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…
@LoneRanger Some of the smoothing artifacts may be the result of using an uneven number of bevel segments on areas where multiple surface angles converge. Try using the following bevel settings and see if that improves the smoothing behavior: 2 segments, 1.0 Shape, Arc Miter Outer. Increasing the mesh density tends to…
@KungFuCactus Edit: I thought you used max. Oh well, this is how I would do it in max.. For ease of modificatioin you can do displacement with a heightmap, or even bake the heightmap into the normals, but if you're like me you want to model it in because you want to model it in. In that case, you can get away with some…
@Suosa It looks like you're on the right track. If the mesh subdivides cleanly, without any major smoothing artifacts, then it's generally acceptable to use n-gons and triangles in hard surface subdivision models. Since this model is going through a sculpting pass it may make more sense to try and add these minor surface…
@JBurk Overall you have the right idea and are pretty close with the second iteration. A few pages back there's a couple of relevant discussions about cylinder to cylinder intersections and multiple cylinder intersections close together. The basic idea is to block out all of the key features then adjust the segments of…
@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…
Uhm, actually model created in 2 parts, shell and a regular sphere inside. Because they have got float distance between (doesn't touch each other), it's not a negative extrude/bevel seam. Yeah, but modeling steps is similar. * Start with a sphere 32x. +Editpoly modifier * Select some loops, chamfer edges (in max chamfer a…
@LouisMarshall There's a few different topology strategies for sharpening those corners while also minimizing the visibility of any smoothing artifacts. Which approach makes the most sense will depend on how accurate the shapes need to be, how visible the area is and how much time was spent creating the rest of the model.…
@rudenko_je Welcome to Polycount. Consider checking out the forum information and introduction thread. This thread has a lot of great resources so it's probably worth taking some time to skim through the recent posts and look for examples of how other artists have solved similar problems on other shapes. A couple of posts…
@Laon A few posts up, there's a couple of relevant examples that cover how to use segment matching to connect a cylinder to a curved surface and how to route the topology around the base of a cylinder that connects to an angled surface. The basic principles of these fundamental modeling strategies can be combined to…