SUBDIVISION DISCUSSION

[rage]

OKOKOK, i will start a thread that may interest a lot of u guys....subdivision modelling, this technique has a lot of tips & tricks of the trade, and as i saw in these forums it is used by many of the people here....so maybe it starts a nice and neat discussion about this way of modelling things...

"the way in which a subdivision surface is derived from a low-resolution control cage"

this could be a definition of subdivision....although it may be a bit short...hehe

Subdivision is a way of modelling in wich u define a low resolution control cage wich is later subdivided by a smoothing algorithm based on, or similar to Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces.

I want to start a deep discussion here so lets start...

What is sub-d?
what are its rules? can we break them?
where do i start?
Cani use sub-d to model ANYTHING?

etc...etc...etc...

Lets start with a good ol trick wich i learned a few weeks ago and i will give some examples....

My balrog axe.... I wanted all on the axe to look beveled, so i cranked my head and went nuts....but i ALMOST get it...i added so many segments that now that i look upon the mesh topology i laugh...hehe, have a look:

http://www.axelk.com.ar/images/mtuts/-1.jpg
almost.....looks like crap aint it...there are places where some edges are missing and some where they are to many...can u spot them?

BUt when i did that, i didnt knew of this little trick....hehe

imagine u want to do a beveled box using sub-d....
how would u make it????
lets seee...."I would make a box, chamfer all the corner edges and voila!"
well that would be a good way...but imagine u want to make an L shaped part with that box later extruding one of the sides....it would be a mess once u apply meshsmooth...hehe

So i got my hands on this awesome yet simple technique....have a look at the images...they are self explaining:
[NOTE: on the last two images , the wireframes are unsmoothed]

http://www.axelk.com.ar/images/mtuts/0.jpg

http://www.axelk.com.ar/images/mtuts/1.jpg

http://www.axelk.com.ar/images/mtuts/2.jpg

WOOOOOW!! jajaja... machanical beveled objects on demand!!!
Just by adding one edges on each side of the one u want to get beveled and its done!!
Here:

http://www.axelk.com.ar/images/mtuts/3.jpg

Of course this isnt mention to teach how to do beveled edges is a way of comprehending how sub-d´s work, hope it helped....

well, this is just one of the techs there is...i´ll post some more later...and of course this is a forum so i expect someone posts theyre own and also make commenst and such...

Lest start the debate, and please share your secrets!!:D :D

cheers!

[Kit]

Cool thread!
I might be getting a bit ahead, but I want to post my favorit sub div tip before anyone else does!:D
(Since I use Max, I´ll write it in Max terminology but I´m certain that the same can be achived on any self respecting 3d program)

While working with the low poly version create a reference of the object and apply a meshsmooth modifier to the reference. Now you can work on the low poly version and you can see the end result at the same time! It´s a lot cleaner than working with "show end result" activated on the low poly versionand if you hide the objects you are not working with it might also take less CPU resources.

Happy modelling!

[pkbanana]

nice thread thanks.
do the above methods work in this situation?see picture
this is my problem, trying to attach the head to the body.

[rage]

Use the pattern shown in the attachment for local detail termination...

BUT...such a mesh topology will bring u problems once u animate, because the neck isnt a good part to break edgeloops...hehe
try and subdivide the neck down and terminate the detil after the neck finishes...this way when the neck bends it will look correctly...
oH and by the way for the next char u make, some advice...try and have conggruency whan u mopdel separate parts that are to be attached later!...hehe so u dont have to do this again....:D :D

[pkbanana]

great tip rage :D thanks!!!

[Mike-3DT]

Excellent walk through the basics:
http://www.erikasorson.com/tutorials/tutorial_subdivision.html

Tamas Varga's excellent sub-d page:
http://maxrovat.sns.hu/subdiv/

Advanced discussion of edge loops & tecniques (by Bay Raitt,):
http://www.izware.com/news/indexa446.html

Sub-d modelling deity, Bay Raitt's site:
http://cube.phlatt.net/home/spiraloid/
His sub-d forum - lots of good topology discussions etc here(if you are going to join, PLEASE read the rules or you will be thrown off.):
http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/index.php

Wiro's site - excellent modeller & best box modelling head tut on the web imo:
http://www.secondreality.ch/

Sub-d modeller Martin Krol's site (also some video tuts here):
http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/
Face modelling & setup by Martin:
http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/Tutorials/facial/Page-1.html

Head edge loop layout tut for lightwave, (but everyone could apply it in their software):
http://www3.sympatico.ca/tayse/style.htm

Head topology discussion on cgtalk:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=38469

Free sub-d modelling package, wings 3d. More powerful than it looks:
http://www.wings3d.com/

Meshtools for max. The original & still the best. Max 5 incorporates a lot of the originals but there is still version 2.5 for max 5 that has some stuff that was missed. For max 4 it's absolutely necessary. The meshtools site is down at the moment but you can find the scripts here:
http://www.scriptspot.com/start.htm

MJ polytools for maya & max:
http://www.maya3d.dk/Scripts/MJPolyTools/

CS polytools for max:
http://www.3dluvr.com/subagio/cspolytools.html

Nice thread Rage- gonna make this thread sticky. If someone else wants to start a similar one for nurbs or splines etc, go ahead & I'll sticky that one too.
Have fun...

