One thing I would now like to discuss is how to deal with modeling the mask area of the image above (and such things of a similar type). It started with a spline drawing of the outlining shape, then and extrude, then converting to editable poly, then adding some bad details just for a bend, then a bend modifier, then…
@jimdrawandmake A couple of posts above there's a discussion about preserving crisp edges and sharp corners when merging cylinders into other shapes. There's also a recent post about merging details into curved geometry and that links back to a previous discussion that may be useful for other parts of the shapes in the…
I have been using 3ds Max for some time now, and I am getting a little annoyed at the small things that trip up my workflow. I used blender 2.6 for a while and loved the spacebar command search and all of its shortcuts. I had a tough time setting up anything similar in max that would work in all sub-object modes. For now,…
Am I the only one who collapses the stack regularly to keep things neat and "final", especially if I am finished working with whatever model I had been working on? What does it matter if you used an edit poly modifier 2 or 3 times to get the result you want if you wind up just collapsing the stack anyway? Sure there are…
@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…
@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…
@perna That's totally fair to go for such control, especially when aiming for machined edges. However what's stopping you from combining this with OpenSubdiv? They don't appear mutually exclusive to me, and I already work with both depending on how I want to produce my edges. As long as you know where to put the topology…
@JaYcin3d Was going to model an example (...still might if time permits, alongside posting a result as well) utilizing a mainly non-destructive subd approach. Probably either Boolean - Bevel modifiers + weighted normals or Shrinkwrap - mesh data transfer technique?! But since I'm sensing you're more concerned with how the…
yeah i would use separate meshes, really, no need to keep a continuous mesh, esp when what you're trying to model is built up from separate different pieces. A quick way to go about this, would probably be to model out the rough shapes of all of your panels as planes basically, using your base shape as the constraint, and…
@FrankPolygon Ok so basically I just need to keep at it but you gave me hope! Sorry I couldn't edi my post to add references, polycount is very troublesome for me on Firefox idk why. I like your result it's pretty good, my particular cuban chain (didn't kjnow they were called like that, thanks!) has a strong dip and the…