SubD examples and models

ntxdave · 13 Feb 2016, 16:16

@box said:

there are buttons in quad face tools for Hard or Soft quads.

I don't know what you mean.

actually now that I have read them with a view to answering them I don't understand what you are asking.

Perhaps some images or something would help.

In several of your posts, as an example the really neat tub, you show the tub and its quad faces and you do not seem to be in "edit mode" for the group/component. I can view my model and see all of the faces like that but only when I am editing the model. I see the bounding box around the model which I do not see in your examples. In several other posts in this thread, I also see posts where the author shows the model with all of the quad faces and again, it does not appear that they are editing the model (you know when you select edit group or you double click the model/object).

Here is an example:

This screen shot shows the quad faces of the person but I can only see this level of detail if I double click (edit) the group and then click the Select button using the QFT plugin. BTW: When you use that select tool, it seems that you have to have selected the group before you click on the Select icon. You can then not do anything else until I hit the native select icon or spacebar. Again, I assume I am doing somethin wrong. But I am very consistent and doing what ever it is.

If I every get all of this going right, I am tempted to try to put together a beginners guide for doing quad face modeling in SU. There are some very good animated gifs and other things but in most cases you really have to watch them multiple times to catch all of the clicks. Even if you do, you do not always catch on to why things are being done. For those of us who are in the learning stage you need to understand both the what and the why and in many cases the why turns out to be more important than the what. Yes, I can go do what I see in the videos but if I do not understand the why it is difficult to go apply it to your own creations. At least that is the way for me.

I am glad that there are people like you on this forum who are willing to help us (people like me) learn and understand. I am very appreciative of your patience.

Box · 13 Feb 2016, 16:35

Very busy day, very late for me, going to bed.
Does this help. Watch the buttons.

ntxdave · 13 Feb 2016, 17:38

@Box - yes, that helped a lot. I can see that the Unsmooth Quads was the button that answered my questions about displaying the quad faces when you leave the edit group/component mode.

Thanks for that one. I just need to keep clicking icons and see if I can get the full gest of all of them. Next venture will be exploring applying materials.

I do not think I fully appreciate/understand UV yet either. Yes, I have done some reading but I could not explain to someone else yet exactly what it means. So I need to delve further into the whole UV mapping world as well.

I hope my stupid questions on this thread might be helping some others understand this whole world as well. I would like to think that I am not the only one who, up until now, has not completely understood the significance of quad modeling. You can see that these techniques are what is behind tools like Curviloft and some others that provide the ability to turn things into nicely rounded surfaces.

thomthom · 13 Feb 2016, 18:22

@ntxdave said:

I hope my stupid questions on this thread might be helping some others understand this whole world as well.

Don't consider them stupid questions - they are legit and important in part of learning. Don't be shy to ask.

ntxdave · 13 Feb 2016, 19:19

@thomthom said:

Don't consider them stupid questions - they are legit and important in part of learning. Don't be shy to ask.

Thanks - I really am trying to learn. Without being disparaging to anyone who develops and documents these great tools, I find that many times the documentation takes things for granted and documents things at a level that many of us have a very hard time with. As I said in an earlier post, I have considered putting together a truly beginners document for quad modeling. I might try to do it but I first have to better understand the tools so that I could put something together from a true beginners perspective.

HornOxx · 13 Feb 2016, 23:15

any fictional car dashboard

@ ntxdave - thanks for asking all this, your questions are mine as well and I am glad that Cotty has opened this topic

Dashboard Proxy.skp

HornOxx · 14 Feb 2016, 17:01

Jo-Ke´s nice "looking for a new droid"-topic brought me to this (An)droid idea...
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=81%26amp;t=62870

(I have no idea how to avoid the deformations at the eyes, so suggestions are most welcome)

android-droid Proxy.skp

pilou · 14 Feb 2016, 17:40

@unknownuser said:

(I have no idea how to avoid the deformations at the eyes, so suggestions are most welcome)

Maybe this ?

ntxdave · 14 Feb 2016, 17:49

@box said:

This is the basic process I used, forgive the wandering mouse as I haven't had my coffee yet but this could be tweaked to any detail level you desire and done correctly will remain a solid with a suitable double skin. It is after all nothing more than a scaled tube.