[Mike-3DT]

Animated gif - worth a look:
http://www.bunk.cistron.nl/plaatjes/buildup.gif

Discussion on what does & doesn't constitute sub-d's. Interesting stuff:
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=320

[rage]

hehey! a sticky threaad! cool thanks mike! I absolutely knew that i was counting with your support! hehe

i gathered some other links following some of the on eu posted.... here they are:

FAcial sculpting and setup (http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/Tutorials/facial/Page-1.html)

articulation of mehes for animation (http://www.hippydrome.com/)
this one is ay cool and i suggest that u link it on the front pages

will be back later...cheers!!!

[rob_beddall]

hey!!
pretty much the same tip as kit but, .... if you use maya, download the connect polyshape plug-in. you can then have 1 half of the model with 0 sub-divisions and the other half with a smoothed version. this is how i work and it's quite good and fast.
connect polyshape also has lots of other cool features.
cheers!

[Incitatus]

Here's another little problem which I'm sure we've all encountered. How to add edges while maintaning curvature?

(Without moving every single vert, hmm a sphere would have been a better example)

(sorry for low qual jpeg hope you get the idea :))

[rage]

i guess u must relocate the segments in order to get the closest possible to the original curvature....like this

[kuman]

there are certain ideas about poly modeling that a lot of artist think are rules written in stone which i tend to disagree with. you have the idea about keeping quad, preserving edgeloops, and modeling with as few poles as possible.

poles well poles are will happen, if you extrude you'll have poles, i don't think there's more to discuss than that really.

the idea of keeping quad is based on the fact that quads smooth better (this is a hazy point to me, i've seen plenty of examples where quads smooth no better than tris, this smoothing issue seems (imho) to be more based on planar angles than necessarily the shape of polys) and that they set up a regular division for animation.

in modeling a lot of cloth recently i find that keeping quads was something that really wasn't an option. its easy to keep mostly quad and complete edgeloops in a more regular form like a forearm or even a face, however i've found when you try to model a more chaotic system like cloth where shapes change dramatically in fairly small distances then keeping quad and full edgeloops becomes really a luxury. sure you could do it but you'd probably spend as long just fixing your polys as you would laying down the fundamental shapes themselves. in this instance i would say flow lines are the most important things. as a matter of fact in my own work i've found that the idea of a flow line seems to dominate my list of important things to keep in mind when modeling, so much so that keeping quad and full edgeloops have become secondary to having good flow lines.

the flow lines are basically edgeloops in discussions by bay raitt and martin krol, i just hesitate to call them that because to me that term carries some baggage with it, ie running in length as far as possible or returning all the way around to form a full loop.

anyhow i took some of wip shots of wireframes and outlined what i saw as my flow lines during modeling. some people have written to me and told me that my wires for cloth seem crazy or completely without order. well it really isn't crazy or chaotic in my eyes, there's actually a method to the madness and its in the fact that i don't really see the edges but the flow lines. here's a few pics of what i mean:

http://www.3dartisan.net/~kuman/post/flow1.jpg http://www.3dartisan.net/~kuman/post/flow2.jpg http://www.3dartisan.net/~kuman/post/flow3.jpg

i guess what i'm saying in the end. my tips is to not get too caught up in the "rules". not every surface can be described the same way. imho, the key to modeling a surface accurately is to get a feeling for how it moves and how it flows not how you can form it with all quad polys.

happy modeling

-k

[goat]

Great point you got there Kuman. I myself tend to stick stricktly with quads but found more recently that as long as things are"flowing" it's ok to bend the "rules". Grewat models by the way.

I'll try and get some tips this weekend if I get some time.

Mike nice sites.

Rage great idea for a thread

[Zytrex]

Hi Kuman, nice work there. I'll keep that in mind when modeling.

Hey Rage, sorry I haven't had a chance to give you a visual demonstration of the problems I was talking about in the other thread, as far as mesh banding and stuff like that, but I've been very busy. In fact, I'm stll busy, so I guess you'll just have to keep waiting! :smug: :p

[pencil_head]

can anyone explain when and why it is usful to use the "keep faces convex" button in max.

[pencil_head]

here is an example of when i used it. when modelling the ear i got lazy and didn't finish it. but when i turned on "keep faces convex" the mesh look alot better.

[rage]

dunno exactly what it does, ill research a bit about it....

thanks for posting here dude!

[Knut]

pencil_head: If you take a look at the attachment, you can see that "keep faces convex" also has some side-effects.

[rage]

this is what it says in the max help files:

Keep Faces Convex: (Available only with Operate On Polygons mode.) Keeps all input polygons convex. Selecting this option causes non-convex polygons to be handled as a minimum number of separate faces, each of which is convex. (Turn on Display/Weighting group > Display Control Mesh to see what's happening here.)
"Convex" means that you can connect any two points in the polygon with a line that doesn't go outside the polygon. Most letters aren't convex. In the capital letter "T," for example, you can't connect the upper-left corner to the bottom with a straight line without going outside the shape. Circles, rectangles, and regular polygons are all convex.
Problems that can occur with non-convex faces include the fact that changes in the geometry of the input object can result in a different topology for the MeshSmooth result. For instance, in a box, if you drag one of the top corners across the middle of the top face, the box becomes non-convex. MeshSmooth would then see this as two triangles instead of one quad, and the number of points in the result would change.
If you need to make sure your output topology is stable, turn this off. If you have a lot of letters or other non-convex faces in your mesh, however, you'll probably want it on.

