Introducing SUbD for SketchUp...

panixia

Thom, as already stated, feel 100% free to share ALL of my models as example/test models..
a detailed sofa tutorial is in the work.. ready with the modeling part. i'm waiting some help from a friend who works in education/university for the "packaging" whit robotic voices or something because my spoken english is soo bad. i hope we can get over this as soon as possible

thomthom

@derei said:

What would be the main differences between SUbD and Artisan? I am currently using Artisan and I am very curious where this new plugin would fit for me, or is just a matter of preference?

Cheers!

Artisan is a generic modelling suite, with vertex editor, sculpting tools and subdivision.

SUbD focuses on quad-based modelling, and is only subdivision - using catmull-clark subdivision which works best with that. If you have n-gon they get triangulated. And triangles with catmull-clark can produce some undesired results. Down the line I plan on adding support for OpenSubdiv, such that you get the same subdivision results as you would on other software packages that support OpenSubdiv.

panixia

@tig said:

Brilliant.

And remember that many of Fredo's tools and my own Extrude... tools have for sometime allowed options to make thomthom's 'QuadFace' compatible meshes, so you won't always need to model your QuadFaces "from scratch"...

thanks TIG i often use extrude by rails because of its quad capabilities and that is GREAT.
if only fredo's Joint Push Pull could be "upgraded to quads" that would be the ultimate killer combo

thomthom

@jql said:

Hi guys, could be easily used for rounding corners on the fly on a building? (A high creasing value? or a double line at corners?)

Whether to use a crease or extra loop depends. I plan to make a little guide on that. You need to balance polygon density and performance.

When using creases you often need at least two levels of subdivisions, with control loops you might not need to subdivide as much. I find I often use both, control loops for the major features and crease for the fine-tuning.

thomthom

@panixia said:

Thom, as already stated, feel 100% free to share ALL of my models as example/test models..
a detailed sofa tutorial is in the work.. ready with the modeling part. i'm waiting some help from a friend who works in education/university for the "packaging" whit robotic voices or something because my spoken english is soo bad. i hope we can get over this as soon as possible

You're awesome man!

panixia

@thomthom said:

@panixia said:

Thom, as already stated, feel 100% free to share ALL of my models as example/test models..
a detailed sofa tutorial is in the work.. ready with the modeling part. i'm waiting some help from a friend who works in education/university for the "packaging" whit robotic voices or something because my spoken english is soo bad. i hope we can get over this as soon as possible

You're awesome man!

YOU are awesome.
but now.. back to VT2

panixia

@kaas said:

I guess this would work for furniture as well... or?

yes, maybe

panixia

Bari (Italy) - Seafront street lamp

cuttingedge

The long wait is over..One of the best news to SU users in a long while. Quads is still the way to go. Thanks Thomas ..May your kind multiply!

Stinkie

Thanks for the discount for Vertex Tools owners. Pretty sweet.

JQL

@jql said:

Hi guys, could be easily used for rounding corners on the fly on a building? (A high creasing value? or a double line at corners?)

@panixia said:

i would say it's not intended for this kind of job.. use round corner instead..
this is more a powerful organic modeling tool.

I would say that too, but round corners simply messes with my workflow.

I've been wishing for easily generating round corners in a seamless fashion for ages.

I model "stiff" buildings. I round corners for realism in renders. I then have to remodel it so, for easiness of use I remove roundcorners or I can't change my buildings easily. It's a mess! I love round corners for static models that are finished once round corners is applied. Also, roundcorners messes UVs on corners... I'm finding the crease would be a perfect solution...

Thea has a procedural wireframe wich I adapted to my needs, but procedurals are no good for Presto and Presto rendering is the reason I've bought my Titan X...

@thomthom said:

Whether to use a crease or extra loop depends. I plan to make a little guide on that. You need to balance polygon density and performance.

When using creases you often need at least two levels of subdivisions, with control loops you might not need to subdivide as much. I find I often use both, control loops for the major features and crease for the fine-tuning.

For pureness of base corner geometry I believe I'd rather use creases. Would it be a killer on big buildings? They are big and, of course, have a lot of corners, but are rather basic in shape...)

And yet another question. Would it be possible to make this workflow compatible with hole cutting components?

I imagine that I can create a quad around a hole cutting comp and if it's flat it will work, but would it be easy to implement this automatically?

I mean what's the point of building hole cutters if you have to build quads around them and then turn the other faces into quads manually... right?

I know I'm being a pain... It's just that Subd is so awesome but boxes with hole cutters are basically what I do for a living and I cannot aford to loose them.

I'm neither very interested in building furniture or many organic models... If those two basic necessities of mine would be covered I'd be definetelly in game though!

(I know I will download the trial and I know I will buy it eventually, I'm just out of time for trials right now, so thanks for bearing with me guys...)

utiler

Just bought it; wow, wow, wow!!!!

Good on you TT, you deserve every success with this plugin after all you've done here over the years.

