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How The F*#% Do I Model This? - Reply for help with specific shapes - (Post attempt before asking)

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  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    Yeah, just noticed it's actually a button, that's the problem with tiny reference images. You are right on both those issues.
  • fatihG_
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    fatihG_ polycounter lvl 14
    Looking at all the toilet models.. you guys seem to have missed the message of the previous video.

    Needs more double control loops man. :P
  • Crimzan
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    Crimzan polycounter lvl 9
    Hello guys!

    Do you remember this awesome game from 2000? Deus Ex? I found a nice image of the Deus Ex Title! These letters look very detailed and I'd like to know how to model this.

    Click on this thumbnail:

    deusextitlezar0w.png

    As I'm not able to create a new thread about it, I guess this here is a good place to ask, because I read a lot of questions about how to model something.

    I guess these pistons and screws are not that hard to create for me, but the actual problem would be how to model these hollow, rounded part with the holes. I want to know how I can create these different plates, and, at last, these holes.

    I know this thread is about subdevision modeling, but I would like to know how to model this actual thing itself first. :) I'm advanced in 3D Studio Max, but I looked at a lot of these images people posted here, so I think you could tell that I'm a noob. :D

    As this is my first "real" post, I'd like to tell you that English is not my native language. So please forgive me any typos or 'strange sentences'. I hope that my readers understand my sentences anyways! :D

    But I guess that knowing how this subdevision modeling works seems to be really important. Do you know any posts or threads that cover this topic in-depth? I read a few posts from... perna, I guess, I know that I have to "match the polygons" but I don't quite get how to get beyond this.
    I hope there's a single topic about the general guidelines about this so that I can learn and I don't have so stretch anybodys patience :D

    Jeez. What a long post. But it's my first time here. I guess a little bit of information about me can't harm anybody, although this might be the wrong place :D

    Thank you for any help! :)

    Crim
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    How would you guys go about making this aircraft wing? Tried doing a blockout. I'm having an incredibly annoying time as I can't seem to keep things planar with all these harsh angles.
    wywY7W5.jpg
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    Initially I thought it had made sense, from what I could see these angles here were planar, but it's harder then I expected. What do you think about it?:
    PTL9ECF.jpg

    Me and a concept artist are planning to practice on a ship. He had already done a concept piece and I asked him to roughly sketch some shapes out for me to blockout with his old design.
    10517072155_99aa9b63d0_b.jpg
    10517091756_6899ecf177_b.jpg

    I also think that it doesn't bode well where the back of the ship is in a diamond shape while the front seems in a half triangle shape. The proportions are also very frustrating.

    I also asked him to send me a google sketchup blockout, which he will be doing tomorrow. Yet he said he is not very experienced at it, so I don't know how well that would fare. What should I do?
  • Luke003
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    Luke003 polycounter lvl 8
    Hey guys and gals. I'm working on a hard surface study and I think I'm headed in the wrong direction on this particular part. It is supposed to be a cylinder with two halfs that have squared "fingers" that lock it into place. I'm also trying to improve my understanding of the sub-d process, so I'm seeking feedback on this piece. My main issues:
    1. The pinching around the "fingers" slots.
    2. Maintaining a good cylindrical shape.
    3. Overall, I feel like it just looks like a mess.
    Any suggestions?


    10523080314_9327ec16aa_o.jpg


    10523066026_acc04f7b58_o.jpg
  • Luke003
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    Luke003 polycounter lvl 8
    Hey, thanks perna. That chamfered looking edge actually started out as a control edged corner. I target welded it to the outer control because I slipped into a "tweak it until it works" mode once I got a little frustrated. I definitely need more practice though, I appreciate it.
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    perna wrote: »
    In all honesty you need to ditch that project, unless you yourself are willing to do the design job, loosely based on the sketches you've been given.

    The thing is - illustration and concept art are two completely different things. None of the "concept" drawings there make any sense. None of the shapes line up. Just look at the position of the thrusters in the top view and the front view. They're not even in the same place. That's impossible to work with.

    Actually I could ask him to change those sketches and develop them further in any way. I was more or less asking what can be changed in those sketches to make them more feasible. I was aware of the badly placed thrusters, these sketches were by no means for use of blueprints and were just to get an idea of it. What if I made the yellow and orange sections in my paint over planar/facing down with the red section? Would that solve the issue?

    EDIT: actually that went horribly as the underside of the wing then has huge problems with shapes.
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    perna wrote: »
    Look, it seems you're not getting the main point here: the design doesn't work in 3D. At all. You can only "solve the issue" when a concept make more trivial detail mistakes, but in this case the entire structure of the ship makes no sense whatsoever in 3D.

    Why do you insist on continuing to work on it?

    Also, it's a terribly simple design. Just a crooked box with a couple of wings attached. Why don't you just make a similar design, from scratch, in 3D?

    I just thought it would be simpler to work on something that has already been designed. I'm not going to try work on it any longer. I actually haven't really worked off many things done in concept. Everything I've usually done has always been something existing in real life with tons of refs.

    I know you're pretty experienced with this kind of stuff, so I should ask then. What is a good way to know if the concept is suitable to make into 3d? What makes a good concept for modeling? I haven't found many threads with guidelines on working off concepts. If you could point me in the right direction I'd really appreciate it!
  • r@m
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    r@m polycounter lvl 3
    Hi guys, I'm struggling with a basic mesh, I'm trying to make a screw hole on a curved surface and not sure how to prevent mesh distortion, and would appreciate any advice or links to similar topology. I've tried a few approaches to cutting out the hole but all end in distortion of some kind.

    osxk.png


    cxiu.png


    thanks in advance....btw this is what I'm trying to model..

    3c9a.jpg
  • Nosslak
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    Nosslak polycounter lvl 12
    For starters you should make the holes hexagonal as then you wouldn't need to have any ngons, which will result in better smoothing for subdiv surfaces. Also I don't know how close you're following the photo, but the shape in there looks a lot boxier than yours which would make it a bit easier to add the holes as there would be less curvature.
  • Pedro Amorim
    Try finishing thr rest of the model and leave these small details for the end.
    You could collapse 1 turbosmooth and use those extra polies to add dthat detail
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks for the reply perna! I'll be linking your post to the concept artist.
  • r@m
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    r@m polycounter lvl 3
    Nosslak wrote: »
    For starters you should make the holes hexagonal as then you wouldn't need to have any ngons, which will result in better smoothing for subdiv surfaces. Also I don't know how close you're following the photo, but the shape in there looks a lot boxier than yours which would make it a bit easier to add the holes as there would be less curvature.

    Not that close, I have 6 references and they all differ slightly , but yeah I need to make the handle wider either way....and they are hexagons :poly124:
    perna wrote: »

    r@m: Whenever you merge two shapes they need to have similar density. Currently your hole geo is much, much more dense than the curve of the grip area - that just won't work. These kind of things must be planned out in advance of doing any hipoly modeling, or you'll be stuck spending ungodly amounts of time trying to tweak and fix after the fact.

    This video should demonstrate lining up and matching density between two shapes that are going to merge:

    Subd Cylinder Segment Matching - YouTube

    Thanks that's helpful , I'm only a few days into sub-d modeling and it isn't as easy as it looks.
    Try finishing thr rest of the model and leave these small details for the end.
    You could collapse 1 turbosmooth and use those extra polies to add dthat detail

    Yup, I'm still at a stage where I don't know what to add and when, ie: do extra edges need to flow around the entire handle...etc.

    Anyway thanks for the tips guys I'll give it another go...seems there are some "good eyes" in here 8)

    EDIT : Oops, got hex and oct mixed up, I didn't realise you could use hex for holes, now I see what you mean.
  • paupau
    Hey! What's the best way of doing this?

    57b0786454e0a76af509d6d1a18d863a.png

    I suppose boolean is a bad method. I tried doing it manually, by moving around the vertices until it's a circle. But I just get a lot of errors.

    cf4440af9b7071a1494870a35b2bcc11.png
    c5f82464a714671ce1295473474fcbcf.png

    Thanks in advance!
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    Why didn't you just make horizontal edge loops for those 2 lone verts and remove that triangle?
  • paupau
    I'm very new to all of this, and don't know how to do things properly. So I don't really understand what you mean.
  • Noors
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    Noors greentooth
    Made this in 5 min. You should try to find the amount of sides that will makes it easier, here 24 and 16.
    Then, boolean isn't a bad method, it's the correct method for that kind of stuff.

    tubes.gif
  • r@m
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    r@m polycounter lvl 3
    Also this way , I'm slowly working my way through this thread and saving all the good topo images for reference/study, came across this yesterday..

    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1022109&postcount=703

    pipesamp.jpg

    hope it's useful.

    EDIT : Also this...

