the subdivision approach could look like. Start with a basic cage mesh and refine the shape with subdivision preview enabled. Adjust the subdivision level up or down until the edges in the curve are roughly aligned with the rest of the boolean shapes. Using subdivision to create this surface profile is fast but there's limited control over where the segments fall. Making the cage mesh larger will spread out the edges and adding or moving edges in the cage mesh will bring the edges closer together but beyond that there's not a lot that can be done to accurately control the edge placement.


    Here's what the bevel approach could look like. Start with the same basic cage mesh then bevel the center edge longitudinally to create the basic profile and segment spacing. Then select the perpendicular edge and bevel that to create the lofted curve and segment spacing. This approach provides a lot of control over the placement of the edge segments but does require a lot of trial and error when using destructive modeling tools.



    It might also be possible to combine both approaches by using subdivision preview to create the basic cage mesh then turning the subdivision off and beveling the cage mesh to control the placement and shape of the lofted surface.
  • SignalFlare07
    @FrankPolygon Holy crap you're awesome! Really appreciate you taking the time to do these writeups. Been getting more into hard surface modelling and the previous writeups you've done in the thread have been really helpful! 
  • tester1225
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    tester1225 polycounter lvl 6
    I'm looking for advice for Maya modeling - how the heck does one approach modeling a spool of cable?? Sweepmesh is great and all, but the whole modeling a helix, extracting a curve and then sweepmeshing thing results in a very clean artificial looking spool. I want some of strands to overlap and whatnot, but I've been researching for hours now and no results. I can't find any way to add some random noise to the curves or SOMETHING similar? 
  • ZacD
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    ZacD sublime tool
    An artificial looking spool with a layer or two of hand tweaked cables should look pretty good without that much effort.
  • tester1225
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    tester1225 polycounter lvl 6
    ZacD said:
    An artificial looking spool with a layer or two of hand tweaked cables should look pretty good without that much effort.
    I ended up doing this in the end as there was no other choice lol, thank you :) It looks decent enough but god do I hate working with curves!
  • Octavio
    hey i have this problem i dont know how to fix it, please help me.

  • ZacD
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    ZacD sublime tool
    Octavio said:
    hey i have this problem i dont know how to fix it, please help me.



    A few extra support loops should help a lot.

    If you're going to use an n-gon heavy subdivision workflow, it really helps to have frequent and even loops and avoid dense bevels. Here's a twitter page to look at for inspiration if that's how you want to approach modelling, 
  • ZacD
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    ZacD sublime tool
    After the last post, I saw you included a zip, I took a quick stab out how I'd approach it, 


  • Stoicx93
    I'm having a hard time getting this curved piece to look like my reference photo. I've worked on this one spot for about 3 hours, I've added support edges, creases and everything I can think of but I cant maintain my smooth curve 





  • perandall
    Hey, im tyring to make this droid from a concept art, can anyone help me with the base shape? This is what ive currently got, i dont know how to model the part where the "eye" is if anyone has advice thatd be great!




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