Originally Posted by Rabbid_Cheeze

blouskall: Just add more geo to round out your shape. When you have two loops close together like that it will always pinch unless there's a consistent or gradual falloff in the number of loops to their sides.

Thanks! I tried that, but initially got some frustrated mesh since someone had caused a triangle by cutting right up in one of those bends that was even in a slope. So I went back and remodeled, re-cut and then chamfered a bit to get those 2 sharp angles, followed by adding some more geo to compensate for the chamfer. And it worked, thanks!!

Spent 30 minutes trying to file down this cylinder, raged.:

Halo 4 BR Rail:

I cant get the cilynder to transition smoothly

I tried several methods, but deleted most. I'm sitting with this:

You're probably just over thinking it



The top part of the rail may seem a bit soft, but you can fix that by just using more segments. I used a 32 sided cylinder with the bottom half cut off for the example. You could also add another loop and use a variety of loop terminators, but this will give the cleanest result.

Originally Posted by Rabbid_Cheeze

You're probably just over thinking it

Yeah, probably. I took another glance at the real rifle from another angle and it seems I was also reading the shape kinda wrong. hard to tell from the angle in the picture I posted. Thanks for the help.

Did you match the number of edge loops and just bridge the cylinder with the rail? or did you model a tapered cylinder and the rail and project the intersection manualy with the knife tool? Your transition seems to flatten out into the rail half way through, like its gradually morphing into the rail, rather than staying cylindrical. The concept shows it more as a filed, tapered cylinder.

Originally Posted by Computron

Your transition seems to flatten out into the rail half way through, like its gradually morphing into the rail, rather than staying cylindrical. The concept shows it more as a filed, tapered cylinder.

Unless they're using some sort of voodoo that shouldn't be possible, the shapes quite literally cannot merge like that without disturbing the linear angle of the sides taper, it's not a matter of topology. If you have some better reference though I'd be glad to give it another spin.


To answer your other question, the steps I used were:

1. Make 32 sided cylinder, duplicate the element in place and move it to the back to become the rail.
2. On the duplicate, remove the sides that will be part of the angled section, and flatten the top and bottom.
3. Lower and pulling back the top of the rail and add back in the same number of segments removed earlier.
4. Bridged and add a few support loops.

So long thread but I'm on page three and I wonder, are you guys in "pure" SubD mode? Or are you modeling with a proxy and using poly operations? I was gonna give the Leica model a go in SubD and imagine my shock when I CAN"T DO A DAMN THING to my initial cube! lul
Well that's not true, I can use the move tool on a face. wewt

Just out of curiosity is there really a point to using SubD? I mean it can do things better than poly? Seems like a serious PITA. The cage disappears, or it's in the way when you're trying to block out, or selections get borked to where you have to hover twenty units way from want you want to select. Why put yourselves through all that trouble? Do you use it because someone else talked you into it and now you have to share the pain? /scratches head.
I'm startin to feel like my Drill Instructor is asking me to go get an I.D. Ten T form. I know he's effin with me, but I have to do what he says, because he has ten years in and I owe him that respect. And also I don't want to have to do bends and thrusts until the sweat makes an 18 inch diameter puddle below my face. Which winds up happening anyway. It's like deja vu all over again.

Originally Posted by King Mango

Just out of curiosity is there really a point to using SubD? I mean it can do things better than poly? Seems like a serious PITA. The cage disappears, or it's in the way when you're trying to block out, or selections get borked to where you have to hover twenty units way from want you want to select. Why put yourselves through all that trouble? Do you use it because someone else talked you into it and now you have to share the pain? /scratches head.
I'm startin to feel like my Drill Instructor is asking me to go get an I.D. Ten T form. I know he's effin with me, but I have to do what he says, because he has ten years in and I owe him that respect. And also I don't want to have to do bends and thrusts until the sweat makes an 18 inch diameter puddle below my face. Which winds up happening anyway. It's like deja vu all over again.

Yes subd is all a big joke we lie all the time, you figured it out!

Subd modeling allows for relative ease in making adjustments while giving you control over subtle details like the roundness of edges, etc. if you're just throwing more polys at something you're going to make a very unwieldy mesh.

If you think you've got some other sort of brilliant plan and this is confusing, I'd urge you to actually try your better idea first.

I think he is a maya user I know other have misunderstood what we really mean to, cause maya has something else that is called subD to.

Here is something I found on the modo forum, "I showed them what I refer to as subD's in modo, and they said oh, that's different than subD's in Maya, which are completely different than polygons they said."

I tend to believe, that he thinks, that we are modelling with the subdivisions applied(non-reversible).

And the only difference i know between modo subD and others is that modo uses a slightly improved subD algorithm.

Well I know some other person here did not realise that the 3 hotkey in maya was the subd preview.
From what I remember when I used maya there was another thing called subd where there was local subdivision and is different from what we are talking about here.

Originally Posted by King Mango

So long thread but I'm on page three and I wonder, are you guys in "pure" SubD mode? Or are you modeling with a proxy and using poly operations? I was gonna give the Leica model a go in SubD and imagine my shock when I CAN"T DO A DAMN THING to my initial cube! lul
Well that's not true, I can use the move tool on a face. wewt

If you're a maya guy, its smooth preview(3 on keyboard) with standard poly modeling tools yes.

We use sub-d to refer to modeling with a proxy mesh/cage with a smoothed result, some apps may have a slightly different term for it.

Yeah I'm using Maya which I'm finding out is not really as good as other programs.
As for my brilliant idea, yes I do have one. Pretend they don't exist. :p
I am familiar with the resolution keys 1-3.
So it looks like people use SubD so they can basically make tweaks to their shapes? But I'm sure this thread is hijacked long enough. Thanks for the heads-up folks.

