SubD examples and models

Builder54

Carpenter Ant

I post my models here because I want illustrate to others who may be interested in Organic modelling that it's quite possible with Sketchup, largely because of the amazing extensions (QuadFace Tools, Vertex Tools 2, and SUbD) that ThomThom developed. The more I work with them the greater appreciation I have. Model on!

The painted low poly model was later edited to improve on the leg detail. You can see in the Substance Painter example below how the legs had lost their definition after subdivision. I later used QuadFace Tools to add loops to maintain shape.

Substance Painter

I used the free trial of V Ray and Substance Painter to add some realism. I have not had any prior experience with either so the results are not good, but they do help to add some realism.

V-Ray

HornOxx

Klasse! Great work again. (I love these SketchUp illustrations even more than the rendered versions)

alvis

A short biology lesson . Nice

Builder54

@hornoxx said:

Klasse! Great work again. (I love these SketchUp illustrations even more than the rendered versions)

Thank you HornOxx. I tend to agree with you. The thing I like about Substance Painter is being able to stay in 3D. But I know what you mean about the raw modelling illustrations. Cheers

Builder54

@alvis said:

A short biology lesson . Nice

Too funny The reference photo helped me to redraw the legs to keep their shape and definition

tuna1957

Don’t really like ants. But your ants “bitchin ” !

Builder54

@tuna1957 said:

Don’t really like ants. But your ants “bitchin ” !

A compliment of the highest order hahaha. Thanks tuna1957

Builder54

My favorite Sci-Fi character

tuna1957

Builder54, Great job on a complex character !

Now to return to earth..... as time allows I go back into my early SubD models and try to fix "rookie" mistakes. Reworked one of my first SubD sofas. Lots of mistakes in the first go round . Second time around looks much better and even lower poly to boot....

taylor sofa 2a.jpg

Builder54

Thanks very much!

@tuna1957 said:

Second time around looks much better and even lower poly to boot....

Interesting you mention the lower poly count. I'm becoming increasingly aware that my models have way to many poly's, and the key is to keep it simple and strategic.

ramonbastos

Hello! I noticed that when I use SubD, it creates some polygons that are not really necessary, making the file bigger. You can see in the example below:

Polygons generated by SubD

Here I erased some lines just to show that they were not necessary.

I tried using TT's cleanup, looks like it removes some "random" lines. Of course its not random, but it leaves a lot of lines that I can erase and keep the same geometry.

Any tips on how to optimize it?

GD3Design

See if 'Fixit 101' will get you where you're going.

cotty

@ramonbastos said:

Hello! I noticed that when I use SubD, it creates some polygons that are not really necessary, making the file bigger.

It's propably because of the SketchUp (inofficial) quad definition:
"two triangles share an edge which is soft and smooth - with Cast Shadows turned off"
[https://evilsoftwareempire.com/subd/quads]

nlipovac

@ramonbastos said:

Hello! I noticed that when I use SubD, it creates some polygons that are not really necessary, making the file bigger. You can see in the example below:

[attachment=1:1fj1e773]panela 01.png[/attachment:1fj1e773]

[attachment=0:1fj1e773]Screenshot_53.png[/attachment:1fj1e773]

I tried using TT's cleanup, looks like it removes some "random" lines. Of course its not random, but it leaves a lot of lines that I can erase and keep the same geometry.

Any tips on how to optimize it?

I think this is the way Open SubDiv works, it subdivides polygons and does not care if they are coplanar after subdivision.
If you use the Cleanup plugin after you are done with subdivision then you are actually doing decimation of that model by removing edges from coplanar polygons.
Where you can get in trouble after you do Cleanup is texturing where there could be some distorted texture on those polygons.

Builder54

@ramonbastos said:

Any tips on how to optimize it?

You could try tweaking with Vertex Tools Merging Close Vertices. It's demonstrated in this video

https://youtu.be/yOfMsr_-mtk

ramonbastos

@gd3design said:

See if 'Fixit 101' will get you where you're going.

Thanks! Great plugin by the way. It worked better than cleanup, but still left some coplanar edges, and looks random too, that will give me trouble when texturing. (See attachment)

@builder54 said:

@ramonbastos said:

Any tips on how to optimize it?

You could try tweaking with Vertex Tools Merging Close Vertices. It's demonstrated in this video

https://youtu.be/yOfMsr_-mtk

Unfortunately didn't work, some edges that I did not want to merge, got merged.

panela 03.png

Builder54

On a hot summer's night you may hear the buzzing sound produced by a cicada.

Cicadas Brood X 2021

Sketchup Pro 2017
QuadFace Tools, Vertex tools, SUbD

panixia

@ramonbastos said:

Hello! I noticed that when I use SubD, it creates some polygons that are not really necessary, making the file bigger. You can see in the example below:

[attachment=1:155faezl]panela 01.png[/attachment:155faezl]

[attachment=0:155faezl]Screenshot_53.png[/attachment:155faezl]

I tried using TT's cleanup, looks like it removes some "random" lines. Of course its not random, but it leaves a lot of lines that I can erase and keep the same geometry.

Any tips on how to optimize it?

The proper way to remove those quads triangulations when it is possible (for those quads which are coplanar, that's why you can erase them) would be, after you are done with modeling, to convert the mesh into "plain mesh" and then select all and run the "remove triangulation" command from QuadFaceTools.

Please notice that you are visually erasing those triangulation at Sketchup interface level, but at "machine level" those triangles are still present, so the model will not perform any better in any render engine or game engine, because stuff need to be triangulated in GPU.
What actually matters in therms of model performances are mainly the amount of vertices, the number of drawcalls, the size/compression of the textures, good UV's (if you have too many UV-islands the machine will see much more vertices than you see in the viewport).

Actually I tend to keep those triangles, because they make for proper exporting files.
If you don't triangulate, many external formats/engines/applications will triangulate them in some automated way and you can get weird results, in particular smoothing/texturing artifacts.

If you are into unwrapping/game engine stuff, like I am, you have to love those triangulations and want to have full control over them, instead of having some weird algorithm doing unpredictable stuff in background.