[Knut]

Hmm... this made meshsmoothing letters easier. I should have thought of this before:roll:
Good thread Rage! Keep this one rolling.

[pencil_head]

thanks for your help Rage but i already read the help file. i had a bit of a play with it and i understand it a bit better. here is a pic if anyone else is interested. notice the missing edges inside the original mesh

[Little Nicky]

Thank's the for Convex Faces tip — It'll help a lot.

Rage, great thread. Good Idea.

[rocko_granate]

If you want to use shag fur on your model you should keep the button on, otherwise there can be "flickering" (don't know the english word for something appearing and dissappearing many times a second) on the fur while animating your model...

[Knut]

Yeah shag-fur and meshsmooth doesn't mix that good.
Or maybe it's just me doing something wrong.

[rage]

dunno, never used shag fur that much...hehe

[Jeremy]

just to add to the quad discussion. The purpose for trying to keep quads isn't only for smoothing purposes but is mainly for deformations. Quads deform much more predictably then a tri or n-gon would. Cloth is kind of a different thing altogether. If your using a cloth simulator then quads probably need to be reasonably held to but if you are simply modeling for looks then keeping quads in cloth is almost counter productive. Strategically placing 5 sided poly's and tiangles is usually much better at achieving the pinching that occurs in cloth. For organic matter such as characters, however, I would suggest trying to keep quads for the most part, especially in the joint areas. There are some exceptions but I'll leave that for another time.

[molandim]

What is the diference of Poy modeling and Mesh modelign??

It one is better??

[fabrizzzio]

there are some differences.
I can tell you what I know:

Polymodeling is better for using for Meshsmooth (that's what i think!) cause it has no problem with cutting (mesh usually create extra vertex that are very problematics...), and offers some interesting tools for mesh editing.
However, for example, you cant use shift to extend an edge like you do with mesh, and I use that feature all the time (select an edge + shift and drag to create another edge...)

Maybe somebody can tell more about this... I cant remember more now...

[tradedaemon]

Is there a way to switch the shift key to poly? I also only use mesh for that mostly. It makes you think the discreet has something against poly modelling, or they would have let you switch it, or have it usible in edge mode itself, whether it be poly or mesh.

[fabrizzzio]

I agree with you tradedaemon!!!!

I need to switch constantly between poly and mesh, because I use that feature all the time!!!
It s****!!!

Anybody knows why? and a way to work it out?

[Kit]

Hum? I shift+drag all the time in "editable poly"....
look, (I started from a box):

[rage]

that issue has been corrected in max 5 guys....i knnow, in max 4 u cant do that....hehe...but the new poly object in max 5 rulez!! you will never again use edit mesh....

[CountZero]

ok, i have a similar question even though it's a bit off-topic, what's the difference between using normal editable mesh compared to using the modifier "edit mesh" ? (or editable poly / edit poly-modifier)

also, i've noticed that if you change from editable mesh to editable poly as you work, the old polygons will be smoothed out like meshsmooth, but the new polygons made in polygon mode will have sharper edges...
is there a way to get all the polygons to act the same?

[CountZero]

question number two:
will the highlighted polygons cause problems when skinning, animating etc. ? maybe not the best example pic, but if some polys are streched out (even if it's more than shown here), does it matter?

[rage]

1) its always better to work on an editable poly than a mesh with the edit poly modifier on it, u can do the same and i saves memoy by not having multiple modifiers in the stack. They mantained the edit mesh modifier only for compatibility purposes (if u load a 3ds max 2.0 scene for instance...)

2) yes, they will, u have destryed the flow of some edgeloops there...it would help if u post a unsmoothed screengrab so i can see the low poly cage.

hope i helped, cheers!

PS: post the unsmoothed version dude!

[CountZero]

thanks for the help! here is the low poly version:

[rage]

try this...u may add some edgeloops on the shoulder, but maybe u can use the to further detail the shoulder muscles...dunno

hope it helps:

[CountZero]

ok, some more on the same topic, i havn't figured yet how much the polygons have to be stretched to make a real problem of it... on this pic some areas are stretched, but compared to the last pic i posted it's not as much as it doesn't destroy nearby polygons. but is it still a problem (the pink fields)?

[Holo]

As you may or may not know, I use Lightwave.
I used to use max back in the day, before Meshsmothing had been refined to this point, and i must say that im impressed with how well it works in max. Lightwaves Subdivision engine or "Subpatch" works a little differently, to be truthful, i think Max's works a lot better...in that it actually smooths the edges alot better than Subpatching does, I will look into this abit, I hope I dont have to go back to max now that im finally Comfortable with LW..:) :p

[rage]

i think that u wont have problems in a case like that CountZero, hope that what i posted before has helped u....

cheers!

ps: thanks Holo my man!!

