Hi guys, first post on BA :). I’m relatively new to Blender, so I decided to model the Serenity (from Firefly) to improve my skills. All went smooth however I bumped into an issue.
Basically, when I want to create certain details in the mesh like cutting ventilation holes, or creating windows, I subdivide the faces I want affected and do my thing. I prefer this to creating edge loops because the loops run through out the whole mesh, adding unnecessary clutter.
Anyway, subdivide was all fine and good, until I decided to use subsurf, where it created some nastiness to the surrounding faces, as indicated in the image below.
So I was wondering, what’s the best approach to create such details?
One more screen shot just to clarify the problem. I subdivided the faces in the middle to create the ventilation holes. Seems that the newly created vertices are connecting to the adjacent faces, creating some ugly onion-like shape…the whole thing looks like a mess.
So I need to know what’s a better alternative method to create such things, any help would be appreciated guys.
What you need to do is optimize your topology for the surface. In particular, you need to create a detail loop that surrounds each of the vents to prevent the artifacts on the surface.
Ideally you ought to avoid NGons (faces with more than 4 sides) on your final model when using Subdivision Surfaces. As you’ve discovered, these can subdivide in odd and inconsistent manners that result in those nasty artifacts.
My only issue with the extra loops is that some parts will look more ‘high-res’ than others, it can also cause unintentional creases as well when two or more loops are close together. These problems seems to be more prominent because I’m working with slightly rounded and uneven big surfaces. Even though I’ve separated the ship into various parts, parts are still big and not very uniform, that’s why I wanted to avoid adding the extra loops in the first place.
Looks like I have some more reading and practicing to do.
