@IronLover64 You have the basic idea but the difference is that Wirrexx's cage mesh has support loops. Here's a breakdown of what happens to the shape when subdivision smoothing is applied: The basic shapes look fine on their own but when subdivision is applied the smoothing effect deforms the mesh and the shape melts…
First off, fantastic thread everyone. Lots of good information in here, I can't believe its just now that I am reading it. So, for the past few days I've been trying to grow my highpoly skillset and for lack of a better word, its been uncomfortable. While I can handle a lot of shapes & forms, theres something I've yet to…
Hi Frank, Thank you so much for this very detailed explanation. This was very clear. I've tried and tested all the different approaches you described and this has given me a whole new view on how to use the bevel/chamfer tools and the inset tool. Insetting n-gons to create edge loops around the details you wish. Using the…
@perandall Without a wireframe it can be difficult to provide accurate feedback but it looks like the typical pinching and stretching artifacts caused by either poorly supported shape intersections or unintended deformation. These types of smoothing artifacts are fairly common when adding shapes to curved surfaces. A…
@Deqa You have the right idea. Drawing out the shape borders and topology flow over the reference images can be a great way to start the block out process but it may also be helpful to gather additional reference images with cleaner lighting. Single piece tubs and shower surrounds can be difficult to model because they…
Waywo: "yeah @gfelton ; most importantly people come here to learn Hard surface SUBD Modeling though" I can't seem to quote individual posts so this will have to do.. I just wanted to chime in on the previous topic. While it's true that you managed to accomplish the shape, the main problem here is not the fact that your…
@SignalFlare07 Welcome to Polycount. Consider checking out the forum information and introduction thread. This reply is a bit late but you're on the right track. Try to match the segments of the intersecting shapes and their support loops with the existing geometry of the underlying curvature. This will help prevent…
Hello everyone. I'm trying to do some hard-surface modeling, and I'm trying to understand how should I approach these. I already tried modeling them, but had some problems. This is the box I tried to model. The thing is, its a pain in the ass. I dont know how to approach. I'll explain, first, here's the breakdown of what I…
@tatertots I was planning on going through the weekly hard surface modeling challenge from 2014 (though I'm no where near prepared and instead decided to first go through all of Frank's detailed posts here). What you talk about with N-Gons and bevels to create the topology and join them up, I'm getting a good understand of…
@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…