I have watched this animation a BUNCH of times now and there are two things I am missing:

What is being clicked to show the quad faces on the top surface?
When I try to use the Z axis scale and drag down like Box does in the animation, I do not get the scaling horizontally the way he does. I just get it attempting to scale the height (again z axis - not on the x and y axis the way he is doing it)What am I doing wrong?

ntxdave · 14 Feb 2016, 17:58

OK - I just answered #2 myself - Hold down the Shift key silly. DUH - it is called read the darn documentation.

At least I was able to answer it myself. I guess that is called learning!!

pilou · 14 Feb 2016, 18:14

@unknownuser said:

1 What is being clicked to show the quad faces on the top surface?

As only points of the top are selected, click on the top surface will must select the entiere top surface ...

ntxdave · 14 Feb 2016, 18:23

@pilou said:

@unknownuser said:

1 What is being clicked to show the quad faces on the top surface?

As only points of the top are selected, click on the top surface will must select the entiere top surface ...

Since this is an animated gif, I cannot point to the exact time in the animation so I think I may not be making my question clear. Let me try my question again.

After he used the push/pull tool he then uses the Gizmo tool to split the vertical faces. He then selects the entire object and clicks on something that then shows multiple quads on the top face. What did he click to show the quads on the top face?

numerobis · 14 Feb 2016, 19:49

I think what you're searching is TIG's SplitDonut from splitTOOLS
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=43376#p386658

(the vertical edges are inserted using the "Connect Edges Tool" (QuadFace Tools))

HornOxx · 14 Feb 2016, 20:01

...for showing up the Quads, that is, what Cotty explained me to do on page 2 within this topic
(you must scroll down a bit) I hope this works for you as well?

ntxdave · 14 Feb 2016, 20:23

Well, I opened the Funnel.gif file in another piece of software and isolated where I have been seeing the problem. Look at this image:

@numerobis I think you may have nailed it. I will go try that.

HornOxx · 14 Feb 2016, 20:30

... ok - therefor you will need Tig´s SplitDonut tool

http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=386601#p386601
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=386610#p386610
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=377338#p377338

thomthom · 14 Feb 2016, 20:47

@hornoxx said:

Jo-Ke´s nice "looking for a new droid"-topic brought me to this (An)droid idea...
http://sketchucation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=81%26amp;t=62870

(I have no idea how to avoid the deformations at the eyes, so suggestions are most welcome)

This illustrates a hole on a flat surface - but maybe it can be applied still. The quads around it seem to flow in line with the hole.

Topology Guides: Photo

Guides for 3d Artists

Tumblr (topology-guides.tumblr.com)

ntxdave · 15 Feb 2016, 00:19

OK - a silly example but after all of my notes trying to get things working like @Box showed, here is something to let you know I am getting there.

Thanks to all of you that got me going on the right path......stick around, I will probably come up with something else. Just wanted to let you all know that I am making some progress.

Box · 15 Feb 2016, 05:48

numerobis was absolutely right about split tools Dave, and if you scrolled down from that gif to the next one where I answered you about the curves, You will see I showed you split tools there.

ntxdave · 15 Feb 2016, 16:43

@box said:

numerobis was absolutely right about split tools Dave, and if you scrolled down from that gif to the next one where I answered you about the curves, You will see I showed you split tools there.

Yes, I see that now. I just forgot it. I was looking at the Funnel gif and it did not show and I did not properly put the two together.

Now going back to the referenced video (the curves one), I see that you used another plugin that I think is CadFather's Soften/Unsoften to divide all of the selected surfaces into quads. Is that another tool that you recommend?

Please be patient with me. It is finally starting to sink in. This stuff is a pretty different from the type of modeling I have been doing but I can see where it can pay off and definitely is something all of us should learn.