[Incitatus]

Originally posted by rage
try this...u may add some edgeloops on the shoulder, but maybe u can use the to further detail the shoulder muscles...dunno

hope it helps:

Nice one rage! the paintover I mean.

[rage]

thanks dude! ;)

[Shadow]

Hiho,

I have question to the first posting in this thread. There the last picture shows a technique "how to prepare a sub-d cage....".
Now my question: how can I do it? Easy cut a new edge in there or are there any other methods which are more precisely?


thank you

[rage]

of course there is! select a ring of edges and hit connect, then select the edgeloop u just did with that and tweak it to your needs...woila!

cheers!

[Zytrex]

Hey Rage, I was going through your original post and couldn't figure out how you set up those edges to smooth and bevel like that. First, I wasn't even sure what part I was looking at, but I finally figured it was the corner of a box. Is that correct? If not, then I'm really lost. If that is what I'm looking at, then how did you get it like that? I mean, except for going in and manually cutting and moving edges and vertices all over the place until they're where you want them, I couldn't figure it out. I tried using many different combinations of tools, in both edit mesh and edit poly, and I couldn't figure it out. What editing mode are you using anyway? Do you think that, instead of just the before and after pic, you could show four or five pics along with what you actually did in each step?

Thanks! ..... Oh, and that reminds me: Update da BALROG! :)

[rage]

here u go my dear friend, hope it helps!!
cheers

[Zytrex]

Rage, that is so frellin cool....man, I wanna have your children!

I have a confession to make....I've never used Edit Poly before a couple days ago, I've always used Edit Mesh because that's what I learned on and, other than that little curvy button, I didn't know what the difference was between the two, and I never bothered to investigate. But man, I didn't know what I was missing! Edit Poly is just so freaking easy to use! I don't think I'll ever use Edit Mesh again. Man, I wonder what my character would look like now if I had been using Edit Poly. Just sitting here typing this, I can think of dozens of situations where the tools in Edit Poly would have made my work so much faster and more precise! Rage...you da man!

By the way, to anyone reading this who is also just becoming familiar with Edit Poly: Make sure you do those steps, that Rage laid out, three times, to get all the sides of the cube. I accidentally only did it two times and my cube kept getting curved and stuff and I was all set up to go into Photoshop and put a bunch of renders together and explain the problem to Rage when I realized I didn't get all three planes done. Argh! :p

Thank again Rage!

[rage]

thanks dude!

yup, poly objects are so muchbetter than emesh....hehe, glad u discovered them. i didnt used emesh for a long time now...hehehe

cheers!

[lillypusher]

rage - i notice u ignored the bit about Zytrex wanting to have your children...

:D

[Zytrex]

Yeah! What's with that? Don't leave me hangin man!

[rage]

LOL!

[Zytrex]

Hey, are you aware of any issues in taking a model that's been worked on and worked on as an emesh and converting it to a epoly?

[rage]

nope
:D

[Zytrex]

Ahhh! Short, simple, and complete. Don't get no betta!

So, Rage, do you know of any good breast making tutorials? Don't take this the wrong way, but I've been playing with my models breasts for months, and I just can't get no satisfaction! I don't really like the part of the Joan of Arc tutorial that covers the breasts.

On a side note, I think that the Joan of Arc model has some extremely serious back problems. It shows her entire mid and upper torso about two or three inches farther forward than they should be. Maybe it has something to do with the angle of her legs and the position of her hips, but it just doesn't look right. Has anyone else noticed this?

[Mike-3DT]

quick breast tutorial:
create a hemisphere. grab the top vertex where the nipple would go & turn on soft selection. (or magnet tool in other apps.) adjust the soft selection until you have everything selected except the verts on the last edge loop (as in the back of the breast where it will attach to the chest,) and make sure it has a nice falloff. Now drag it down a little and rotate it from the side view so it turns upwards - but only very slightly.
That's pretty much it. If she's going to be wearing clothes, you're done. If not, or if you're a completionist, feel free to spend way too long modelling the perfect nipple for your own perverse pleasure. :roll: ;) :p

[Zytrex]

Okay, cool. Yeah, it's really been buggin me. From one angle they look fine, from another they'll look...funny. Now I just gotta figure out how to attach them to her chest...after I get rid of the ones already there...and after I somehow clean up the mess that will leave. Ugh!

I guess I should just delete the breasts, leaving a big ugly hole, and then move the verts around until they're evenly spaced and in somewhat of a circle, right? What kind of sphere do you think? Normal spehere? Geosphere? How many segments? Well? Hmm!? :p

Hmm, how flat should the chest be, without the breasts that is.? That's another thing that bothered me. From certain angles it would look like structure underneath the breasts was very round, or something.

[Zytrex]

Yep... still thinking. :D

[Mike-3DT]

Regarding them looking funny from certain angles, I can't really offer you much more advice than get some reference images from the angles that look odd or as close as you can & study them & then tweak the verts into shape.

If you're going to delete, then personally I would leave the resulting hole as more of a teardrop shape. That way the bottom part is rounded & the top can blend into the chest easier. As for what type - it's going to depend on the project. High res go with a normal sphere with enough segments to smooth well, (try with a standard sphere before attaching,) if it's a low poly character, definately go with a geosphere, with as few segments as you can get away with whilst still looking good.

