Rocketeer Helmet

#1

Hello Everyone. My name is Seth and I’m 16 years old (or at least I will be in 10 minutes). I just got into modelling about 6 months ago, though this is probably only my 3rd or 4th model. Anyways, as I’m still adjusting to Wings and am still have a lot of learning to do when it comes to modellin and wireframes, I really need you guys to critique me.

This model is the helmet of the Rocketeer from the movie The Rocketeer. Below are my two main references:

And below is what I have modelled so far. The yellow is what I still need to model, and the blue circles show problem areas:

Side View Wire:

How could I go about modelling those grooves as they don’t flow in the same way as the mesh? Also, how would I model the lenses?

Front View Wire:

Rear View Wire:

Side View in the Smooth Viewer:

Those odd lines there are bugging me. When I select the entire helmet, they remain unselected. What could be the problem?

After Smoothing Twice:

You can see the wierd bumps on the chin and how the rudder kind of eases down into the helmet. That’s not supposed to be happening. What could be causing these and how could I fix it?

If you can lend any knowledge to help, please do so. Also, if you see any other problems (which they are probably everywhere), please point them out. I really look forward to getting this model done. Thanks!

#2

Hi Seth,
welcome to the forum.

For the edges in the model, the easiest way to make the edges flow in the direction you want them is to use the connect or the connect tool to create two edges, delete any polygons that lie between them and connect the vertices manually. This is done many times when I model - I will have to rework the edge flow at the earlier stages before the mesh is too complex.

Creating edges loops, as Bay Raitt and company termed them, is not difficult if you can see how they flow over the model (This was the trickiest part for me). In fact, many times on wants to create a ring of polygons instead of an isolated edge, which consists of two edge loops with polygons arranged in parrallel quadrilaterals.

A tip to see a polygon ring is to select an edge, press ‘g’ I believe to select a ring of edges, and select the corresponding faces by pressing ‘f’. This is known as selection hopping/jumping (or is what I call it anyways). The Bevel command is also good for creating polygon rings in some cases.

(And as for your problem areas, you used ‘Extrude’ instead of ‘Extrude Region’. ‘Extrude’ extrudes each face separately (which is not what you want in the case of the upper fin), whereas ‘Extrude Region’ will extrude the selection as a whole. The reason that you are not seeing it is because you have the edges set to hard so that there is no smooting along the edges. (Set the edges to soft and you will see bumps when you smooth).

Enough mumbo jumbo, on to a working example.

Start with a grid like so:

Select the edges that you like to cut (where you would like the new edge to be).

Use the connect command from the right click menu to create the edge:

Bevel the edge

and you are done. If you want to clean up a bit, you can convert the triangles and 5 sided polys around the edge ring to quads like so:

Select the edges of the edge ring that border on these polys:

Use connect from the right click menu:

Use the connect tool to connect the vertices shown below connected by blue arrows

The result after some some extruding and playing around:

You could have also used the connect tool to manually create edges where I say to select the connect command from the right click menu.

Hope this helps,

  • Fro Lee.
#3

Wow, thanks so much Fro. I already started playing around with the ridges and it’s absolutely amazing how easy they are. I was just making it too difficult.

Anyways, you said that the bumps on the chin come from me using Extrude Normal, but I never used it there. Could that be because I used Intrude to make the helmet hollow?

Also, is it best to have 4-sided polygons?

Thanks so much. You’ve been a tremendous help already.

#4

Having 4 sided polys - are not essential. The volume/form of the character/object that you are modelling is all that really matters. However, techniques have been developed, such as the edge loop/ring concepts to efficiently create volume, and lower the polygon count of the mesh. With these techniques, you create less dense, thus easier to edit/manage, meshes (You get out of the habit of the grid structure for everything). These techniques are, however, based on the quad structure. Smoothing results are also predictable when limited to quads. This does not mean that you shouldn’t break this rule, the volume of the character is what really matters.

Check out:

http://p212.ezboard.com/fnendowingsmiraifrm3.showMessage?topicID=135.topic

http://www.cgchannel.com/forum/viewthread?thread=1373

Some of my favourites (and most useful):

http://cube.phlatt.net/home/spiraloid/tutorial/index.html

http://maxrovat.sns.hu/subdiv/

Not about edge loops, just a cool tutorials:

http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/joanmenu.asp

http://ambient-whisper.cgcommunity.com/Tutorials/facial/Page-1.html

Depending on the application you might be exporting to, quads may or may not be necessary. Just keep it clean and manageable.

