A āpatchā will have 3 or 4 splines surrounding it just like I indicated with the orange arrows in Fig 1. The rest of the splines I added in Fig 2 were to make sure everything connects together nicely AND are 4 sided patches.
To have a correct patch it must, as I said, be surrounded by 3 or 4 splines ( I used 4 because the mesh is cleaner). Where each spline intersects with another spline they must be welded.
You select each of the splines surrounding the patch counter-clockwise and then hit ctrl f (make patch) which will throw polygons into the patch.
In Fig 2 you can see that the ear consists of 9 patches.
I have a free tutorial on my site that demonstrates how to create polygons in each spline patch. The manual also explains it to a point. 
Basically Lightwave will create a polygon grid that is the average of the selected splines surrounding the patch.
10 Minute Ear
Thanks a lot for sharing.
i made several earā¦ ( toon, human, orc )ā¦each time, i found that the poly by poly method was the bestā¦
i used rarely splineā¦ ( only for car body in fact ) !
might have to split those polys around where the lip of the ear folds around and where that little nubbinā sticks out above the ear canal
just a little tweaking to make it look more 3D but very cool method for sure.
Iām going to have to agree with CIM on this oneā¦making one ear and modifying it is much easier and less time consuming but I do like this methodā¦I will have to try it out some time.
I just gave myself a 10 minute time limit to create an ear.
I did it poly by poly to get the basic shape, and smooth shift afterwards to add a bit more detail.
There is a lot more Iād like to tweak and change but the ten minutes are up. Iāll see if I have time later to finish it.
I used an image that I found in a google image search.
Spline modeling is really quick if you got that in 10 minutes. Great job!
Kvaalen -
Newbie question ā¦ when you say poly to poly what are you saying? Draw points using + key, then make polyās ā¦ then?
Thanks for any info.
I create a quad (4 pointed polygon) select two points - apply extender - drag them to the place I want - apply extender again - drag them to the place I wantā¦ 
What I like about splines is that you can see the shape, you see the flow (splines ARE the edge loops) and all before you even put one poly down.
The splines dont cover up the background reference, I can easily tweak the spline cage and repatch faster then rebuilding or tweaking a lot of points.
Even though you can make an ear using a number of mtehods, thhis is quick nad produces clean results. I was able to layout the ear in a minute or two and then patch it. In the end the splines were quick because they require much less data. With point by point EVERY point must be hand crafted and adjusted as you go. With splines most of that is done for you. Manipulating a small amount of data is faster then manipulationg a large amount of data.
one thing about splines is i seem to have to go afterwards and clean up all the points where āmerge pointsā dont catchāem,you know to attach all the polys together
with extend you dont have to cause the polys are connected to begin with so the mesh is solid from the first extend
or am i doing somthing wrong?
One thing that I canāt seem to get my hear around is sometimes I select three or four splines and hit <ctrl>f and the polys fill in like you would expect. But sometimes I just get the ācurves arenāt crossing in the right directionā or some such thing. Iāll figure it I spose but if someone wants to chime in ā¦ there doesnāt seem to be much in the online help, unless Iām missing something.
Originally posted by modernhorse
One thing that I canāt seem to get my hear around is sometimes I select three or four splines and hit <ctrl>f and the polys fill in like you would expect. But sometimes I just get the ācurves arenāt crossing in the right directionā or some such thing. Iāll figure it I spose but if someone wants to chime in ā¦ there doesnāt seem to be much in the online help, unless Iām missing something.
This usually happens when the splines arenāt attached and you need to weld some points, or when there is no logic to the order of splines you selected.
Actually I dont see it much from selecting splines out of order.
Its mostly that the splines arent welded somewhere around the patch where they intersect or you are selecting the wrong spline or splines. Check and make sure that when you have 4 splines selected that its really 4 splines.
Click on a point shared by two splines. It should indicate that its one point not two. If you see that two are indicated, weld them.
Also when you patch, parallel and perpendicular are detemined by the LAST spline selected.
Originally posted by Remi
Iām going to have to agree with CIM on this oneā¦making one ear and modifying it is much easier and less time consuming but I do like this methodā¦I will have to try it out some time.
I think that is fine as long as you take a few minutes to make the ear unqiueā¦ not everybody has the same lobes ā¦
Originally posted by CIM
[B]Looks like an interesting way to get an ear.Anyway, ppl. should just model one good ear and paste it on all new head models, tweak, and be finished.
Why would anyone be compelled to do it any other way?
Same goes without saying for much in the way of body parts and more that you create.
That is unless you really like to reinvent the wheel.:eek:
Originally posted by Chewey
[B]Why would anyone be compelled to do it any other way?
Same goes without saying for much in the way of body parts and more that you create.That is unless you really like to reinvent the wheel.:eek: [/B]
Heck why not just by a stock model :rolleyes: just kididng
Originally posted by modernhorse
[B]ā¦ that took one hour. Anyhow, here it is. Using poly to poly method.
Not bad, esp for 10 minutes. Are you using reference? Reference is good. Remember to smooth shift the polys in each of those zones (particularly the 2nd and 3rd zone). Most of my 10 minutes was tweaking the little details.