And thank to SCF for being, well the SCF. I thin I'd give up coffee if I didn't have a hangout to go to.....

derei

Is it any specific workflow in working with quads in SU?
There are some plugins that claim to do some "specific type of quads" - compatible with SUbD, or any other workflows... what does it means? What makes those quads compatible, as opposed to others?

I used SketchUp for a very long time, but I never tried to use a "specific" workflow, I just did it how I found best. Now I have a weird sensation that I skipped something...

pilou

Principal interest is that avoid any problem with textures deformation, UV, etc...!

derei

@pilou said:

Principal interest is that avoid any problem with textures deformation, UV, etc...!

Yeah, cool ... may I have some guidance with this modelling technique? I mean... i believe is not just making squares? There must be something more, deeper. Something that eludes me?

panixia

@derei said:

some "specific type of quads" - compatible with SUbD, or any other workflows... what does it means? What makes those quads compatible, as opposed to others?

a quadface tools quad is a couple of triangle joined by an edge marked as diagonal. the quadface tools "tag" to mark a diagonal is that the edge should be set to soft AND smooth AND not cast shadow (you can check this in entity info window)

JQL

Quadfaces are basically surfaces with four sides and no divisions inside and are usually handled by other software without the need for the four edges to be coplanar. Sketchup doesn't allow a single face (surface) to be a basic entity if it is not coplanar. It allows for faces to have any number of sides but they must be coplanar (ngons).

As has been told before, the main 2 advantages of quad faces are:

A texture is rectangular so it can be fit easily inside a quad;
A quad is a very easy to understand shape that can be easily subdivided, split and modified and still maintain subquads.
This will have a lot of advantages but to do it inside sketchup is (until now) simply put insane.

Thomthom's quadface convention, wich is the first quadface convention on Sketchup, makes a lot of sense and also was adopted by other plugin authors on some plugins.

However only with SubD plugin the subdivision advantage of quadfaces is really being pushed forward, so the workflow for quadfaces is now going to be explored more than ever.

I'm personally not ready for it yet...

thomthom

@derei said:

Is it any specific workflow in working with quads in SU?
There are some plugins that claim to do some "specific type of quads" - compatible with SUbD, or any other workflows... what does it means? What makes those quads compatible, as opposed to others?

I used SketchUp for a very long time, but I never tried to use a "specific" workflow, I just did it how I found best. Now I have a weird sensation that I skipped something...

Have a look at the introduction overview to quads:
http://evilsoftwareempire.com/subd/quads

Make sure to follow the external links about topology.

I also started on a list of extensions that are compatible with QuadFace Tools quads:
http://evilsoftwareempire.com/subd/quads/extensions

The manual of QuadFace Tools also illustrates some of the benefits you can do with quads:
https://bitbucket.org/thomthom/quadface-tools/wiki/Home

The tools in QFT is possible only when the mesh is of a predictable nature - which quads provide.

thomthom

Recap of the links on topology:

"Modeling with quads or triangles - what should I use?"
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/modeling-with-quads-or-triangles/

@unknownuser said:

So why choose quads?
When modeling with quads, the wireframe will have a much cleaner look and the model will be easier to navigate and edit. When you spend hours working on a project, you deserve to show it off. But, if the wireframe is messy you become very limited to what you can actually put out in the world for everyone to drool over. When you use quads you create clean, sleek lanes of polygons that are easy to follow through the model and provide beautiful edge flows that you can be easily modified by you or a team member. It is less distracting when you overlay the wireframe on a clay shaded model or even a textured asset.It is also good to work in quads if you plan on passing the model off to someone else or a team. It is easier for someone to convert a model made up of quads to triangles than it is for someone to convert a model made up of triangles to quads.

"Why Are Ngons and Triangles so Bad?"
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/ngons-triangles-bad/

@unknownuser said:

A very important reason for avoiding ngons and triangles is that quads are really the industry-accepted polygon. If you send in a 3D modeling demo reel with a wireframe overlay and your model’s topology is made up of a miss match of quads, triangles and ngons of all different edge amounts then the message you’re sending the recruiter is that you don’t spend the time to properly topologize your model to work within the other areas of the pipeline like texturing, rigging and animating.

Topology Guides
A nice series of visual examples of topology with quads aimed at subdivision:
http://topology-guides.tumblr.com/

Quads, Tris, & N-Gons
https://resources.squid.io/checkmate-3d-modeling-standard/checkmate-specifications-overview/checkmate-pro-checklist/tris-quads-n-gons/

pilou

@unknownuser said:

Have a look at the introduction overview to quads:
http://evilsoftwareempire.com/subd/quads

Make sure to follow the external links about topology.

I also started on a list of extensions that are compatible with QuadFace Tools quads:
http://evilsoftwareempire.com/subd/quads/extensions

The manual of QuadFace Tools also illustrates some of the benefits you can do with quads:
https://bitbucket.org/thomthom/quadface-tools/wiki/Home

All that are translated in French here!