OK so back on track here. I'm having trouble with an inset bevel on my Leica M3 model. I can tell it's a topology issue, but I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to cut in the extra detail to prevent the problem.

Maya is just fine, as with any autodesk modeling suite.

you need support loops on both sides of your feature.

Add the blue line and get rid of the tris.



You might want to do the red part so your topo is easier to work with and to avoid poles.

Originally Posted by Ghostscape

Yes subd is all a big joke we lie all the time, you figured it out!

I knew it!

Who's been in on this? You guys were conspiring against me.

I always felt this sub-d stuff was bullshit.

Ah Yeah run the blue all the way up. I was trying to extrude that semi circular bit to get an offset loop but I kept forgetting to run the edge all the way over the top. Thank you. /facepalm

Looks just fine now.

Hey guys, how do you bind swiftloop to a hotkey? I've been looking in the user interface menu and I can't find it.

look under poly tools, or if your in windows 7, pick any object from the complete list and quickly type the first few letters and windows automatically sellects it.

Thanks Computron!

So I'm very very new to subdivision modeling, and I want to understand how I should go about making this, I have the basic shape but I can't inset it or bevel it, It's very annoying, but of course it's because I havn't learned enough. Thanks.

That's the expected behavior of the inset tool. You are going to have to get in there and actually collapse the verts manually if you want to use this workflow. Not the best choice for that grip.

Instead I would model out the planar shapes of the gun head on instead of their outline and try to stick with quads with and even distribution across the element. Then extrude. This is more of basic modeling skills than it is SDS, but don't give up, it will come with practice.

Another way would be to inset it manually with your knife tool.

Originally Posted by Computron

That's the expected behavior of the inset tool. You are going to have to get in there and actually collapse the verts manually if you want to use this workflow. Not the best choice for that grip.

Instead I would model out the planar shapes of the gun head on instead of their outline and try to stick with quads with and even distribution across the element. Then extrude. This is more of basic modeling skills than it is SDS, but don't give up, it will come with practice.

Another way would be to inset it manually with your knife tool.

I don't mean to sound like a retard (but I am) what do you mean by collapse the verts and If I did it with the knife tool (I assume you mean cut tool) wouldn't it be un-even. Or is the point to adjust that by eye later then? I don't really follow the post. I've only been modeling a short while.
I'm sorry for being such a noob :P I tried it for my second model ever and it turned out like this
I was surprised I even made that.
I just want to do it right this time. For example I saw this one guy(he's also in this thread) and he was working on making the Halo 4 Battle Rifle using NO floaters. I want to be able to do that even though it's not entirely necessarily. (or so I've been told).

Anyway, tl;dr what does it mean to collapse the verts, what exactly do you mean by "Instead I would model out the planar shapes of the gun head on instead of their outline and try to stick with quads with and even distribution across the element" or explain how I'd go about making it look good with the knife tool, because wouldn't it be un-even, I know I can adjust it but it still wouldn't be 100%. Thanks

Originally Posted by AlexCatMasterSupreme

For example I saw this one guy(he's also in this thread) and he was working on making the Halo 4 Battle Rifle using NO floaters.

NO WAY! No floaters? That guy must be CRAZY!!

Originally Posted by AlexCatMasterSupreme

Anyway, tl;dr what does it mean to collapse the verts, what exactly do you mean by "Instead I would model out the planar shapes of the gun head on instead of their outline and try to stick with quads with and even distribution across the element" or explain how I'd go about making it look good with the knife tool, because wouldn't it be un-even, I know I can adjust it but it still wouldn't be 100%. Thanks

Collapse means to combine the verts, which is how you would clean up the inset you made.

SDS (Sub-division surfaces) don't need to be super precise, don't be afraid to hand tweak things. It's still a model after all. as long as the edges look nice, who cares if they are all perfectly the same exact width down to a millimeter.

When I model, I usually just model everything from a plane, keeping things in quads to make it more easily workable, shift-extruding from the edges. When I got all my geo in place, I use the swift loops (It only works with quads, so try to stick to them) to get every support loop in place. No need to bother with caddies and measurements, as long as it looks right and stays consistent.

You got one big n-gon so things are going to be a little difficult to work with or add support loops. The inset you made wont actually support the corners anyway. Same with your AR, adding turbosmooth will not yield any result since you have n-gons everywhere and no support loops.

You will need to use the knife (Or "cut" tool) to cut it into quads, the way your n-gon is right now, it will not smooth very well since it is not totally convex.

Originally Posted by Computron

NO WAY! No floaters? That guy must be CRAZY!!



Collapse means to combine the verts, which is how you would clean up the inset you made.

SDS (Sub-division surfaces) don't need to be super precise, don't be afraid to hand tweak things. It's still a model after all. as long as the edges look nice, who cares if they are all perfectly the same exact width down to a millimeter.

When I model, I usually just model everything from a plane, keeping things in quads to make it more easily workable, shift-extruding from the edges. When I got all my geo in place, I use the swift loops (It only works with quads, so try to stick to them) to get every support loop in place. No need to bother with caddies and measurements, as long as it looks right and stays consistent.

You got one big n-gon so things are going to be a little difficult to work with or add support loops. The inset you made wont actually support the corners anyway. Same with your AR, adding turbosmooth will not yield any result since you have n-gons everywhere and no support loops.

You will need to use the knife (Or "cut" tool) to cut it into quads, the way your n-gon is right now, it will not smooth very well since it is not totally convex.

Thanks man I shall mess around and try to get it right