Help with remodeling- Instancing objects along a 'tictac'-shape

[Apois]

Sorry if the title makes absolutely no sense.

I’ve recently started a random time-burner project of remodeling a gun from a game into a HD version of itself. (Sunshot/destiny 2)

Thing is, I have absolutely no clue how to approach remodeling the magazine, (see images or .blend for reference)

[Album] imgur.com

I do understand that Ill probably have to model a ‘tic tac’ shape and then apply the dimple-object as some sort of boolean operation, but I cant for the life of me find out how I would instance said… “dimple-object” like in the reference- specifically in these offset circles of 8, where around the cylindrical part of the object, they’d be pointing along the normal.

Any suggestions how I could approach this? Maybe even a method that wouldnt leave me with a bunch of “funky boolean’d topology”
Thx

Funky Magazine.blend (226.9 KB)

[moonboots]

You could use the Tissue addon (included in Blender). Create the tictac shape from a 16/8 vertex UV Sphere:

Select all in Edit mode and press Ctrl E > Un-Subdivide (choose Iteration > 1 in the Operator box):

Create this second object:

Keep it selected, shift select the tictac, in the N panel > Edit > Tissue Tool, press Tesselate:

Go in Edit mode, press Alt M to Merge by Distance in order to delete the overlapping vertices:

Apply a Smooth modifier to make the shape rounder, give it Shade Smooth and a Subdivision Surface modifier, correct the top of the topology to make the holes circular:

[Apois]

Small update.

1. The base mesh (aka the tictac) I needed needed a bit of modifying to make the nubs line up. Note the line of faces going through the middle, making it symmetrical.

2. While the tessellation method works, it does end up distorting the nubs a lot, due to the original faces not being even squares (also using tissue makes everything lag, tho that might be cuz Im on 2.9 or something)

is there any way I could avoid this distortion?

[moonboots]

make sure that the original shape has good squares, also, you can stretch it, on mine it was mainly the top (and bottom) which were significantly deformed, I could easily correct with a bit of scale, then you don’t have to mirror all the nubs, you can mirror with header menu > Mesh > Symmetrize and choose the axis in the Operator box. Also, you can delete the most little nubs on the top as it looks like they are not in your original picture

[yogyog]

Like your aproach (I have to look into the tissue addon!) But… would it be better to start with an icosphere? That way… you have to work in triangles, but you won’t get the faces getting smaller towards the end.

[moonboots]

It doesn’t seem to work but I may be missing something…

But I think with the method I explain it just needs a bit of corrections but nothing too complicated in my opinion (select a nub, shift numpad 7 to align the view, choose Transform Orientations > VIew, scale on the right axis, do it for 2 nubs, symmetrize, and delete the ultimate ones as it looks like there are not in the original image)

There must be other solutions though…

if you need to add small ones on the top:

[Apois]

Im honestly confused as to why something so “simple” has been so hard to make.
I kinda have to correct every nub, or well, I dont know.

[moonboots]

oh I didn’t know you had the original one as a mesh, how does the wireframe look like?

Another solution is to start from a cube that you subdivide with smooth at 1 to make it a sphere, un-subdivide, then make it a tictac:

need corrections as well though (and the original grenade looks more like my first solution, i.e. UV sphere):

[Apois]

There is a blend file at the top which has that object

the details are added in through its normal map- which is what Im trying to recreate with actual mesh

[moonboots]

ok hard to say how they did it because it’s all triangulate
maybe someone has a better solution, mine is pretty quick but there may be another

[Apois]

Bit of a late reply but I did manage to find a way to recreate the object “relatively” accurately by first making a very rough tictac, adding some of the protrusions and then simplifying everything by abusing mirror modifiers for some radial symmetry. That way by editing just these “half-nubs” I can still relatively easily get a uniform shape. The rest is just manually moving and scaling stuff around