    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1184399&postcount=1054

    tube_connect01_a.jpg
  • paupau
    @Noors, how did you get the lines to line up so perfectly? Mine are perfect on half of it, but the other half looks like this (the lines are in the middle of the other cylinders lines)

    d8a2a40a357790a1e9bd41947540cd26.png

    (sorry for my stupitidy, heh, I'm just really new to this)
  • Noors
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    Noors greentooth
    Yeah really, it's the same thing as perna's vid. Just play with the number of sides until it matches roughly. It doesn't have to align perfectly. Just boolean, and adjust manually the biggest cylinder. The deformation will be minimal.
    Also you maybe don't have to use such amount of sides. Look at this one
    http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-hydrant-modelled/481362
    It looks ok, and is simplier. I've made a quick search for "3d fire hydrant", there's a lot of fine wireframe examples.
    Also floating geometry is a solution too ^^
    http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-hydrant/501838
  • Luka
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    Luka polycounter lvl 5
    @r@am:

    you could always do those holes with a quad if its not meant for a perfect hipoly model but for a bake. a quad wont give you a perfect circle, but its perfect enough and waay easier to control on the curved geometry
  • Fashoomp
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    Fashoomp polycounter lvl 10
    I found this image of concept thumbnails that I thought would be great practice for hi-poly models.

    GJNW1v3.jpg

    I've picked #7 to do, and I can't quite figure out how to get the caps on the side of the sphere. As well, the indented sphere in the center of the larger green sphere.

    WsfreJ1.jpg
  • g-pe
    Hi Guys,

    This has kept me stumped for a while. I want to harden the highlighted (orange) edges to appear as if they were machined whilst maintaining the curves of the radius toothed sections of the model. Even if I up res the mesh I still get some nasty pinching at the highlighted (magenta) intersections.

    Hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

    Thanks Guys
  • riklopes
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    riklopes polycounter lvl 12
    Hey perna, i think your solution doesnt solve it, as this is what you would get
    trierror.JPG
    trierror1.JPG
  • riklopes
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    riklopes polycounter lvl 12
    yeah ur right, it looks fine to me now! thanks
  • g-pe
    That's great Perna! Thankyou.
  • g-pe
    Sorry guys,

    but if i would like to have a miter edge running around the perimeter of the toothed section, how can I introduce the hard edges highlighted in my previous post? I keep revisiting this mesh but with no clean result.

    Thanks again.
  • Steppenwolf
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    Steppenwolf polycounter lvl 15
    Fashoomp wrote: »
    I found this image of concept thumbnails that I thought would be great practice for hi-poly models.

    I've picked #7 to do, and I can't quite figure out how to get the caps on the side of the sphere. As well, the indented sphere in the center of the larger green sphere.

    :poly127:
    (what i imagine perna's face looks like reading your post lol)

    Watch his video of cylinder segment matching. It's linked only a few posts above yours.
  • Sergius
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    Sergius polycounter lvl 3
    Please help fix the stretch.
    I used a 48-sided cylinder. But it did not work pr1_586.jpg
    pr2_163.jpg
    pr4_721.jpg
    pr5_107.jpg
    Here the model. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0wTc-kKXLPtMmJPRlJFXzFUaVk/edit?usp=sharing
  • g-pe
    I have attached a sectional diagram to show what i'm trying to achieve plus an image with the current result.

    Thanks for your input Perna.
  • g-pe
    Perna you are correct, just add more geo to minimize the effect of the problem area.

    Thankyou
  • Kroma!
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    Kroma! polycounter lvl 9
    Updated my techniques and tutorials .zip. There are 2 parts to avoid people getting duplicates (should be 87 items total).

    Again, for additional info, I added the link to the page the image is from in the comments of the image so it may make more sense in context of the rest of the thread.

    Some of the techniques might not be the best but hopefully they will help somebody :)

    Part 1 (30.2 MB) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45171669/Polycount/Techniques.zip

    Part 2 (15.9 MB) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45171669/Polycount/Techniques_2.zip
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    Great collection Kroma, Thanks!
  • Scizz
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    Scizz polycounter lvl 11
    Having a bit of trouble on this asset
    5aACA.jpg

    I made a box, and deleted polygons where I needed to, but that leaves me with one sides faces and the asset has no thickness for the interior of it. And it just looks weird.
    5aAzH

    I then tried starting with the box again, but this time outlining the top, and then extruding down, that created the thickness I wanted to a degree, but I'm not sure if this is the most efficient way of doing it, and also, that leaves me with no ceiling. If I try and add a ceiling, that again, leaves me with a one sided face, showing outward, and nothing inwards.
    5aAAD
    Any suggestions on creating this asset efficiently to allow a proper exteior and interior? I might be thinking to much into it haha.
  • Nosslak
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    Nosslak polycounter lvl 12
    I'm not sure what application you're using, Scizz, but your app should have something like a shell or solidify modifier/option (that's what Max and Blender respectively calls it). That kind of tool makes it possible to model only one side where the inside or outside is then generated with even thickness.
  • Scizz
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    Scizz polycounter lvl 11
    I'm using max. :D When I use the shell modifier it gives me weird shading and kind of bubbles the mesh out, it doesn't stay straight.
    5aMXK.png
    This is an orthographic front view, with the outward amount at .1 meters.
    Edit: I scaled the faces on the proper axis and I managed to straighten out the sides. There's still the an error that needs to be fixed though.
    5aNq7.jpg
    Even though the edge is straight, it's still giving me that weird shading, like it isn't straight. Or something is skewed.
  • big_beluga
  • Soldeus
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    Soldeus polycounter lvl 10
    5aRVm.png

    Hope it's "clear". Just delete the inside loop(the polygons marked with red) and bridge as marked with the blue lines. That should give you the ceiling you want.

    It it's not clear yet I'll just do it in 3D ^^.
  • Scizz
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    Scizz polycounter lvl 11
    5aWMV.png
    Alright I think I'm good to go. I did what Soldeus suggested on with a few adjustments, bridging, etc. I managed to get a base to start high poly modeling with. TY.
    5aWWM.jpg
  • Kruk
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    Kruk polycounter lvl 6
    Wow i learned a lot viewing this thread!
    well ..at least i think i did XD
    So i tried to model some weird shapes that i had some problems previously.
    What you you guys think?
    hp1.jpg
    hp2.jpg

    i did the cylinder 32 but i think it shoud be 36 or more
  • timotronprime
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    timotronprime polycounter lvl 11
    Kruk wrote: »
    i did the cylinder 32 but i think it shoud be 36 or more

    It shouldn't give you a huge difference.

    In fact, 32 should give an easier time distributing edge loops.
  • CinemaGFX
  • menboy2003
    I'm having a little trouble on this asset:
    i want to make 4 equal slots on the bowl surface ,but i got this bad smooth result.asking for help~
    55507123201311212110181269463328227_001.jpg
    55507123201311212110181269463328227_000.jpg
  • SonicBlue
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    SonicBlue polycounter lvl 10
    CinemaGFX wrote: »
    looking correct?

    There are some shading problems in these places:
    XapZluq.jpg

    You need more geometry to support the curvature, add more edge loops and help the the shape to transition smoothly.

    I don't want to be the bad guy, but apart from that, the alloy wheel is wrong :D

    The calliper tells me that it's from an M series, probably M3 (E46 CSL), so:fOW42mS.jpg

    From this picture only you already see that the curvature shape it fallows is different from your model, especially the inner part (notice how the front and rear wheels are different), the rays are also positioned wrongly, the U shaped one is in the middle not the V, as you did, look at the bolt holes to find the correct orientation.

    To help you find out how it actually looks, here's some more pictures:

    FaHFXAI.jpgzqikQQd.jpgrnlUweI.jpg

    Good luck.
  • CinemaGFX
    SonicBlue wrote: »
    There are some shading problems in these places:
    XapZluq.jpg

    You need more geometry to support the curvature, add more edge loops and help the the shape to transition smoothly.

    I don't want to be the bad guy, but apart from that, the alloy wheel is wrong :D

    The calliper tells me that it's from an M series, probably M3 (E46 CSL), so:fOW42mS.jpg

    From this picture only you already see that the curvature shape it fallows is different from your model, especially the inner part (notice how the front and rear wheels are different), the rays are also positioned wrongly, the U shaped one is in the middle not the V, as you did, look at the bolt holes to find the correct orientation.

    To help you find out how it actually looks, here's some more pictures:

    FaHFXAI.jpgzqikQQd.jpgrnlUweI.jpg

    Good luck.
    Thank you very much!

    Also I wanted to quickly show some wireframes of my M6 model,
    luYEnlT.png
    I1RBomR.png
    ^ This part looks wrong to me.
    zbe3E9B.png
    bZ5Qbjk.png
    TiQAmV7.png
  • cookedpeanut
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    cookedpeanut polycounter lvl 12
    Hello ladies, I have a question on modelling something.
    I know I could just normal map these details, but IF I wanted to actually model in the mesh effect on the surface, how would I go about it, especially with the circular cutouts..?
    Would love to shed some light on this...
    yb11_vin_celestion1.jpg
  • WarrenM
    What have you tried?
  • Bek
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    Bek interpolator
    The only way I can think of to do that easily would be to have the long extrusions as a single mesh and the circular parts as floaters. But really if you're planning on baking anyway ndo would be the simplest. Doing that as a single mesh would be quite tricky.
  • SonicBlue
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    SonicBlue polycounter lvl 10
    CinemaGFX wrote: »
    Thank you very much!

    Also I wanted to quickly show some wireframes of my M6 model,

    I1RBomR.png
    ^ This part looks wrong to me.

    Yeah, that part in the M6 Coup
16566687071187
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