chess-rock problem

[piterx]

i want to obtain a smooth ssurfaced sharp curved shape,while i was trying to obtain a rock(castle)…i dunno how to overcome it.any helps are welcomed please.

![http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/8344/elysiunrockproblem29lv.th.jpg]](http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=elysiunrockproblem29lv.jpg)

![http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/7749/elysiunrockproblem39as.th.jpg]](http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=elysiunrockproblem39as.jpg)

![http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/811/elysiunrockproblem47xh.th.jpg]](http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=elysiunrockproblem47xh.jpg)

![http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/2100/elysiunrockproblem51hz.th.jpg]](http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=elysiunrockproblem51hz.jpg)

![http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/6912/elysiunrockproblem62in.th.jpg]](http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=elysiunrockproblem62in.jpg)

[img=http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/223/elysiunrockproblem77vi.th.jpg]

[IamInnocent]

Try Edit context (F9) >> Lind and Materials pannel >> Set Smooth and then in the Mesh pannel check Auto Smooth and leave the default 30 degrees threshold as it is. This should leave any edge where the faces form an angle greater than 30 degrees sharp. The others will be smoothed.

Simplest way to achieve what you seem to want. Now, if you want sharp-but-not-that-sharp edges, that another story, involving loop cutting and placement… If so come back

Happy New Year !

Jean

[piterx]

well i guess i could not tell what i wanted to tell…as you see on the above picture the pawn is nicely done because its shape is very smooth and it is fine with subsurf.however i can not use subsurf at all with the rock.cause whenever i try to do that makes funny shapes:) especially on sharp places.i have tried to render with the method you told me …with autosmooth…but that did not work.but thank you very much.

happy new year too…

*your tutorials are very nicely done.i will review them all.using flash is a good idea.

[Robin]

If you mean how to do some edges sharp and other smooth you can use SHIFT+E and drag mouse outwards to get it sharper.

[GreyBeard]

In order not to have artifacts at the edges when you subsurf you require three rows of vetrs to define each edge. Unfortunately with subsurfs if the ring of verts around a tube aren’t evenly distributed it is noticeable so you will require the number of verts in your tube shape to be equal to the crease spacing verts. A coup[le of pictures will explain better.

wire:

GreyBeard

[piterx]

well ,does that means subdivision until enough vertice rows to make the shape in subsurf.i tried it ,i guess looks fine but.too much vertices now and much longer render time.

edit:
*when i thought twice your words i guess…i am wrong.it does not have to mean so much vertices.you say just three vertice rows for sharp edges.i will try to do tomorrow.it is very late here:)

[Duoas (Michael Thomas Greer)]

Wow, that’s a lot of vertices GreyBeard!

Careful subsurf modelling can obviate many edges, but like GreyBeard said, you need at least three to get clean, sharp edges. The sharper the edge, the closer together the edges must be.

I’m not particularly pleased with the design of my rook (btw, it’s a rook, not a rock), but it illustrates well:

You’ll notice that the top edge of each crenelation is a little flattened and not round --this is what GreyBeard was talking about. I could add an extra edge or two to take care of it… but I’m not happy with the overall design so I’m not going to mess with this one any more…

The more you mess with subsurfs the better feel you’ll get for where to place edges for optimal effect.

Hope this helps.

[GreyBeard]

Wow, that’s a lot of vertices GreyBeard!

Yes I got a little carried away :). The flat sections was what I avoiding by using so many verts, but I could have gotten by with considerably fewer. The picture was rendered with a subsurf level of one. It makes no difference to rendering time whether the faces are modelled or from subsurfing so in certain instances like this one I find it’s best to manually place the verts and use a subsurf of 1.

GreyBeard

[piterx]

now i have tried to consider all your advices and here is my new work:

on this work i began with a circle (vertice no:16) and then by extruding level by level and on the upper side of the rook i have used more little steps while extruding.that made pretty good…

however when i have wanted to add more sharpness after i have finished modeling(with extruding) i wanted to add more row vertices.so i have used LoopCut.but,i saw that it is not a very good idea to do…(please check my images)

another problem resulted when i have removed doubles.again on my images.

[GreyBeard]

That crease was what I was trying to avoid by using so many verts – since my verts are equally spaced vertically and close enough together to make the creases on the top you don’t have a crease on the side beyond the notch. I found no other satisfactory solution – If it’s any consolation to you I found the rook to be the most difficult to model, much more so than the knight.

GreyBeard

[piterx]

thank you very much GreyBeard.

now feeling glaD

[Duoas (Michael Thomas Greer)]

First, so I don’t confuse you unduely: a crenelated battlement is that funny, square-wave shape at the top of castle walls and fortifications; a merlon is the solid part (that you can’t shoot arrows through); a crenelle is the open space between merlons (that you do shoot arrows through).

