I’m trying to maintain good topology, and i know this is probably extremely simple, but even things like the hole for the button is a challenge for me. so it was worth it.
I’m not sure how to go about modeling the six notches, circled in red, near the top of the light: (sorry about blurry pics)
I think I’m having the same problem with one of my own projects.
I’m probably newer to this than you, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to add the geometry I need without generating triangles… which I only recently learned that Triangles have been the cause of multiple huge headaches in the appearance of my models.
Subdivision adds triangles.
I can’t get the effect I need with the Knife tool (I might not be using it right?)
And I don’t know how to make Extrude+Scale fit my needs.
I tried to roughly duplicate the ring with the notches only to run into the exact same problem that’s barring me elsewhere.
How would I go about getting the verts I need to turn those triangles into quads?
EDIT: I figured out how to manually go about deleting faces/vertices in a manner that accomplished something similar to what is needed, but it would still present problems and is a boatload of work…
Hopefully an experienced Blender can help us out :\
@wyswig
select the face (Circled in Red) in face mode then extrude them out. @Luk3ling
select the face in face mode and press E, then esc or righ click. press w and select smooth or press s to scale done your new extrude , then extrude up or down to your liking.
@Shane
I’ve been using that tactic a lot when modeling hard surfaces (To harden edges while ‘smooth shading’ is enabled), it’s the exact effect I want, but i only want it applied to as few faces as possible, not the entire loop around the mesh. (I don’t want the extra geometry, for the sake of low poly count) @dukejib
That’s what I was referring to when i said Extrude/Scale not fitting my needs. A brilliant trick that would work wonders on organic appendages and the like, but I’m trying to model the exhaust of a spacecraft with segmented plates around the burners.
Maybe that would be better left to the texturing process instead of trying to make it a physical feature of the model?
Perhaps you would be better off leaving it to texturing rather than try to model it if you are looking for a low poly count because I can’t see any other way around it.
The simplist way in my opinion would be to remake this using 48 verticies in your circle, which would then give you enough geometry to cleanly model these sections in.
As you have 6 sections you want to cut out, make your models defining shape circles have a verticy count that has a multiple of 6 until you have enough geometry to add in the detail. This isn’t ideal for low poly modeling however.
Adding edge loops to increase detail level if you are modeling in circles will give you some undesirable flat points if you intend to use a subdivision modifier. Start from the challenging sections and work outwards from them is my advice.
Luk3ling: Welcome to BlenderArtists!
i dont think thats exactly my problem, but as Shane Plew said i think the best way to go about that is by adding loop cuts.
It doesnt really bother me, but just for the record, hijacking a thread (posting your own question in someone elses thread) is generally frowned upon. dont be afraid to start a new thread!
paulsgruff: Wow…that is extremely helpful and exactly the type of advice i was looking for. I’m still a little unclear about a few things:
to calculate the initial number of verts, you just picked any multiple of 6?
as you said,
Adding edge loops to increase detail level if you are modeling in circles will give you some undesirable flat points
i see now that my model has these flat points, from when i modeled the hole for the button.
so how would you go about keeping it rounded?
the way i made the hole was:
Added a new circle mesh at the point that i wanted the hole.
Added a shrinkwrap modifier so it conforms to the roundness of the flashlight body
added vertical and horizontal loopcuts on the flashlight and snapped them to the verts of the “reference circle”
so iguess where i went wrong was adding those vertical (i.e. longitudal) loop cuts. but how else can i get that circular hole shape?
I just chose 48 as it gave me enough verticies to to create the shape roughly and still be able to add in some slight roundness to the grooves. My mesh has far larger grooves that are closer together than the ones in your reference photos. It all depends on the level of accuracy and detail you want really. You could achieve similar results with less verticies and edge creasing too if you needed something lower poly.
If you have 6 grooves though then it makes sense to have your circle have a multiple of 6 verticies. If it had 8 grooves I’d use a circle that had a multiple of 8 - it just makes it easier to accurately position things and keep it all looking smooth.
I’m not going to try to explain a good way to cut the hole into the mesh because I believe that this has already been done (and far better than I could try to explain it in words) on this Blender Cookie video tutorial: http://vimeo.com/6503085
You are right that you shouldn’t add any extra longitudinal loops. You can have as many circumferential ones as you like, and you can increase the density of vertices locally.
But for a simple circular hole, you don’t really need very many vertices:
