modeling a tennis ball

[RANKN67]

im trying to do this tutorial, http://www.christerb.com/tutorials/m...all/index.html


but i dont think i can do it in blender, unless some one else can prove me wrong.


and i was wondering if there were any other tennis ball tutorials, then again, they could be any ball with ridges or seems, that would work too.

[DanMan]

TBH, i would try to avoid modelling that and just fake it with a texture (or use a displacement map). But i suppose you want to do it for learning purposes, right?

[reywillow]

Well, IMHO, it needs, for some points, just a little more manipulations, but I think you can achieve this in Blender without any problem.

[RANKN67]

Originally Posted by DanMan TBH, i would try to avoid modelling that and just fake it with a texture (or use a displacement map). But i suppose you want to do it for learning purposes, right?

cool ill try that im using the tennis ball for an animation and was wondering if you could tell me how u do that

[reywillow]

For nearly every point, it's the same procedure.
I don't have blender at work so I can't tell you right now, but it's possible.
I'll try and write a tutorial tonight at home if I have some spare time.

[Hoehrer]

For the basic shape as geometry you could start with a cube .. SubSurft it 2 or 3 times (smooth) and then select the 'border' in the typical tennis-ball shape ... From there on it get's a bit complex, but the basic shape is there (without the 'correct' arcs, but it comes near). I can upload an image later today, or probably tomorrow if you want.

Werner

[RANKN67]

WOW, you guys are so eager to help me, you guys are great, thanks.

[Hoehrer]

The SubSurfed (level 3) and applied cube.
EDIT4: It's a good idea to select all in edit mode and do a "To Sphere" with 100% so it's a nice sphere from the beginning.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204001537/

Thelect the shown edges and (smooth) subdivide them manually by hitting the [W] key.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204001538/

Select the shown faces ... the middle line is now a full edgeloop (select the edgeloop with [Alt]+[Shift]+RMB and increase the selection with [+])
Do not move the extruded region anywhere.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204001539/

The basic (extruded + scaled) grease:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204001541/

And with some heavy tweaking and some materials:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204001540/
EDIT2: the heavy tweaking includes ..
* Scaling the 2 faceloops in face-select mode with "individual centers" selected
* Moving the faces around (face-select + [Shift]+[V] is your friend here) to make better 'arcs'
* Selecting the outer shell and do a "To Shpere" after tweaking ... same for the two faceloops
* Optional: Removing the edgloop in the middle of the groove with [X]->Edgeloop

EDIT3: Now that i think about it it would be a lot better if the moving around of the vertices to form the 'arcs' would be alot better when done before the extrude of the region. ... including a "to sphere" after it's finished and before the extrude.

EDIT: of course the nice smooth arcs (mine are too rectangular IMO) as shown in the other tutorial are kinda hard to reproduce, but still possible with this way. Maybe re-producing the geometry of that tut would be worth a try.

HTH,
Werner

[DanMan]

I was almost finished modelling it then Blender crashed. Bummer.... :/

I'll try to put something together later. Unless someone else is already doing it (i'm looking at you Hoerer ).

[dgebel]

Better watch about posting images to Flickr - I've heard of people losing screenshots from games & things because they were not allowed - "Flickr is for photos"... only apparently. Make sure you've backed them up elsewhere at a minimum.

[reywillow]

Hey, I've followed that maya tutorial under blender.
It can be done exactly the same way, but it requires a bit more selection/face erase/face and edge create operations.
The modeling itself is quite uneasy to make, at first try (as they say in the maya tut). I'm sorry I don't have time to write a tutorial tonight.
However, this is a quick render :


Feel free to use my .blend file if you like. I'll try and write a tutorial as quickly as i can. But nights are short, I need to sleep a lot, I work during week, i go out with my girl on week ends, etc etc...

EDIT : And um... Wait... About that modeling phase itself, it's quite uneasy because you have to place vertices on a sphere surface so as duplicated/rotated sphere eights match together. i'm thinking about a way to help this stage... Yes, that would be a good idea to make this tut.

Regards

[Hoehrer]

Originally Posted by dgebel Better watch about posting images to Flickr - I've heard of people losing screenshots from games & things because they were not allowed - "Flickr is for photos"... only apparently. Make sure you've backed them up elsewhere at a minimum.

