@dan001 In most cases there's room for improvement but broad or open ended questions rarely lead to specific, actionable feedback. What's best will often vary depending on the desired outcome and constraints of a specific use case. Getting good answers comes down to figuring out exactly what you're looking to improve and…
Sure, first off there are pretty much two ways to do hard edge stuff without adding in extra geometry, that i know of. First is to use smoothing groups for your hard edges in max. One of the big disadvantages to doing this is that you always have infinately hard edges. Really nothing in life has an edge that hard, so it…
@MKO It's likely the current smoothing artifacts are caused by a combination of factors: extruding directly off of the existing cylinder edge segments and the extra edge loops that run down into the corners. Before trying to resolve the issue there's a few things that are worth considering: * Will the object ever be viewed…
@sera3D Hey buddy, read my post on this page with the leaves in it. N-gons are not your enemy. N-gons on uniform curved surfaces can be your enemy. On supported flat surfaces, N-gons flat out don't matter, and will enable you to save a bunch of modeling time and render-time by letting you end your supportloops in one e-z…
@CodeferBlue In general: flat surfaces are largely uneffected by messy topology so the accuracy, consistency and flow of the topology around the curved shapes and shape transitions is arguably the most important. An overly rigid grid topology can interrupt the edge flow around the circular features so it's best to have a…
@Elarionus A lot will depend on the available tool-set / plugins, preferred modeling operations and number of steps desired. Here's a few strategies for developing this shape with different tools. May need to mix and match to find something that fits your package and workflow. Definitely not the only way to do it so any…
@izmuze The short answer is: the vertical support loops are causing pinching where they meet the curve of the leading edge of the wing. Terminate these support loops closer to triangular notch, delete the remainder of the loop and leave the resulting triangles near the corner of the notch. Here's a break down of this…
Outside of specific project requirements, stock 3D certification programs and technical edge cases, there really isn't anything wrong with using triangles and n-gons in subdivision modeling. Flat surfaces are arguably the least effected by messy topology. As long as the corners are supported and the surfaces are co-planar…
@martianlion Modeling the complex shapes of cabinet inlays flat then deforming them into shape can be a good option. A lot depends on what the final model will be used for and how accurate the details need to be. A couple of other options would be to use floating geometry or to create a clean high poly of the basic shape…
@ned_poreyra Nothing wrong with testing different workflows but it's important to focus on the results and evaluate whether or not a given strategy justifies the time spent. Work through each modeling strategy and pick the one that produces the best results for the least amount of time and effort spent. Here's a few more…