Lastly, a female chest without breasts would not be flat, no more than a male chest is. It's basically an ovoid mass (other people might say barrel shaped or something - the point is it's rounded.) Here I would try to get hold of some pics of guys topless - but make sure it's skinnier guys, not musclebound heros & then adapt from that.

[Zytrex]

Thanks a lot for the advice Mike! :D

...

...

...

...

Psst... By the way, on the free textures page, the text link to the weird section has slightly incorrect spelling. You might want to let someone know about that. For some reason, that I before E rule does not apply to the word weird. Isn't that weird? :p

[kuman]

kinda late

but refering to your image count zero

what you're seeing there is called a pole

its where more than 4 edges meet at one intersection. it is virtually impossible to model without poles. consider this, when two edges loop sets, train tracks if you will, diverge, it will create a pole even if you resolve the point of divergence into quads.

another common function that creates a pole is extrusion.

what you're seeing there is an inevitability of modeling. if all your loops followed one track and you never extruded you could probably pull this off, but like i said, its basically impossible to model without poles.

so don't worry too much about it, just try to keep em to a minimum if you can and if you really feel the compulsive need to have as perfect a quad mesh as possible :)

-k

[geoMan]

well.... this thread has been of gr8 help for all....especially, be4 i read this thing, i never knew howto sub-divide..
i just wanted to add up to kuman's concept, i agree with his flow lines.
flow lines, i think, are tweaked out on the mesh for a purpose... to generate a desired pattern....take a look at my scratches!

[Zytrex]

Well rage? Any more words of wisdom?

[rage]

c'mon man! im not the only one who can post in here!!!
chill out dudes! as soon as i have something interesting to say, ill do!

[geoMan]

did anyone download kuman's sleeve lapse movie in which he models the opera performer's sleeves.... check it out

www.3dartisan.net/kuman/movie

[Zytrex]

Er, the link doesn't work, and when I go to the domain... well, it comes up with letters and numbers as if the browser tried to display a file it doesn't know how to read.

rage: yeah, but like.... you're rage, you know?

[rage]

Originally posted by Zytrex
rage: yeah, but like.... you're rage, you know?

whats that suppose to mean??? :P

[kuman]

geoman posted a bad link

http://www.3dartisan.net/~kuman/movie/

-k

[geoMan]

kuman 'll help!

[Zytrex]

rage: Isn't it obvious? I mean, look at the picture... rage man, rage.

[Zytrex]

whoa kuman! that was awesome. thanks for posting that! did you see it rage?

[rage]

i still dont understand what u mean....what picture?

[Zytrex]

are you makin' fun of me?





ok, ok.... try to guess the movie :)

[rage]

not at all bud!
i just want u to explain me what u mean!!

[geoMan]

is there goin to be some progress? i am thinking of making a research for you to get something new

[Zytrex]

Okay rage, I actually have a challenge for you. Well, in truth, I have no idea if this will be a challenge for you at all, but it’s a challenge for me and I want you to make it all better! :) I'll try to make this as easy to understand as I possibly can.

I was working on the shutters for the windows in my room and ran into a problem. How do I curve the edges and have them meet at the corners properly? My shutters are not in the included image. I thought it would be easier to recreate the problem with a box, and so I have.

Image 1. The top of the box is seen divided into 6 polygons.

Image 2. The 5 selected polygons need to be hinged about the edges of the unselected polygon.

Image 3. They cannot all be hinged at once since they need to hinge about different axes. Done separately, the corners clearly do not fit and no easy way can bee seen to fix that.

Image 4. Rearranging the polygons seems like a good idea.

Image 5. The 3 selected polygons need to be hinged about the edges of the unselected polygon.

Image 6. Once again, the corners do not match up how they should. However, the points at which the vertical and horizontal lines of the hinged segments intersect just happens to be the exact position at which the corners should meet. If only there was a way connect the lines where they coincide. Alas, I could not find a way. I actually tried creating vertices on both lines, moving them to the point of intersection, and then welding them. They refused to weld, unfortunately.

Image 7. If they had welded, I would then have welded the selected outlying vertices to the intersection point, completing the task I set out to do. Again, I could not get the previous vertices to weld at the intersection point, so this could not be done.

Image 8. So then I decide to move the outlying vertices to the intersection points manually. The points at which the lines intersect create a straight line on the XY-plane. The only curving exists on the XZ and YZ planes, and the outlying points are already in the right positions for that. The vertices connected to the X-axis parallel lines would only have to move along the X-axis to get into position. Likewise, the vertices connected to the Y-axis parallel lines would only have to move along the Y-axis to get into position. One would think I could just select the corresponding pairs of vertices and weld them, but that would move each vertex on both the X-axis and the Y-axis.

So, since the corner is 1 inch by 1 inch and each hinge has 8 segments, the vertices must be moved in intervals of 1/8 of an inch. First vertex is moved by 0.125 inches. Second moved 0.25 inches. Third, 0.375. Fourth, 0.5. Fifth, 0.75. Sixth, 0.875. And eighth, 1 inch. And that gives you the position of the vertices shown in this image. Now, since the hinge is curved and not straight, the vertices were not evenly spaced on the XY-plane. And so, this method did not get them perfectly into position.