As for the bottom of the chin, I think you might have used “EXTRUDE” instead of “EXTRUDE NORMAL”. To check this, select one of the polygons at the bottom of the chin, and move it freely. If the two adjacent polygons around the face deform (because you are moving one of their edges) then everything is fine. If the polygon moves independently of the two seemingly adjacent polygons then the bottom of the helmet was extruded using the “EXTRUDE” command instead of the “EXTRUDE REGION”.

You can also select one of the edges along the rim of the bottom of the helmet and perform an edge loop. If it loops properly - great, if not, you will have to go back and edit it.

Otherwise, I can’t really tell without the model in my hands. Try just repositioning the edges and playing around with it.

-Fro Lee

#5

Some of those artifact things in the OpenGL shading might also be due to non planar quads. It’s probably not that big a deal unless it’s intended to be kept low poly.

Adding edge loops adjacent to the transition between two surfaces is handy where hard edges come across as being too sharp. Then by sliding it, you can control the smoothing better.

Using smoothed preview will also quickly reveal any areas where a regular extrude was done where an extrude region was wanted. It comes in quite handy.

#6

Hey everyone. Here’s a quick update. I trashed the air vents, the mouth holes, and the hollowness of the helmet because they were causing some problems. Instead, I worked more on the rudder, the shape of the helmet, and the ridges. Below is the result. I have quite a bit more to do.

And I’ll get a wireframe to you guys later. How does it look?

Also, I noticed that the problems with the chin only happened when the helmet was hollow.
When it’s time, how could I go about making the helmet hollow wihout causing these problems? Previousl, I used the Intrude option.
Thanks for all your help!

#7

Looks good.

before intruding, try to make a thin polygon loop along the bottom of the helmet. Then dissolve the polygons encircled by the polygon loop into one polygon. If there are any unneccessary vertices along the mirror plane for that face, delete them before you intrude. Then select the one polygon (and the ones for the eyes) and perform an intrude.

Of course the intrude command will make the polygon loop itself so
might not be any more effective.

You need to freeze the virtual mirror before intrude on symmetrical models if one of the faces is lying on the mirror plane. After the intrude, use Loop Cut to cut the mesh in two. Delete one half, select the face along the virtual mirror. Flatten > X. Then virtual Mirror it again. Tweak if need be.






  • Fro Lee
#8

Lostalcarion,

Although you’re working with Wings3d, you may be able to get some extra hints from these Lightwave threads on the same object, if you haven’t seen them already. Only big difference is that Wings3d doesn’t do spline-based modeling. But I think you’ll still benefit from seeing a different approach, nonetheless. :slight_smile:

WIP: The Rocketeer

Rocketeer Helmet - Time Lapse

#9

Instead of intruding, you could:
Make a duplicate. Remove all the extruded bits from it (so it’s just the basic helmet shape. Fix leftover n-gons. Scale it down and place the duplicate inside the original. (Make the original visible, lock it, and make it wire view to aid in placement and scaling of the duplicate.) After doing that, dissolve all faces on the original and its duplicate where the holes go. Invert the duplicate. Then bridge all the spots where the holes will be.

Sometimes this convoluted way is better than intruding, as intruding can create geometry that you don’t really need (e.g.:hollows inside the fins/ridges - extra polys that don’t do anything for you.) Also it avoids the vertice poke through that occurs with intruding when setting the thickness above a certain value.

:thumbsup:

#10

chikega:
Ah yes, I saw those earlier. However, his main reference was just a recreating of the helmet and not fully accurate, and his model wasn’t as accurate to the real thing as I hope to make mine. Also, as Wings can’t do splines, it doesn’t really mean much to me yet. I ak hoping to get Lightwave one of these days though.

pauljs:
Hey, cool! it worked!

I worked on the lenses a bit, and after several hours of doing it, they didn’t turn out right and there are some problems with the mesh. I have a feeling I’m doing it wrong. How would you go about doing that?

And my last question is this: I’ve seen how when people tecture faces, they have them all kind of rolled out from the back of the head to the front. I tried doing that in Wings, but wasn’t able to. How could I go about unwrapping the mesh so as to get it where I could do that? Thanks guys! You have no idea how much my modelling skills have grown since I started working on this model as a direct result of your help. Thanks again!

#11

Hey guys. I don’t think I’m supposed to double post, but I think my last post got overlooked. Anyways, if you guys could read that, that would be great.

#12

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