Modeling Fine Detail

Renzatic · Feb 2009

I've been playing with Modo for about 6 months now. I've learned my hotkeys, I can model basic shapes like no ones business, and can subpatch like a straight up mofo. For a quick example of where I'm currently at, I submit two models I've done over the last week, this and this.

I'm getting decent, but I'm hardly the seasoned jaded pro I want to be. Right now, I'm thinking it'd be a good time to move up to the next step and learn how to do details inside of details. Something like this doorknob would be a good example of what I'm wanting to go for here. I can get the basic shape and a few bumps and bits down, but I'm struggling with the smaller touches.

My problem is I don't know exactly where to begin. I've tried doing numerous cuts, but all those extra edges end up messing with my curvature when I subpatch. Subdividing gives me the geometry I want, but going in and editing the resulting geometry vertex by vertex takes forever. I'm sure there's a better way to approach this, but I'm obviously missing out on how to do it. I've spent a good hour googling up tutorials, and have yet to find one that addresses what I'm trying to do.

Does anyone have any suggestions or techniques, or preferably, a nice set of tutorials they could link me to? Any help will be greatly appreciated here.

StefanH · Feb 2009

i would use a sculpting package like zbrush or mudbox for stuff like that. will be a 100 times faster.

tanka · Feb 2009

You seem to have a nice eye for detail. You should get ahold of Zbrush or Mudbox, I think you'll be able to create some very nice stuff in there.

Firebert · Feb 2009

just to be that final "I recommend this book" .... 9 out of 10 dentists recommend......

ZBrush or Mudbox.

Both have trial editions. Download them and start adding all those details you want with normal maps or displacement maps!

onionhead_o · Feb 2009

if ur not gona scuplt this i suggest u to use planes to model this instead of cutting a cylinder. if i were to do it i would model out the details first and then try to connect the geometry together.

OR

you could use model out the details as floaters and use a deformer to match the shape of the door knob.

hope this helps

Neox · Feb 2009

doesn't mode have it's own sculptingtools? i don't know how good they are, but looking at the doorknob it should be good enough?

Madcap · Feb 2009

Dont know about Modo but in Max you could use splines in conjunction with the sweep modifier and a custom shape.

Renzatic · Feb 2009

Thanks everyone.

I wanted to stay away from sculpting until I was better at throwing around polygons, but the more I think about it, the more I see it as the inevitable conclusion to do all the stuff I want to do. Guess it's time to throw down and start getting my learn on.

One quick question though, how good are the sculpters for doing architectural detailing? I've watched a few videos and dabbled with Zbrush for a day or so, and they look great for doing organic stuff or weathering in chips and cracks, but don't seem so grand for fine edges. For instance, could I sculpt this, or would I have to settle on building it as a mesh?

Edit: I've answered my own question. I googled up a few tutorials for Mudbox, and it looks like it's pretty decent for what I have in mind. Now I just have to learn it.

Course if you all have any suggestions in the meantime, I'm all ears.

Renzatic · Mar 2009

Okay, I'm trying a whole new approach here. Instead of going through and modeling each detail out separately, I figured I'd try to model out the curves flat and fill in the geometry as I go along. Things are looking good so far, but since I've never done anything like this before, I'm afraid it might end up being a absolute bitchwhore of a thing to deal with when I go to bevel out my shapes.

Is this a pretty common approach to modeling out heavy detailed objects? I've never seen any tutorials on it, so I'm flying blind here and I'd like a few pointers on the advantages and pitfalls if anyone has em (also I'm scared).

Sage · Mar 2009

The mesh doesn't have to be solid. For example you can make a lot with splines and then extrude the shape. If the shape has to conform to a curve just make sure it has enough segments so it can deform properly. Another thing you can do is model the details with a plane and extrude the edges to follow a spline. Depending on the app will be how annoying this will be. You can also use a displacement map to push out those details. Depending on what your used to you might prefer that. You can use a similar approach and use a mask to push up this detail in zbrush or mudbox. There many ways to do this, but usually you just use whatever makes the process easier, in other words think of the model in elements and make each part with the tool that gives your the best results with the least amount of effort.

Alex

Renzatic · Mar 2009

I've always been under the impression that you want to keep your objects as a single mesh. That way when you subpatch, you get your nice welded edges and everything that should be contiguous on the actual object is so on your model.

From what everyone's saying, I should either sculpt it (I still absolutely suck at sculpting), or float my geometry and call it a day. I guess my real question should be when is it wise to make an object out of a single mesh, and when to just float the details? This is one thing that's always confused me the most, and probably the main reason why I'm here flailing my arms about weakly over something that should be pretty easy to do.

Farfarer · Mar 2009

If I wasn't going to sculpt it, I'd probably model a one-pol-wide segment of it then edge extend it out and around to trace the shape, altering the shape as required as I went.