I thought for a few moments of attempting to graph a curve on my TI-83 Plus calculator to compute the exact positions for the vertices, but then I realized that I'm only used to graphing functions and for this situation I would need to use polar coordinates which my calculator can do, but which I do not know how to do. Again, one might think I could just select the corresponding pairs of vertices and weld them, but that would still cause them to move along more than one axis.

I realized later an easier way to get them into position. Well, easier then pulling out the calculator and crunching some numbers, but actually quite tedious. It would have resulted in a better outcome then I got with the rest of my steps. It would have worked with the way the vertices were positions in images 7 and 8. Can you figure it out rage? Well I realized that the two sets of vertices were mirror images of each other originating from the points of intersection. Relatively speaking, the X values of the vertices of the lines parallel to the X-axis needed to be changed to the X values of the corresponding vertices parallel to the Y-axis, and vice versa for the Y values.

Image 9. So what I did next was delete the interior polygons. I then selected the outer edges of the remaining polygons, as shown. I did not know how to duplicate the edges at their exact positions, so I checked the position for the x-axis, and then shift-moved them a bit along the x-axis. I then typed on the previous position to that the new vertices and edges were in the exact same position as those previously selected.

Image 10 & 11. I then welded the edges to complete the corner. It doesn't look so bad, but it doesn't look so great either.

As I described before, I know how to get the vertices into the correct position and will do that, but I would have preferred and easier way to do this from the start. So rage, any ideas?

[rage]

c' mon man! just draw a rectangle and the shape of the intersection and freakin loft it! i know its not subdivision but its a lot easier!!!

[Zytrex]

Er....huh? can i see a pic pls? rage? Hello? HELLO!? Oh, maybe i should wait a bit for you to reply. :p

New: I've been thinking about what you said, rage. Have you ever actually done that? I've been trying to do it and just cannot figure it out. I can't even get past making a line for the loft. I can make it on one of the planes, but to get it at that angle is difficult. Takes it from 1 inch by 1 inch to the hypotenous of an isocoles triangle with 1 inch legs. With those numbers, I don't know how to angle the bezier verts to get the correct shape. After trying that for a while, it also occured to me that I'd want the verts in the face centers for the loft to work right. And even if I got that all figured out, what good would lofting the fact like that do? I'd still have to hinge the remaining faces and connect them and all kinds of other problems. I just don't see how it would work.

Help me! I'm simple!

[Zytrex]

I went back and tried some more tests. I even tried just kind of eye-balling the position of the curved line to just see what would happen with the loft. Yeah...it didn't work out. Sure, the edges formed from the outlying corner curve up nicely, but the rest of the lofted shape looked terrible. It was nothing that I could work with. If what you said can work, than I obviously have some big mistakes in my methods.

So, as I previously requested, rage, a more thorough explanation accompanied by some images would probably help to prevent my brain from turning to mush. :p :D

[Zytrex]

Come on rage! Don't leave me hangin' buddy!

[geoMan]

when i started modelling, i had the main problem of getting the scratch for my desired model.....so....realizing this fact, i wud like to help u people....here's a basic shape for a head for newbies.....others can use it too!

[geoMan]

use this one for modelling shirts and coats etc...

the one for pants will come soon!

[rage]

cool geoman! thats very handy for a a lot of people in here! THX!

Zytrex, man u dont need example pics, its so easy!! do u know how to do a loft object man? here i include a pic so u see what i mean...hope it helped and please cut that math crap man... i suck at math and i dont care...:D

[Zytrex]

Oooh. For some reason I thought you meant loft shapes out in the same direction that I was hinging them out. You actually made the reverse of what I need. Mine have the curve on the outside not the inside. That makes it so that I cannot loft and then put them all in place because the ends would be sticking through and out of each other. So, did you connect the pieces? If so, did you just use slice at a 45 degree angle to get the verts in the right spots?

Oh, and c'mon rage, math is our friend. :D

[Pawz]

You're completely missing the point Zytrex - All you need to do is loft a shape with a RECTANGLE for a path. That will automatically deal with everything you need. If the curve isn't pointing in the right direction you can select the shape within the loft and rotate it at will.

[rage]

thanks Pawz u saved me from becoming mad!

i mean this is one of the most simple 3d operations in the whole wide world, i would have done this even in 3d studio 3.0 for DOS (1993).

did u get that zytrex buddy? if u dont man, please revise some good books on max fundamentals man...cheers and good modeling!!


--- Axel ---

[geoMan]

i am happy that i am of some help to the members of the forums.....

very encouraging rage, i will do more....next time, people'll have the pant scrath geometry!

[Zytrex]

.... .... .... I are am dumbeth.

Okay, I have a confession to make. I have never, in my life, used Loft Shape, only Loft Path. *doges flying pieces of monkey poo* When ever you were talking about lofting, rage, I was thinking about lofting a path, not a shape. Hopefully you can understand then why I was confused. Thank you Pawz for pointing out that I needed to loft a shape and not a path.

Come on, rage, gimme a break. No one knows anything until they're told. :p I have gone through almost all of the max tutorial files and the only one that used extensive lofting was that nurbs monkey head, but I did that a long, LONG time ago and didn't really understand what I was doing. I just did what the instructions said.

