Digital Art Zone

Hi Hexagoners

I have been experimenting with Hex.for a few months now, I really am trying hard with it, we all know it is a frustrating piece of kit and it crashes at the drop of a hat but I sort of like it.

I am modelling a fret board for a ukulele, but in this simple test case lets call the object a domino.

All I want to do is have the dots a different material to the domino without the mesh getting chopped up and messed up when sent to Daz Studio.

I understand shading domains, and have tried all the boolean operations and various methods of tessellation, “tessellation I feel is the clue to my problem.”

This is most probably a general modelling technique although since Hex. has it’s own way of breaking stuff I thought to ask for assistance here.

Any help will be very much welcome.

Thanks

TapiocaTundra - 12 July 2012 12:25 PM

... and have tried all the boolean operations ...

I generally avoid boolean operations like the plague.. they are notorious for giving problems, especially when trying to export/import. They tempt you with their simplicity like a heart shaped box of chocolates with a bomb inside ;p

I agree Gedd but how else do I get the job done?
This should be such a simple thing to do.

Booleans are really just a short-cut to what you could do the long way around - so you make your choice - take the short-cut and spend extra time fixing the mess, or take longer to model it right first time.  Mostly they are unnecessary, but can be managed if you understand the basics.

Here’s one of many ways to make that domino - you are right, judicious tessellation is the clue:-)

booleans are a spawn of the devil….

you could also just UV map your object, and have the map ‘paint’ in the fret dots…

or do what i do.. .play the fiddle and you have no frets to worry about…

Well thank you Roygee for taking time to set up a demo. I think I get the no boolean box model technique, although surprised at the use of smoothing, maybe in the case of my fretboard, maybe a little over the top although the domino might like it still looking for alternatives, or preferably the best procedure though, so more comments are most welcome.
Thanks again Roygee special to take time like that.

I don’t understand why you need them to be 2 different materials.
 
Just map the domino and apply a texture map with 2 dots on it.
 
Are the dots supposed to move around or change size or shape?
 

Not the same at all afreaginname in fact I do not want to use maps only materials. In Daz Studio and Poser.

hiker_1, you have to be able to play the fiddle to use Hexagon!

TapiocaTundra - 12 July 2012 03:34 PM

I do not want to use maps only materials

 
Then your ONLY option is Roygee’s suggestion. The faces of your dots will be one domain, and the faces on the domino will all be a different domain.
 
As long as you keep in mind that without UV mapping, these domains can ONLY be colored and not textured, you’ll be fine.
 

tapioca—well… i use hexagon and i play the fiddle… although there is some discussion about whether i play the fiddle or play *with* a fiddle…  maybe if i practice my fiddle more i’ll get better at hexagon too!

In fact I made the ukulele some weeks ago using Sketchup but as I wanted try and make a nice version for Poser or Daz Studio have had to practically re-build the darn thing, here is a cheap Bryce Pro render, just with materials, Bryce can be very forgiving on .obj imports.
If my old Dad had got me a Rickenbacker 330 instead of a uke I might not have been plodding around with 3D stuff and been very wealthy by now

I’m not sure we’re speaking the same language here.
 
Earlier when I suggested you use a texture map to place dots on the domino, you said “I do not want to use maps only materials”.
 
And here you post a picture of a render and say “here is a cheap Bryce Pro render, just with materials”.
 
Here’s my confusion: You are CLEARLY using texture maps on the body. That’s the only way you can have that wood texture on there.
 
When you create a mesh, all the faces are automatically assigned to a default material called “def_surf_mat” which isn’t visible in hexagon. For user convenience, these faces are called “unassigned faces” in the materials sidebar.
 
When you assign some of the faces in the model to a shading domain, it becomes a “material”.
 
This material can then be colored to the user’s choice, but it can’t be textured with a map.
 
UV mapping a model tells hexagon where/how to place sections of texture maps, so that once UV mapped, a material can be either colored or have a texture map applied or both.
 
At the very least, the body of your uke has been UV mapped and a “wooden” texture map image has been assigned to the body’s material.
 
So I’m very confused by what you mean by “I do not want to use maps only materials”.

At the very least, the body of your uke has been UV mapped and a “wooden” texture map image has been assigned to the body’s material

Not necessarily - it could be done with a procedural texture.  I usually use procedurals and only UV map for 3d painting or painting in a 2d editor.

Just to illustrate the point on Boolean - I can’t imagine doing the attached any other way than with Boolean.  It could be done, but I’d hate to be the one to do it.

Now this renders perfectly in Hex, Carrara, Poser, Bryce and Blender, but Daz Studio makes a total mess of it.  Could spend a couple of days fixing it for Studio, but why bother when there are decent render engines out there.

BTW, the domino did not actually need that level of smoothing - I wanted to get the dots nice and round and recessed.  I fully agree that the best method to do what you are wanting with a low poly count is to UV map and paint the dots.

Hi afreaginname thanks

Here’s my confusion: You are CLEARLY using texture maps on the body. That’s the only way you can have that wood texture on there.

I get what you are saying, I understand how to map with textures, to a point.

Sorry to destroy your theory that my render was made using texture maps though, I have to tell you that they are all procedural materials used in the image,(all maths and no maps) clever isn’t it.
I do not think you have used Bryce before, might pay you to understand a little more about other software before making sweeping statements about how things work
I got the wood material from http://www.tonylynchdesigns.com/bryce_materials.htm
If you feel you need to check it out, there are lots and I think rather good.

Thanks for the back up Roygee, boolean and domains is really the way I am thinking though, you see some fret boards are overly ornate with mother of pearl inlay and so forth, it might be nice to get some transparency, reflectance and volume into the materials, also to be able to swap the decoration of the inlay about within Poser or Daz. I think I may have made a step further.

Very nice work there Tapioca.

The thing about booleans is that they will always leave triagular faces or co-planar faces.  Hexagon can get rid of some of those under Utilities>Merge Triangular Facets, but not all of them will be merged.  Lightwave has a very nice merge utility.

One can go ahead and use booleans.  What I did in the image below is give the cube some divsions when I made, then subdived the sphere before the boolean operation.  One will end up with triangular faces, but the will be uniform for the most part.

There are still major problems with it though if one brings it to DAZ Studio Render with artifacts.

Edit:  Added Carrara Render

Yep - when you understand the basics and are prepared to work within the limitations, they are fine - but best used only as a last resort.

Just for the heck of it, here’s another domino extruded from a hemisphere - many other ways of doing it.

Fretwork and inlays really brings out the strength of Hex in modelling with splines - they are so versatile.