How would you model a basket ball with the black lines slightly beveled in, like in a real ball?
I’ve seen several video tutorials for it in 3Dsmax and other programs but none that can be replicated in blender, it seems that the edge tools used aren’t available in blender.
Also I found this excellent texture on blender Open Material Repositorywhich is brilliant, just apply it to a sphere and you’re done, but when looking at the actual textures used i get curious… how do you make such textures?
Using this 3DS tutorial for the basket ball, i tried to write a simple version using Blender tools.
http://www.3dvalley.com/tutorials/modeling-a-highly-detailed-basketball-in-3d-studio-max
Read it first as the following assume you noticed the screenshots of the tutorial from this link.
Then using Blender 2.49b as i’m not sure 2.5x has a good enough Bevel function yet or even if it has a Bevel tool in edit mode at all (so if there’s no Bevel tool in 2.5x , you should really use 2.49b for this tutorial)
First, add a new UV Sphere, with the settings made to 16 instead of the default 32
Delete the lower half of it
Then in the pole of the half-sphere, delete this vertice
Then selecting each opposite vertices 2 at a time, press F to create an edge linking them, like this :
Finally, select those new edges, and press the Subdivide button on your Blender interface :
This will have added a vertice in the center of each of those edges
Now you can make faces like showed in the 3DS version of the tutorial , and move/scale the vertices according to the tutorial screenshots, to obtain something like this :
Then as mentionned in the tutorial, move the vertices to obtain something rounded as the sphere poles, as up to now, those new faces make the poles of the sphere flat.
After that, the mirroring of of your half sphere can be done with a simple mirror modifier to obtain a full sphere with both poles using the same topology you just did.
Add and apply a Subsurf modifier to get the topology looking like the one in the 3DS version of the tutorial
I attached the sphere .blend obtained up to that point to this post so you can then experiment with the bevel yourself, that’s the end of the 1st page of the 3DS version of the tutorial too.
Now by pressing ALT + Right Click, select this edge loop :
Press W then select Bevel , instead of doing it with the mouse, type 0.015 and press enter to get the bevel creating the kind of topology the 3DS tutorial show.
Then select each newly created edge loop one by one, press W then Bevel and type 0.003.
You’ll obtain this that look like the 3DS tutorial show :
Do the same for every of the edge loops mentionned in the 3DS tutorial, so you obtain :
Go into face selection mode, and with ALT+Right Click (and SHIFT too) near the correct edge of a face so Blender now what direction is the face loop you want to select, then have all the faces that loop like this selected this way :
Change the default Global into Normal :
Press S to scale the selected face along their own normals (do it manually with the mouse, i didn’t tried to come with any values here) :
That done, go into Edge selection mode, and with ALT+Right Click (+SHIFT) select those edges :
Press W then Bevel and type 0.003
That should be it, in Object mode, click on Smooth (if you were in sharp view) and add an Edge Split modifier
or better , instead of an edge split, add a Subsurf modifier if face count is not a problem for you , it should look better :
There may be a better method, but i didn’t spent more time on trying to find how to roughly do the same thing from the 3DS version of the tutorial, but it works nicely.
Playing a bit with subsurf (+ some crease) , and simple colored materials, with some usage of “voronoi” type of texture (resized) for the normals :
basketball1.blend (188 KB)
Nice method. You need to post it up in the Tutorial section Rob.
Good idea, i reworked a bit the method made more screenshots to have my explanation more detailled steps by steps and posted it in the tutorial section, when a moderator will approve it , it should be available .
Hopefully it will help some people.
Robsoi, Fantastic 
I didn’t know about the bevel step, that’s where i got stuck.
Thanks for helping.
in latest 2.59 built i cannot find the bevel tool with W key
where is it located ?
and if a use the bevel modifier it apply it all around not a the selected loop !
thanks
happy 2.5
Ricky, i didn’t think about it at first but the W+Bevel isn’t included in 2.59
I got it from Josh Wedlakes “Edge Tools” which he seemed to have made for 2.55
http://www.pasteall.org/17726/python
Cheers
does it come in the package for script or totaly independant script
cause there are other edge tool i think too!
and what happen to thiebevel in tool bar it’s gone or what ?
wher do you put in add on folder
then how to activate it
in which categorie do yo enablei t ?
thanks
happy 2.5
Press the little “copy to clipboard” icon up in the top right corner beside the flip list.
Create a blank text document, paste the code and save as (plain text) Edge_Tools.py
In Blender user Preference->Add-Ons use Install Add-On, then enable it and you should have it available with W in edit mode.
If you need to install it manually i guess you put the file in your scripts->addons folder
And enable it in the Add-Ons->Mesh section
i addd the script in the addon folder
but when i tried to isntall it i gives an error that it i in the path for addons!
and where do you find it in the addon window
is it mesh or other categorie?
if it is with 3Dview i’m using the modified pan and rotate and this seems to interfere with other
script using the cursor in 3D view
may be i won’t work unless i remove this pan rotate modification!
thanks
Strange that it gives you error 
Maybe you’re file wasn’t saved as pure text, that was the problem for me first.
It should install fine like this
http://screencast.com/t/Ikpvyc6kkGe
ok got it to working!
i vaguely remember seeing this a few months ago!
now is it possible to add it to addon folder to it will always be there in user addons?
or you have to install this eveytime you start blender ?
thanks
happy 2.5
Once installed through the “Install Add-On” button and enabled it should be available for any 2.59 installation.
For me it installs in my Blender scripts folder in my user account in OS X.
But it’s probably a good idea to have all scripts saved somewhere so you can quickly get them when needed :eyebrowlift:
One thing i’ve noticed is that when selecting several loops and doing the W+Bevel thing, it’s becomes quite unresponsive (slow).
But hey… at least we can do the edge bevel thingy :eyebrowlift:
good to have it back
but i think there is more then one script for this
don’t know i tough thsi was included in on of the contrib script
but cannot remember wheren it is!
anyway it’s back and working again and fun!
thanks man