And yeah, it's probably not worth the effort of welding it seamlessly to the "baseplate" part, as when you bake out your normal and such it'd likely be so low res that it wouldn't matter to the final output which way you did it.

As for the second one you posted, I'd just trace over it with pen/quad draw and hit thicken.

Renzatic · Mar 2009

Yay Done!

This is the result of taking everyones advice to heart and trying a little bit of everything. It's not exactly the greatest thing in the world, but the practice was nice. After all the struggling, I ended up learning some stuff, and wound up being kinda proud of the stupid damn thing.

I also discovered some neat things you can do with the Zbrush projection master while watching some sculpting tutorials. Since I'm still kinda hung up on doing it all on one mesh, I might give that a go and see how it turns out.

StrangeFate · Mar 2009

Well, you could have used modo's displacement sculpting tools for that.
In modo you can UV map the hipoly surface to be detailed and pretty much paint a realtime displacement map that will add whatever bumps you paint without the need to have a high density mesh.

You can also paint the shapes in photoshop in grayscales and just use the image on your hipoly mesh and it will deform the geometry accordingtly.

...or, you could have used the geometry sculpting tools to physically sculpt that stuff into the mesh (ala ZBrush) ... its not as fast or good of course, but for such a small piece more than enough.

In the end, i would have taken the same approach you did for that piece, with the difference that you have 3x the needed polygons and less clearly defined shapes.

All you need to do is keep the original hipoly base as clean as possible, then use the edge slice tool (with inside polygons enabled) to 'draw' (cut) all the shapes you want into the hipoly planar surface. Then extrude them and bevel all new edges so they're still there in SubD = done.

At the end, you would have had to spend a minute using the edge slice tool to link some vertices across the surface so the SubD version would deform properly.

Jeremy Lindstrom · Mar 2009

And if you are looking for the sculpting route later on, Stephen Morrell showed how he did it on his pillars.

http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=893792&postcount=37

Renzatic · Mar 2009

In the end, i would have taken the same approach you did for that piece, with the difference that you have 3x the needed polygons and less clearly defined shapes.

The 3x polygon thing was more an issue of laziness if anything. I could've edgelooped and vertex beveled out my holes on the base plate and kept the polycount nice and low. But by that point, a week and 4 screw up models in, I was sick of dealing with the thing. Instead of doing it the right way, I subdivided a couple of times, deleted the faces where I needed my detail, and beveled my way from there.

It worked great. But I know enough to realize it isn't a habit I should be getting into. At least not on a model this simple.

All you need to do is keep the original hipoly base as clean as possible, then use the edge slice tool (with inside polygons enabled) to 'draw' (cut) all the shapes you want into the hipoly planar surface. Then extrude them and bevel all new edges so they're still there in SubD = done.

At the end, you would have had to spend a minute using the edge slice tool to link some vertices across the surface so the SubD version would deform properly.

I also tried doing this. The results were...ehh. It's probably because I don't have enough practice in, but I always ended up with a ton of tris and ngons after I'm done. The ngons I could clean up, but the tris almost seemed unavoidable, and the resulting subpatch looked like crap because of it. It seems like a good idea though, regardless of my bad first attempts. I probably should to work at it more.

Also booleans. I try to stay away from them, but I hear when you're dealing with a high res model, they're not necessarily a bad thing as long as you plan your geometry out. Only problem I see with that is if I'm gonna go that far, I might as well do what I've been doing and not worrying about any resulting weirdness. Are there any advantages to using booleans here I'm missing out on?

As for sculpting. Right now, I'm mostly spending my time making details in Modo, exporting the results as a displacement map, and projection mastering stuff onto a cube. Beyond that, I'm wondering how in the hell you all sculpt with such precision and not end up with a blobby janky mess like I do. Doing any hard surface stuff by hand seems almost impossible to me. Guess it might be time to pony up some cash for a good tutorial or three.

And if you are looking for the sculpting route later on, Stephen Morrell showed how he did it on his pillars.

Nice. Thanks for that.

StrangeFate · Mar 2009

I also tried doing this. The results were...ehh. It's probably because I don't have enough practice in, but I always ended up with a ton of tris and ngons after I'm done.

Yes, you need to think ahead a bit when doing this, cutting enough to get the shapes you want, but not too much taht you wont be able to blent the cuts in properly with the sorrounding geo.

Also booleans. I try to stay away from them, but I hear when you're dealing with a high res model, they're not necessarily a bad thing as long as you plan your geometry out.

THere's some crazy situations where booleans can be the only option (time vs. efficiency) but they're hardly ever good.
In modo you can use the stencil tool instead, cuts intersecting geometry without all the problems of booleans...

Either way, booleans or stencils, the results in your case would be the same as if you cut the geometry by hand with teh slice tool, the only advantage being that if you cut using other geometry, you'd have a visual representation of how the topology will look like... rather than have to think of it as you cut by hand.

Modeling Fine Detail

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