I was not trying to make you mad, but what can I say, I just didn't get it. Fortunately I understand now. I hope you will still be willing to help me out in this thread if I ever get stuck again, although I am usually able to figure these things out. As it is, I was able to get the shapes I wanted, albeit with a somewhat painful and slow method.

So, thank you again, rage and Pawz. *bow* :)

[rage]

im not mad man! not at all!
and of course if i can i will help in any way i see fit!

cheers dudes!

[geoMan]

i was thinking whether we can have debates here!

[Zytrex]

debates on what?

[Emperor]

Thats what this forum is for. CG based debates.

I really encourage you to play some with lofting. especielly this kind of lofting where you use a path and loft a shape along with it. I have been using this tech to bild new roads for a database we are creating at work and belive u me it makes my job sooo damn easy and fun. Loft also has great mapping tools that are very simple but accurate. I managed to create a 20 km road with juct one main spline for the road and a few lines for the road profile. All niceley textured :). The mapping however Don't really work well or even exists ni max 4.x So I guess this applies for max 5.x and up.

[Zytrex]

groovy :)

[Zytrex]

Here's a question: Anyone know a good way to unextrude a polygon? Meaning, you selected a polygon, extruded it, and later on wish you hadn't, but cannot simply undo it. I suppose you could just target weld all the verts, but is there an easier way? Also, sometimes the verts can be very hard to get to. Is there a way to select a polygon and from that automatically select the corresponding verts? With that, someone could just select the polygon, set movement to local, move it back the same distance as the extrude, then select the corresponding verts, and then grow the selection which should add only the verts with which you want to weld, and then weld! Done!

So, any ideas?

[geoMan]

well....

just delete the new thing that is extruded....all the faces...and cap the border on the parent surface...hehe....i hope thats goodl..


alright....

here's a statement for debate :D

" WE CANT LIVE WITHOUT MESHSMOOTH FOR HIGH-POLY MODELS"

lets see the stuff...
and i think....maybe we shud start a separate thread!

*hoping kuman's around*

[Zytrex]

ooooooooh yeah! ugh. i went so long using edit tools that didn't have border selection, i sometimes forget that i have it now with edit poly. argh! it's those stupid older tutorials! "use edit mesh, use edit mesh, use edit mesh, bla bla bla!" EDIT POLY ALL THE WAY YO!

Having said that, lol.... There is one problem with this method. One, if you're extruding multiple adjacent faces, this method will get you back the original shape, but you will be left with one big face where several smaller faces once existed. And two, the BIG problem, is if multiple adjacent faces were extruded from a CURVED surface, this method is pretty much useless.

So, any more ideas?

[Emperor]

CAP??? No waay. Thats the long way around

Just simply go into polygon mode, delete the poys u dont want and find the create button or right click in the viewport and choose create. Now clicka along the vertices where ur gonna create ur new face and VOILA :)

[eska]

Hallo everyone, especially the 3dtotal directory

I am a new member, and I am very interested in posting some of my work in your gallery. I was trying the link SUBMIT, but it didn't function. Perhaps you can help me. I was thinking one can submit work and the comitee is deciding if this is possible or not. Am I understanding something wrong?
Thanks in advance.
Best luck to all

:halo:

[Mike-3DT]

Eska - completely wrong place to post this mate. Try on the threedy discussion forum.

Zytrex - to undo an extrude, select one of the edges on the extruded polys (not the actual poly you chose to extrude, one of the new polys created that is 90 degrees from the poly you chose.) then select ring (assuming you're using max & edit poly,) & then choose "collapse edges", which is a lot quicker most times than welding verts anyway.

To select a poly & then the verts, download meshtools for your version of max & either set them up on a toolbar or quad. They have a tool where you can convert a sub object selection to another. (It may even be built into max 5 or 6, I can't remember,) but just choose the poly & then "convert to vertex selection"

[novoAlias]

meh does collapse edges fix all those wierd 'why does my subdiv surface look thrashed here'

if so... *loads shotgun and goes in search of vendor that hasnt managed to deliver max 6 to my door yet, "stop making excuses bithc!" BANG!*

btw this thread is helpful, and for making seams i suggest using meshtools as it can make 3 edges so the edge is nice n smooth rather than 2 edges ridiculously close together which makes selecting and welding a pain in the @ss

[Zytrex]

mike: aahhh. cool. i'll try that. thanks mike :)

blackwolf: what seams are you talking about? was that in reference to my post or some earlier post?

[geoMan]

anyway...the collapse is good too...but, cap is simple for an extrusion:D :D :cool:


anyways.....what bout my topic of discussion

We are dead without Meshsmooth

[Zytrex]

well, other than making that statement, what would the purpose of that thread be? one persons says they need meshsmooth and another says they don't. what's the point? also, why should it be separate from here. seems close enough to me, besides, if you make separate threads too often, only a few of them will be on people's lists and the others will be ignored. since i think it would fit in this thread i think you should keep it here so that it is more noticeable.

[geoMan]

o' c'mon zyr ma man! dude....its really fun to have some friendly debates:p :p :p :cool: :xyz:

[Zytrex]

Well, um, okay! :)

So, make your statement and provide evidence and we'll see if it goes anywhere.