Oh, i normally have backups of all my images, but it would be no problem since i still have the blend files (backuoped well) and the tutorials are quickly redone

Anyway, as long as you do not post copyrighted stuff and the like on flickr it's not a big problem with them ... though there are restrictions:

Originally Posted by Flickr Community Guidelines DOs Upload photos that you've taken Respect the copyright of others. This means don't steal photographs that other people have taken and pass them off as your own. And yes, Flickr is for photos. With some exceptions, it's OK to post other images, but if the majority of your photostream contains content other than photographs (like illustrations, screenshots, diagrams, etc.) it's very likely that your account will be marked Not in Public Site Areas (NIPSA). NIPSA means your photos won't show up in photo searches, but they will still be visible in your pages, your groups and contacts.

BTW: There is a lot of computer generated stuff on flickr (just look in the "Blender" group or into "computer generated".

@reywillow: That's one fine looking tennisball. I'll have to study the blend file tomorrow, but maybe i find a way to do it a bit faster ... we'll see. How long did it take you to follow the maya tutorial in blender?

Originally Posted by DanMan I was almost finished modelling it then Blender crashed. Bummer.... :/ I'll try to put something together later. Unless someone else is already doing it (i'm looking at you Hoerer ).

Depends on which tutorial you want ... reywillow already posted the maya one and if s/b wants the blend file of my rendered tennisball just pm me. ... it's a quick&dirty geometry though and far from being as good as reywillows.

Werner

[DanMan]

I meant i'm willing to write a real tutorial, unless someone else wants to do it. Here's what i've come up with (no material work except for color):


Maybe a tut isn't even needed if RANKN67 can tell us exactly where he/she is stuck.

[RANKN67]

im a he to clear things up, im just stuck at pretty much then entire thing becaus wen i come to the part where i add the edgloops to make the ridges, i find that the loops dont go where they should becaus of where i placed the verts, i would love for some one to recreate this tutorial for blender becaus once you learn this tut you can make anyother ball like a baseball and a basket ball, but im not telling you guys to do right away im thinkin to do it wen you guys are bored and arnt out partying.

[RANKN67]

still cant get the dam thing to work, i down loaded reywillows file and still dont know how he got taht from the tutorial, im wicked confused. and i thought i wasnt taht bad at modeling, now i feel like a noob

[reywillow]

Hey, don't worry
There's a trick while modeling I did not get until it was late yesterday night. Don't have time right now, I hope I can explain this today or tomorrow.
To make it quick, when you have your sphere eight, duplicate/mirror it so as to get a half sphere. Then duplicate the half sphere and mirror it : but here is the trick, this second half has to be rotated 90° before you hit RemDoubles to merge.

I'll make a tut to explain this in details and with a trick to align verts to ease the merging stage.

Regards

[reywillow]

Originally Posted by Hoehrer @reywillow: That's one fine looking tennisball. I'll have to study the blend file tomorrow, but maybe i find a way to do it a bit faster ... we'll see. How long did it take you to follow the maya tutorial in blender?

Thanks
It took me nearly one hour to follow this tut under Blender. I was stuck at a moment, there was something I did not understand, but now it should take 30 minutes, I guess.

Be well

[reywillow]

I'm writing a tutorial right now. I'm not sure I will be able to finish it today, as i have some work to do, and blender on my PC at work is a pain in the back to use (soooooo slow).
I guess it'll be ready by tomorrow. Sorry it takes so long, but it will be done!


be well

[Hoehrer]

I did play with my version of the tennis ball again and made it a bit more rounded:

• I subdivided the 5 edges (the only ones not in the big edgeloop in the image)
• Removed some unneeded edges (and made the resulting holes into squares)
• Moved a few vertices around with the "3D-Cursor center" option activated (the 3d-cursor was in the center of the sphere)
• Then I removed the faces in the other places where this arc is needed, duplicated the edited one and copy&rotated it there
• "removed doubles" + "recalculate normals" to merge the parts again.
• Then i used "Scripts" -> "Mesh" -> "Bevel Center" to make my beloved edgeloop and extruded as ion my previous attempt.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204728853/

Werner

[Hoehrer]

I think i've found a very simple way to generate the curve-edgeloop for later usage:

• Add a tube.
• Remove one half of it.
• Duplicate, rotate and move the half to look like in the first image.
• "Remove Doubles"
• Fill the faces of the semi-circles so it looks like in the first image.
• Loop-Subdivide [CTRL]+[R] 2 times with a value of around 7. The 4 points where there is a high concentration of faces needs to be cleaned up (remove two rows of faces and replace it with one) depending on the density of the mesh.... but i found that using 5 cuts and remove/replace 2 rows with one works like a sharm with the standard cylinder.
• Make the whole mesh "To Shpere".
• From here we just create the edgeloop+extrusion with whatever way you like most.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204765463/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204804514/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/63231715@N00/204863467/ (larger version)

Werner