Modeling Objects in Carrara - Q&A - Come One and All

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  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Mid-edge to mid-edge is great for doubling up the mesh, kind of like a poor man's sub-d (or a very focussed one if you prefer). Do it to a square poly and you've got a 2 x 2 grid.

    When it comes to cylinders, it's often useful to "do something" with that massive n-gon end cap, and it's quite common to tesselate vertex to centre. That'll give you tris. If you delete every second radial, you'll get quads and half the number of polys (if you're building a massive set and are poly counting, that might be useful). Only downside is, it seems to break "loop" (anyone know a way to get loop back to looping?). But if you do all your edge chamfering etc before you tesselate, it's not so bad.

    I think your idea of creating a circle with half the required number of sides then tesselating mid-edge to centre and extruding might produce effectively the same result but with a properly looping edge. But the extra step to scale alternate edges might result in a less smooth cylinder. Hmmm.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited January 2017

    I've broken more loops than I ever want. I've not figured out how to get it back. To avoid it I will use extract along which seems to work well... I could swear that  I've had a problem with extract around but haven't been able to repeat it. I've had loop break more often on cubes than cylindrical or roundish objs. I've gotten to where I always save just before using something in the model menu that I'm not sure about. If I stumble across a way to repair the loop I'll certainly share it with you and everyone else.

    One thing I did was to weld 2 rectangular polymeshes together... problem was that both got creased somehow, likely me, and for some reason nothing I did would smooth the edges... I just used extract along on each side of it, using different loop of lines, then used dissolve and weld.

    A circle with 5 and doubled for 10 sides formed into a cylinder or similar works great with smoothing cranked up to 2.. 3 doesn't make that much difference. Depends if you are modeling a cord, a rake handle or a silo. You can always "convert" it for more geometry.  I just tried an 8 sided polyhedron, looks like 2 4sided pyramids stacked base to base.... very pointy and it does require smoothing at 3 to look round.  The blue ball in my recent animation is a very low VM object with smoothing at 2... I may have used a sphere with 17 divisions. I set it to 2 even though 1 looked good... there was just a hint of a change so 2 it got.

    I'm so silly... why am I blabbering on about modeling to one of the best modelers around.  Perhaps I might have hinted at something you don't normally do? :)

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Simple (hopefully) question.  How do I save an object I have modelled so I can use it again?

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Thank you!  

  • It's not Carrara based - but here's my latest modeling effort

    Modeled in blender, sidewall bump map in PS, rendered in Daz with Iray:

     

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    Great model and render.  You might also be interested in some plugins that help with animating vehicle wheels, tracks, and chains.

    see http://sparrowhawke3d.com/Sparrowhawke3DPlugins.html

    Especially the following two.

    The Tracks and Chains Package - arranges and animates tank tracks and drive chains

    The Wheels Modifier - automatically steers and spins the wheels of any vehicle during animation

    .

    It's not Carrara based - but here's my latest modeling effort

    Modeled in blender, sidewall bump map in PS, rendered in Daz with Iray:

     

     

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited July 2017

    It's not Carrara based - but here's my latest modeling effort

    Modeled in blender, sidewall bump map in PS, rendered in Daz with Iray:

    That looks very good... I'm impressed. yes  It matters not what modeler you or anyone uses. All renders and comments are welcome here.  Modeling is modeling no matter what anyone uses... I just picked up Silo at Christmas for $40... couldn't resist... I also have Blender also have Imagine 3D for my Amiga. and for my old Windoze 95 comoputer.

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235
    edited January 2017

    I've modeled this arch gallery in Blender in the end of 2016. The first picture is rendered with internal blender render engine, the second one – with Daz Iray. Here I've tried my new arch environment with people and night lighting.

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  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945

    Vyusur, you are a crazy good modeler, I'm very impressed by your work!

    Congratulations!

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    Dudu, thank you so much! I'm very glad that you like it.

  • Beautiful work, Vyusur!

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    TabascoJack, thank you very much!

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Arches and vaulted ceilings - what fun! Nice job.

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    TangoAlpha, thank you! Glad that you like it.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Nicely done... looks very good indeed!

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    Thank you, John! By the way, how did you make a round hole in the cube?

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited January 2017

    Magic of course. :)   The hole in my frosted window box is actually a square if you mean my Paneled Box.  The square window openings has creasing on while for the round openings I uncreased/smoothed them then cranked up smoothing at 3.  There is another pic earlier page where I do have creasing on and yet I did get 4 round holes per side.  Depends on how many lines and with ones are creased... that turned out to be a happy surprize to me.

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited January 2017

    John's Crazy Objects:  Gingerbread Man

    This a WIP I whipped up in about an hour. Took awhile getting started since I wasn't quite sure what to start with... ended up by dropping in a 3D grid and then adding thickness... shouldn't matter, since it was flat, but I used a negative value.  I then used symmetry and soft select to round off the corners and sides to get a neck and head shape.  Soft select is a bit touchy and it takes awhile to get it adjusted juuust right... Ctrl+Z and I are good friends now. :)

    I did make a rather big mistake by not making the grid taller... I'll need to add more lower body. Then I'm "off to the races" to make the arms and legs.  Oh... the eyeballs are 2 spheres each with the back sides being flattened... I got in a bit of a hurry to make them for the render and they are separate objects.  I should have designed them along with the Gingerbread Man so their scaling would be correct... they required a bit of scaling in the Assemble room. Ohh... they have smoothing set at 2.  Everything so far is rather low poly.

    Why you might ask would I want a Gingerbread Man... of course I have a cookie cutter but I need him for an upcoming animation exercise.  I hope to add bones for movement... will have to see how soon the exercise is... may have to go with morphs instead.

    I blame and thank diomede for this... his figures have inspired me.  I suspect it will be awhile before I take on creating a human or animal shape figure.

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  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    But if you need 10 or more circles at once on one piece of geometry, what would you do?

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    I'd most likely make the circles then join them together.

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    TangoAlpha, did you mean array replication?

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  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    Vyusur said:

    But if you need 10 or more circles at once on one piece of geometry, what would you do?

    I know of no way to do 10 at once. I started the box back in October see My First Post on it.  Luckily the great 3DAGE was kind as always to give me some good ideas.  My mistake was not following them very well... I took a bit of a different approach and got busy with other models instead. Finally I got back to it and used much of Andy's instructions with some variation of my own.

    Here is basically how I designed the panel box. First create the cube with 2 subdivisions which will give you 4 polys per side.  Next, in line selection, click on one of the center lines then loop it so all sides are selected.  Now choose extract around... drag it out so you have 2 new loops or lines for each side near the corner... spin the object and do the same two more times... now you should have small polys x4 at each corner. Choose each mid line again and use extract around for each to create a center frame for the box... do that three times.  Now I enter wire frame and go to left view so I can select each square for both sides at once... holding down shift I select the other 3, 6 including the opposite side... I do this 2 more times for front and top view... all the time holding down the shift key so that all are selected  That is the time consuming part.  With all selected I use extract along twice to create a frame for each window... almost done... enter solid object mode again and you will notice that all the polys are selected where the opening goes... choose empty polygon so there will be openings. Now select the entire obj and add thickness... I used -.50 in since my windows will be smaller than that.  Ohh... wait... before thickness I'll use extract around for all corner edges... I draw those out just a tiny bit so the won't be affected by smoothing... unless of course you want rounded edges.

    That is how I did it... there are other ways to get the same results. Below is one I made this morning with 24 holes... it has absolutely no creasing on it so the corner edges are a bit rounded off.  I didn't bother to add thickness... oops. :)  Excuse me for going into such great detail... I'm sure you know much of what I mentioned.  I always try to do this so others can learn.  If you have more questions about this let me know.

     

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  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited July 2017
    Vyusur said:

    TangoAlpha, did you mean array replication?

    Cool idea.  If you want the holes open first empty the ceter polys and the center vertice before replicating.  A touch of thickness wouldn't hurt but is not necessary. Of course you can make a shader domain for the center polys to make transparent but why?

    If you want to use replicate why not just make a flat grid and do much as I for only one hole instead of the 24 I made.  Please explain how you made the single square with circle... I'd like to know.

    After looking again it looks like it started as a simple square and you then tesselated it twice... 2 different types.

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    Vyusur said:

    TangoAlpha, did you mean array replication?

     

    I didn't, but no reason why not - it sounds like a neat idea. smiley

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    John, I don't want any holes at all. I meant simply circles in square shape. All other operations are clear enough. I just wondered how other modelers perform this task (especially in Carrara).

    By the way, your Gingerbread Man is very cool. Hope to see him rigged.

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235
    Vyusur said:

    TangoAlpha, did you mean array replication?

     

    I didn't, but no reason why not - it sounds like a neat idea. smiley

    And what's your method?

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited January 2017

    Just CMD-D duplicate. smiley Five times (for example) makes a row. Duplicate the row 5 times makes a square

    Post edited by TangoAlpha on
  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Gee thanks.  If you don't want holes just don't empty the polygon.

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235
    edited January 2017

    Just CMD-D duplicate. smiley Five times (for example) makes a row. Duplicate the row 5 times makes a square

    What is "CMD-D"? On mac?

    But the first shape? Roundish shape in a square shape?

    Post edited by Vyusur on
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