Modelling a rook is indeed very hard.

The first thing that will help you is considering how the subsurfacing works: it basically uses your original mesh to define a bezier surface. Just like when you have a bezier curve (for example, in the IPO Curve Editor connecting key points, or if you Add --> Curve --> Bezier Curve and add more than two points to it…

You can see that moving one point affects the neighboring points. The thing that’s hard to get your mind around concerning the bezier surface is that it is no longer one-dimentional but three-dimentional.

This will seem abnoxious, but bear with me.
Your standard cube, and subsurfaced:

It kind of wants to collapse into a sphere, no?

Let’s try to make that front edge (closest to us) nice and sharp. Add an edge loop:

The problem we notice is that while something got sharper, the front edge is still bowed out towards us. As is the top. The whole side face got a sharp edge, but the face itself is still round. Foo.

OK, so we try to get rid of the roundness on the top edge:

Likewise on the front edge:

The problem is (just like down the length of your rook) we now have more sharp edges than we wanted to begin with…

If you look at the middle rook in my image above (the wireframe with subsurf) you’ll see an edge-loop going around the crenelle. This gives the edge that nice sharpness without extending down into the base.

Moral: use edge-loops.

Here I’ve done the same thing to the point of the cube closest to us. Notice that edge-loop going around the point. The rest of the cube still wants to be round, but the point is maintained by that edge loop.

Now that preliminaries are over: on to your specific questions:
image 1: good setup.

image 2: the inner part is not flat because of the bezier surface: the crenelations are pulling up at the edges of the roof. If you look at the top view of my rook above, you’ll see a number of concentric circles (edge loops) in the roof. (I’ve purposefully made my roof somewhat dome-shaped so that the middle is higher-up than the outer edges. For a flat roof you probably won’t need as many edge loops as I have, but you’ll need at least two.)

image 2 and 3: the merlons are rounded at the crenelle. As I noted in the preliminaries, you need an edge loop around the crenelle.

image 4: no comment.

Don’t give up.

Hope this helps.

[piterx]

i am confused…

what about exact cut? by choosing only the upper side of the rook and then cut and cut …so…well…dunno… :-?

[Duoas (Michael Thomas Greer)]

Yes, sorry.

When subsurf modelling, I find I often have to delete and replace faces and edges. What I would do in your case is delete all the faces between the lower side and the crenelations. Then you can use Ctrl-R to add the edges you want. When it’s time to join the top and bottom parts back together, just make faces that give that nice edge loop that follows around the crenelle…

Sorry this isn’t clearer… Perhaps I’ll make a subsurf modelling tutorial specifically for dealing with things like rooks… That would make it a lot easier to follow…

In the meantime, just play with it. And remember, for a sharp line you must have multiple edges on all three sides…

[piterx]

a tutorial will really be fine.i can make sharp things with subsurf right now actually(as can be seen on my images) but you know the problem,we want it to be regionally selective.
i better play with it more :-?
piterx

edit: i am adding my late in the night model.extruded,loop cutted and edge slided…did almost everything i know …but…new problems:)

*this time the rook body(lower) is not sharp as we wanted but just new problems.have a look to image pls.

[Duoas (Michael Thomas Greer)]

Sorry to be so late in responding (I had some trouble finding this post too…)

Anyway, the problem you’re having is because you are missing some dimentions in the edge loops. First, a picture:

The stuff I crudely painted in is where you should have edge loops. Currently you only have some loops around the bottom of each merlon. Since there isn’t anything else pulling on it (i.e. the yellow edge loop), it shrinks in.

Try to get the loops to look like I’ve painted in the picture, so that there are three complete loops following around the edges of each crenel. (You can’t see the back side of the merlon but the purple loop follows down and behind and up just like it does in front.)

Hope this helps.

[piterx]

i am afraid i dunno how to create those extras…

[Fligh]

K, for the Knife Tool and (experiment on a dummy object to make up your own mind but I’d say) use LoopCut.

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[bannerboy]

A while ago, I made a chess set (I never actually made the knight), and I thought it turned out pretty good:

here’s the .blend file, you can look at the meshes:

www.praiseworthybooks.com/jason/chess.blend

[piterx]

@Fligh %

K, for the Knife Tool and (experiment on a dummy object to make up your own mind but I’d say) use LoopCut.

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i know the K and loopcut however it does not work on my case.Duoas advices some new loopcuts however i can not see them when i try to appy K>Loopcut on the mesh…