Hi Guys
making the 3d model of the 16-17 wrench was very difficult for me, especially the soft fitting between the handle and the wrench head.

Do you have any tips for doing better? Thanks.

Mario

Hi Mario, transitions can tend to be the most difficult area to model, especially when they need to be more gradual and seamless.

One thing that can help is making a kind of larger and more fundamental transition in overall extended surface form rather than finishing separate individual chunks and then trying to fill in seamless connections afterwards.

So for your case here one "seamless" area is you want a transition between these 3 planes:



So if you take a step back and think about the simplest underlying form that could make that full shape, it could be something like this, here modeled with 3 lines with blend curves between and then extruded:



Then when you extrude up the full outline in the Top view you'll be able to use boolen merge to cut all the pieces against each other and extract the core.

- Michael

The next steps look something like this - mirror the 3 level plane to make the top and bottom forms, extrude top outline and use boolean difference to cut it:







- Michael

And you can get the same result directly from just curves by making the top/bottom 3 level lines into a closed curve and then using boolean intersection between the 2 closed curves like this:





If you set it up like that it will be easier to make adjustments on the profile curve and quickly get the combined result with just one step.

- Michael

Then when you put on fillets as the last step, I used Edit > Trim to cut these edges to make it easier to do the variable radius fillet:



Then when you fillet the top faces (for filleting here just select top 5 faces, quicker than selecting edges), you start with the small radius and then add a point set at these points and use a larger radius for those:



- Michael

So the kind of key line of reasoning is to make a seamless area be more like an extended block of stock material. Then that block will be cut to impose a border upon it but the surface shaping remains the same.

It's kind of similar to how the actual physical machining process might go.

It's difficult to get this type of shaping by building pieces separately and trying to fill in pieces in a "patch by patch" type way.

Basically when you try to fill in a patch the boundaries become a major influence on the resulting surface shape. When you build a simplified and extended piece that forms the final boundary by being cut, the surface shape is not at all influenced by the cut, the surface shape comes directly from the original extended block.

Hope that makes sense!

- Michael

THANK YOU, Michael, for your response and examples.
You are a fantastic reference point for any problems and difficulties. Sincerely thank you.
Mario R.

This is oh-so frustrating when Michael shows how to solve a particular problem. It's always easy, elegant and evident.

And I struggle drawing a circle ... ;)

Thanks Michael

Hi Ditto, it can take a while to get used to the optimal strategy for NURBS modeling.

Usually though it's about constructing larger extended shapes that are cut with booleans. If you find yourself building surfaces by filling in a patchwork between 3D edges rather than primarily using 2D curves that can be a sign you're going in the wrong direction.

It's very different than the strategy used in polygon mesh modeling.

There are some tips here for people coming from a polygon mesh modeling background:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4865.2

- Michael