How would you make this?

[arby]

I'm trying to create a small plastic brick


Although it renders ok, the geometry looks bad (even to me)

Here's how I made it:

Started by drawing basic polyline
Used Chamfer tool to radius the corners
Used Sweep tool to give it height
Used Thickness (inwards) to create the walled rim
Extracted the inner curve of the top rim and moved it down slightly
Used Coons tool on this curve to creat the interior surface.


I'd be interested to know if there is a better way to approach something like this.

thanks

Bob

[pannoctis]

Originally Posted by arby

I'm trying to create a small plastic brick


Although it renders ok, the geometry looks bad (even to me)

Here's how I made it:

Started by drawing basic polyline
Used Chamfer tool to radius the corners
Used Sweep tool to give it height
Used Thickness (inwards) to create the walled rim
Extracted the inner curve of the top rim and moved it down slightly
Used Coons tool on this curve to creat the interior surface.


I'd be interested to know if there is a better way to approach something like this.

thanks

Bob

Suggestion:
Base Polyline
Sweep upward once and inset sweep once for rim
Fill bottom and top hole
Sel rim polys and extrude upwards
Delete top rim polys (= loopselect)
Chamfer outer corner edges to taste
Chamfer inner rim edges to taste
Recreate top rim polys again (maybe by snap facetting because fill hole does not always produce desired results)

Regards

[Piem]

Hi
the plane should not have more than 2 or 3 aligned facets (with lines going all around the object) .
Panotics is also right you can redo the whole thing.

[pannoctis]

As alternative for the last step (for recreating the poly-lid on the rim) you could also extract both top edge loops as curves, loft them together and weld the base with the resulting lid. Maybe you dont even have to delete the rim lid polys.

Basically I tend to avoid starting the modeling process with chamfered line-/curve work, because when you do inset bevels the points of the chamfered edges meet and then cross each other, which results in ugly geometry. So first you can do the general shaping modeling and finish it off with the chamfers. Same goes for booleans - save them for the end of your modeling as much as possible.

[arby]

Originally Posted by pannoctis

Suggestion:
Base Polyline
Sweep upward once and inset sweep once for rim
Fill bottom and top hole
Sel rim polys and extrude upwards
Delete top rim polys (= loopselect)
Chamfer outer corner edges to taste
Chamfer inner rim edges to taste
Recreate top rim polys again (maybe by snap facetting because fill hole does not always produce desired results)

Regards

tnx for suggestion, when I sweep the inset it gives an uneven rim thickness that appears to converge on the bounding box center.




So I redid the extrusion/thickness like I did before and then apply the chamfer at the end. This is much improved result, my only problem is filling in the surface. Coons is the only tool that seems to work on this extracted curve, Close tool does not seem to work here. (I tried making just closed polylines as a test and Close tool works fine on them so am puzzled).

Coons however seems to have a problem with the inside curve and adds geometry around that area that comes outside the main object.




regards

Bob

[arby]

Originally Posted by pannoctis

As alternative......

Hah our posts crossed

Yes will try that way too

regards

Bob

[pannoctis]

Originally Posted by arby

Hah our posts crossed

Yes will try that way too

regards

Bob

Hi - I think I got it now

Draw line shape
Sweep upward
Close top and bottom hole
Select upper edge loop and use edge extract along edge (inwards not downwards)
Select resulting polyloop
Fast extrude upward for rim
Select all the inner (rim) and outer corner edges and run chamfer
You re done
If you want to slightly bevel your new edgeloops, you will see some ugly hidden geometry destroy the smoothness of your shading (at this point you ll have to manually subdivide the faces by selecting strategical vertices and connecting them with shortcut "x")

[arby]

Originally Posted by pannoctis

Hi - I think I got it now

Heh, yes I can see the idea



gawd!

reboot, start again



for Pete's sake, it's bad enough getting a handle on using the program without this!

[pannoctis]

Originally Posted by arby

Heh, yes I can see the idea



gawd!

reboot, start again



for Pete's sake, it's bad enough getting a handle on using the program without this!

Well - you got the idea
Hopefully stability will increase with the next patches (or you might resort to modeling in 1.21 meanwhile...)

Regards

[Verdant]

Originally Posted by arby

Heh, yes I can see the idea



gawd!

reboot, start again



for Pete's sake, it's bad enough getting a handle on using the program without this!

This software has always been prone to these sort of internal error issues ever since the Amapi days. Try collapsing all DG before performing the operation it failed out on.

[arby]

Originally Posted by Verdant

This software has always been prone to these sort of internal error issues ever since the Amapi days. Try collapsing all DG before performing the operation it failed out on.

Hi

I took Pannoctis' advice, It's only a problem with Ver2 , Ver 1.2 doesn't give me any grief.

btw Re. the DG, I'm not using DG......(see screenshot)


cheers

Bob

[arby]

Finally got around to finishing this piece and rendered it in Carrara5. Have just uploaded to the gallery here, thanks for your advice.



rgds

Bob

[pannoctis]

Originally Posted by arby

Finally got around to finishing this piece and rendered it in Carrara5. Have just uploaded to the gallery here, thanks for your advice.



rgds

Bob

Hey - nice render!

Just wondering - maybe you could a bit more specular in the plastic ;-) plus a tiny bevel where the geometry meets at right angles?

[arby]

Originally Posted by pannoctis

Hey - nice render!

Just wondering - maybe you could a bit more specular in the plastic ;-) plus a tiny bevel where the geometry meets at right angles?

The edges are all bevelled, I used 1.0 for the rounded corners and 0.1 for all edges apart from the recessed edge where the rim wall meets the flat surface.

Strange, in Hex it looked sufficient ...



but yes in the render it does look a bit angular.

re specular, the shader I used was based on a basic plastic which I then tweaked, maybe spec (or lack of) is down to the flat hdri lighting?

Am still learning wrt lighting and the hdri was one reason for getting Carrara.

But yes any tips for improvement very welcome.

thanks

Bob

[pannoctis]

Originally Posted by arby

The edges are all bevelled, I used 1.0 for the rounded corners and 0.1 for all edges apart from the recessed edge where the rim wall meets the flat surface.

Strange, in Hex it looked sufficient ...



but yes in the render it does look a bit angular.

re specular, the shader I used was based on a basic plastic which I then tweaked, maybe spec (or lack of) is down to the flat hdri lighting?

Am still learning wrt lighting and the hdri was one reason for getting Carrara.

But yes any tips for improvement very welcome.

thanks

Bob

I agree - your bevel looks sufficient. HDRI - maybe you could use more reflection on your plastic - are there blurred reflections in Carrara?