There are still times where I use the stack. I just collapse it once I'm at a point with whatever model I am working on where I am either altogether finished, or where simply adding more modifiers to the stack just adds to clutter and mess when previous stacks I no longer need. There are plenty of times when the stack is…
@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…
@ArcticTauntaun That's understandable: the reality is it's more contextual than absolute. The key is learning when it's ok and when it's not. Sometimes it even comes down to something as simple as budget and object scale. Low budget, small stuff can't be polished to the Nth degree if you plan to make money off it. Using…
@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…
@Welcj When it comes to game art and high poly models for baking: there's few legitimate technical reason to extend all of the edge loops across the flat areas and into adjacent shapes. Most of the time it will just create unnecessary complexity that will make it harder to edit the mesh in the future. In general: it's…
@Udjani You're on the right track. Sacboi is right about working through some additional block-outs to analyze the shape. There's a few distinct features that appear to be in conflict: the oblong boss appears to have a fixed width, the pattern draft appears to be relatively uniform and the complex profile appears to have…
@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…
@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…
@acarmona88 Welcome to Polycount. Consider checking out the forum information and introduction thread. Sharpening unsupported corners on curved surfaces often produces smoothing artifacts that can be resolved with a few different modeling and topology layout strategies. Deciding which is approach to use really just comes…