A couple of questions about hard-surface best practices...

[JohnSG]

Originally Posted by tiktok

john: a pic of your 'triple edgeloop' thing would be great to see. Bevel shaders just mess with the normals and display the edges as if they had bevels on them

Yeah no problem, I will post some early next week as I am away for the next couple of days. But as soon as i get back i will try sort out some examples

Originally Posted by tiktok

Curious what everyone uses for plugins and such when hard surface modeling? nex, byrons polytools...etc? (or max's polyboost?)

As for plug-ins, sounds like you are using max, Been a long time since i used it and i don't remember the poly tools being great then, not up to date with the latest versions.

I mainly use maya and for most hard-surface poly modeling I find i don't need any more then the basic poly tools they have.

[El Burritoh]

I recently started using Max for FumeFX at work, but beyond that I don't use it much. But I would like to know what all the new graphite tools offer!

Not to make this a software debate, but for straight-up modeling I use Modo. It really is like a 3D swiss-army knife. Our studio is primarily an XSI house and although XSI has good modeling tools, modo is really hard to beat in that area and I find it much more fluid. Although I've also started learning Maya of late and I could see myself using Maya just as much. Maya and Modo share a surprising number of methodologies.

I think I know the technique John is talking about, but I wouldn't turn down screenhots.

[mynameisnick24]

Could someone let me know what a bevel shader is. Is it exactly as it sounds, A shader that fakes a beveled edge on a piece of geometry, or is it something different.

Also

Originally Posted by tiktok

Curious what everyone uses for plugins and such when hard surface modeling? nex, byrons polytools...etc? (or max's polyboost?)

When I worked in Max I used the Polyboost plugin for modeling. It had some very nice tools to speed up workflow and it was relatively cheap. But it tended to be little buggy at times, this was over a year ago though so it may have been improved.

[El Burritoh]

I've personally never used one but I've seen them floating around. Depending on the rendering engine (I'm think the ones I've seen are for MR), you can get shaders that will do pretty much what tiktok said: render hard edges in such a way that they catch light and appear rounded/beveled/chamfered, although the geo doesn't change at all. XSI and Max have some, and I'm sure there's something for Maya too. But it's just not a proper way to deal with edges (for the vast majority of tasks, because I guess the word "proper" is relative).

My understanding is that the Polyboost plugins were fully integrated into Max 2010 and got renamed as the Graphite modeling tools.

[ianucci]

I've used the graphite/polyboost tools a little and there is a tremendous amount of power within them, but I think the UI for them could be streamlined somewhat. I can still model a lot quicker in Cinema despite its aged modelling tool-set, but then I am very much a newcomer to max.

I haven't yet tried Modo, must give it a look. I've used Silo, and found that a lot nicer to use than Max and Maya.

[mynameisnick24]

Thanks Mr. Burritoh for the explanation, I assumed that's what it was but just wasn't sure. And also for updating me on max it's been a while since I've used it.

Ian, I agree with you in terms of the UI, It was organized very weird some, tools were buried in other tools which definitely was confusing at times. At least it was like that in the Polyboost stage. I'd imagine it's still somewhat the same.

[JohnSG]

So I managed to find a WIP car, Its still not finished, quite a bit still to go, but it will give an good indication of the poly mesh.



Any questions please let me know, or if there are any areas of the car you would like a close up off let me know too

[Billabong]

very nice John, very nice.

I meant to ask you this a while back and I cant remember if its been asked yet or not.

I know you said you guys work in polies. but since Maya's Nurbs are really great(at least thats what Ive heard) do you ever start out with Nurbs and then convert it to polies?

If so, what would be the circumstances of using Nurbs

-B

[tiktok]

thanks much for posting this John! Would be great to see close ups of any of the complicated areas, vents, valve covers...etc. Anything to see bevels as well, and how you dealt with them.


-Bayard

[JohnSG]

Originally Posted by Billabong

I know you said you guys work in polies. but since Maya's Nurbs are really great(at least thats what Ive heard) do you ever start out with Nurbs and then convert it to polies?
-B

Yes I do sometimes start in nurbs and convert to poly's. It very much depend on the object you have to make, and how complex it is. The good thing with nurbs , after you convert them to polies you are left with a pretty nice flow across your mesh. Good for planes and large curved surfaces.

For cars i tend to just start from polies, super low shapes and built them up, as the nurbs surface for some of the body panel shapes are too complex to build in nurbs and convert as they leave you with a weird surface which then needs to be edited anyway. So i find starting in polies quicker and as you have more control at the start it help to keep the mesh resolution down.