Digital Art Zone

I like to make my models as simple as possible with the least amount of POLYS.  I think using the smooth tool in HEX and later in Carrara is the best! Now in Carrara you can CREASE line edges if you wish and suing that along with an over all SMOOTH works out pretty good.

But to find out if its gunna work in certain areas I have to EXPORT our of HEX then go into Carrara and go about a long time creasing and smoothing certain edges to see if it’s gunna work then go back to HEX and add more geometry if I need then export and edges it all over again???

IS THERE ANY WAY to CREASE EDGES in HEX 2.5????

Try the smoothing break tool found under the surface modeling tab. 

NOPE NO JOY! but thanks for the hint

Hmm, did the tool not work or did you not like the results? What edges are you trying to crease?

Well it seemed to move the geometry somewhat but did NOT CREASE to edge like I would be accustom to. The Phantom has a lot of flowing smooth surfaces BUT there are hard sharp edges such as where the CANOPY area meets the rest of the fuselage. I guess I will have just do it in carrara. BUT I have to admit a long time ago I told myself one day if I can model the F4 Phantom in ANY modeling program THEM I would call my self a professional 3 D Animator/modeler. So far its looking great! I figured if I can make the fuselage the rest would be typical straight forward modeling work!

Now to be a SUPER Talented Modeler i guess I have to make a Merkava Israeli tank!

This is a free model from one of my hero 3D Modeler! at

http://www.colacola.se/

Even he uses high ploy counts and after careful evaluation of HIS F-4 I decided to do my own! His model in an later model with a GUN under the chin and a long stretched nose. I actually thought of modifying his to use but couldn’t accept CHEESE!

I just dont understand the high POLY count some people use IF smoothing is available?

can you believe thast is a free model! TURBOSQUID would want 300 buck for it

Hopefully someone with more Hex knowledge can help you with what you want. Only thing I can think of is to add an more edges where you want more of a crease.

RichardChaos - 01 June 2012 09:28 AM

Well it seemed to move the geometry somewhat but did NOT CREASE to edge like I would be accustom to. The Phantom has a lot of flowing smooth surfaces BUT there are hard sharp edges such as where the CANOPY area meets the rest of the fuselage

 
Are the canopy and fuselage all part of the same contiguous mesh? I would think you could solve your problem AND add realism by breaking the canopy glass, canopy frame and fuselage into different groups on the same mesh. Another advantage to doing that is that you can then assign transparency to the canopy glass.

RichardChaos - 01 June 2012 07:44 AM

IS THERE ANY WAY to CREASE EDGES in HEX 2.5????

The trick I’ve seen used to get a crease is to highlight the edges you want to stay creased.

Under vertex modelling is the edge tools

The third selection will allow you to pull new edges either side of the line.

When you make the new lines position them closely to the line you want to keep the edge on.

Hope this helps.

Pen

The closest you are going to get in Hex is chamfer. I don’t know of a way to set a crease value by itself.

Although thinking more about Pen’s post, that might be a better way to go.

admkrk - 01 June 2012 07:35 PM

The closest you are going to get in Hex is chamfer. I don’t know of a way to set a crease value by itself.

Although thinking more about Pen’s post, that might be a better way to go.

Chamfer would probably also work. I have only used it a few times though so can’t be sure.

Chamfer is equivalent to bevel in most other apps and generally the best way to go if the render isn’t going to be in the same app. creases can produce a lot of unwanted artifacts depending on the rendering app and the export format used. Hex can do some strange stuff with chamfer tho also depending on the geometry. Fillet(?) or what ever the op you said is called might work better depending on the mesh.

the way that you have the canopy and fuselage modeled as a single object, i’d go with Pendraia’s method to extracting two edges from an existing one…. this will give you a hard edge, but in the case of the edge of the canopy where it meets the fuselage and there is not only a hard edge, but an actual crease between the two, do the edge extraction and then select the original edge (which is now between two others) and scale it down, which will pull it back into a “V” shape… .this will give a hard edge *and*  a crease…..

your phantom is looking great… most of my short air force career was spent in phantom units and some of my most terrifying moments in flight were in the back seat of a F-4!

Both hardening the edges by adding more geometry, as well as using the break tool have their uses, depending on situation.

In this PT Boat, I used both - the keel is hardened by extra geometry and the hard line along the hull is by using break - both carry over to Carrara as creased.  Didn’t want to use extra geometry along the hull because that produced pinching at the ends and the design doesn’t allow for the extra geometry going all around the hull.

Using the break does, however, mean you have to do at least one level of smoothing.

In your case I would model the canopy separately - lot less hassle.

Cheers

I am not sure many of you have worked in Carrara and specially the vertex modeler, if you did you would understand what a CREASED line is in it and what I am trying to do in HEX. I know you can add geometry and edges to get a harder CREASE/edge.

I try to keep my Geometry as simple as possible and with HEX an carrara its fairly easy to within boundaries.

With the SMOOTHing in both HAX and Carrara there is no reason one cant do that. There area few areas of say this model one has to have more geometry.

In fact if you can see in image 3 I think that little air inlet scoop near the nose has more geometry than the whole fuselage.

Take note of have simple the geometry is BUT once SMOOTHED I think is just fine!