[Zytrex]

Mike: That works pretty well, both collapsing the edges or selecting the edges and converting selection to vertex, which is built in by the way. The only problem is that, in both situations, is that the positions are averaged. Original vertex is at z=1 and new vertex is at z=3 so when they are selection welded or collapsed the final vertex will be at z=2. Do you know a way to give one vertex position priority over another?

[Pinchy]

Which tool is sub divide, is it chamfer, is it in edible mesh, edible poly?, i dont really understand sub division, just that it makes smooth sharp cornors, instead of round ones... i think lol

[novoAlias]

lol sub divide is meshsmooth only its part of edit poly i think

[rage]

meshsmooth modifier dude!

you can do that also directly from the editable poly also...

cheers!

[shirish]

wow,subdivison modelling my favorites topic....

[shirish]

subdivision modelling had change theCG industries standard of workin and more on that its too fast and easy as compare to nurbs.. wht u guys says...

[czacen]

sorry to be a stick in the mud, but meshsmooth in max is not subdivision surfaces at all. true subdivision surface modeling as seen in maya and XSI does exist in max - and is called the HSDS modeling modifier. meshsmooth is just a tesselation modifier with smoothing attached. the difference being - and all maya users will know this - u can't meshsmooth a single polygon of of an editable poly model in max to a higher degree than that of the overall object itself. u can increase the low poly cage value but it messes up alot of the smoothing - the whole point of true sub-D is the neverending ability to increse the tesselation of a polygon component while maintaining the smoothing of the original parent state, plus creasing edges is an ability of subD not availabe in meshsmooth - u can only harden edges in meshsmooth by chamfering, i.e. adding polys. last i checked HSDS in max still had a lot of probs. dunno if max 6 has fixed this.

[JHarford]

HSDS still sucks hard :/.

[Shuger PL]

Czacen, thing about you said about hardening edges in meshsmoth, I have max 6 and in meshsmoth modifier there is "separate by smoothing groups" options witch is great at hardening edges.

[Emperor]

True, meshsmooth and turbosmooth are just subdivisional algorithms. It's still just polygonal modelling. Sub-D's are quite astounding IMO. So ms/ts modelling in max is subdivisional modeling...not sub-d surface modeling. Capise? :p

Hardening edges with division by smoothing group gives you unnatural edge hardening..simply because you get thin slices. If you want to get a nice slick hard edge you have to model it in. It's not hard at all tho, just extrude som edges in a smart way and boom :)

I have only tried the ones in Maya but they are quite nice and comfortable to work with. I really liked the fact of applying detail to a certain part of the mesh without it looking all screwed up. You can be alot more reckless with sub-d surface modeling then youd have to be with polygonal subdivision modeling. You can really see where Discreet chooses to put their effort as far as modeling goes. The spline/surface and expecially the polygonal tools are really extensive. I'mm pretty safe to say that out of the big packages, max has the most extensive standard polygonal toolset available. Trying to model with polygons in XSI or Maya is a real pain in the ***, if compared to Max. order of the three would be Max, XSI Maya...maya really ticks me off...takes me 1 hour to do something I can pull of in perhaps 20 minutes in max. Simply because I cant select edge loops and rings and slice and dice like I want to. Sure enough there are free scripts done by ppl for this. MJtools was it? If you plan to do any polymodeling in maya..get that before you do..or else...

[3D_challenged]

back to the quad/tri discussion...

Can anyone help me with this? I have imported an object from a 3D scanner, and the mesh is all in triagles. I work in quads; I want to attach the object i've imported to one i've created.

Does anyone know of an easy way to turn an object made of tris to quads? The ****** thing has 6000 polygons, so i don't want to have to individually select edges and delete them individually.

Cheers

[Jenn]

Which app are you using?

[3D_challenged]

I'm using max 5.

[Jenn]

check www.scriptspot.com I remember seeing something that does that but it may be for max 7

[3D_challenged]

Thanks! I found a couple that may work.

[Zytrex]

hey rage.... did you know your never-ending, all Tolkien, Balrog discussion thread is not there?

[novoAlias]

I havent seen rage around in ages... *sniff*

[kingmauri]

great thread. thank you all.

u have much patience rage :)

[djmj_1000]

can anyone explain when and why it is usful to use the "keep faces convex" button in max.

hmm can someone tell me where i find this option in 3dsmax7 i cant find it

[rgb]

hi all ,,im looking for tuts about modeling Muscles on a charecter in 3ds max 7,,,
any links or sugestions??thanx
respect!!

[want_animate]

Wow.Thanks for this threa.Just found out :)

[Ammarkk]

Very useful topic

[Zytrex]

Yes, but despite being a sticky, it doesn't seem to get much action. In fact, it looks like this thread managed to skip 2007... almost impressive.

[RockstarKate]

Yes, but despite being a sticky, it doesn't seem to get much action. In fact, it looks like this thread managed to skip 2007... almost impressive.

That's because everyone is obsessing over ZBrush now :) No worry for poly flow.

[hulahuga]

Really helpful thread guys, geoman are you going to post some more of those basemeshes? :)

Edit: Could you perhaps post them in .obj format pls