PDA

View Full Version : having trouble with the modeling process...

swilt
03-23-2010, 05:02 PM
Lately I've been trying to start modeling more but I seem to always have the same troubles...I pretty much obsess about things having 3 or 4 sides, and making sure my edge flow is such that when I smooth the object it will turn out exactly like it should. So I guess my biggest concern is that I have a hard time figuring out how to model things to prepare them for being smoothed. Right now I'm working on a kitchen but nothing is smoothed and when I do it won't look the way it should, but if it's not smoothed there will be sharp corners on everything. It looks strange when I put a bunch of edge loop at the edges or anywhere else to make the corners when I smooth, and then the inner part of the object has very few polygons. I suppose I'd like to find some kind of tutorial for the modeling process...mainly for inorganic things. I've searched all over for something to give me good ideas but it's either half way explained, or just not helpful

i use maya /polys.
Nyro
03-25-2010, 04:09 PM
It's absolutely legitimate (and usual) to add edgeloops only where you need them. Say you have a kitchen counter. You want smoothly beveled edges (so they look like corners while not looking like you could cut your wrist on them). At the same time, the "inner" geometry is basically one flat plane. You won't need a lot of geometry there. So of course you will have more edgeloops around the edges/"corners" than in the "center" of the geometry.

If you for some reason want to avoid adding any edgeloops, than there are other options, depending on what software you use. Mental Ray has a bump shader that basically smooths only edges during rendering. You can see a description here (http://www.mentalimages.com/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/arch_and_design.pdf) (Page 101 or Chapter 4.1)
SanguineJackal
03-25-2010, 04:41 PM
There are several ways to keep the edges the way you want them to be when you smooth the mesh. If you review the tutorials in the Maya help file they're actually quite useful. You can Harden edges and Crease them (in the Normals and Edit Mesh menus respectively), or you can simply Bevel them, which is what I ended up doing to my building with happy results. I had to change my settings around to get the right results though, this is what I ended up doing:

Offset Type: Fractional
Offset Space: Local
Width: .1
Segments: 3 (you will want this to be an odd number)
Automatically fit bevel to object: On
UV Assignment: Planar project per face

Most of that is the default settings but with a few tweaks. Try selecting your edges you want to stay hard in Edge mode and apply those settings, they might be what you need. If not, play around with it. ;)
CGTalk Moderation
03-25-2010, 04:42 PM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.