Hi SurlyBird, some of the proportions here would need to be adjusted but this may give you an idea on how you could use a solids approach to building this rather than going patch-by-patch.

One part of particular interest is probably how the scalloped parts are done here - notice that I don't attempt to create those directly to their final edges but instead create them as a longer sweep that then gets intersected with other pieces. The final edges come from those intersections rather than as directly drawn curves.


I started by making a circle that I split in half and then stuck some pieces out like this:



That gets extruded:



Now select these other parts of the initial profile segments (note the bottom circle half is selected now and not the top half) :



Those also get extruded but not as far, that produces another solid which you boolean difference away from the first piece to produce this:



Now for the scallopy parts - draw in a path curve that looks something like this:



Then a closed profile curve that looks something like this:




Then use Sweep to take that profile along the path curve, to make the part that will cut the scallops out, like this:



That sweep solid gets mirrored to the other side, and then both pieces are used as cutting objects in boolean difference to make this result:



Then some other lines drawn in and boolean difference again to carve off other pieces:









So that's a pretty good illustration on how you would use a solid modeling approach keeping things more as solids at each step to build something like this, rather than going around and building it one small individual surface patch at a time.


One thing you do need to be careful of when making something bendy like the scallop cutter piece here, is that it does not bend so tightly that it starts to bunch up and intersect itself.

- Michael

Or another way that might be a bit easier to think of for building the starting piece would be something like this:

Extrude this piece short:



Extrude this circle long:



Then boolean union them together to make this:




Then continue cutting and slicing parts off as above...


- Michael

Michael,

Thanks so much for breaking the process down in such clear steps. I really appreciate your taking the time to demonstrate how things in the solids world work. I had attempted something similar to the second method you described (albeit it was still too complicated), but the scallops were still giving me grief. I like both those approaches a lot. I'm beginning to grasp it little by little and I must say, I really prefer this method of modeling over the tedious pushing and pulling of verts that I end doing in a poly modeler. I can make many, many attempts at something without feeling too invested in the process - something I never get with poly modelers. It can be a real hassle to make minute adjustments with polys, but it is *so* easy to refine a curve and regenerate a surface in MoI. Thanks for making such a great tool!

:) I knew you'd jump on this Michael once I asked for the reference photos, If you didn't, I was going to eventually.
It's the same approach that I would of taken.

Thanks!

Hi SurlyBird, yeah definitely the cool part about NURBS modeling is that you can often make things happen quickly by using some drawn 2D profile curves.

One of the key things is to think about extended shapes - if your desired result has a kind of irregular shape in some area (like with the scalloped part in this case), try thinking if the irregularity is actually more of a cut away of a larger extended simple surface.

Then if you can build those more simple extended surfaces and cut them back or intersect them with other parts, that's when you're really using the toolset to its greatest advantage over polygon vertex pushing.

But it can take a while to get used to this method if you come from a polygon modeling background since it is quite a bit different.

When the model you're trying to make is not easily defined by 2D profile curves, like if it has a lot of little lumps and bumps in it or stuff like that, that's when poly vertex pushing would tend to be the way to go.

- Michael

Hi Danny, yup it turned out to be a good example of what that means to build an extended surface!

- Michael

Damn I love these kinds of threads!

-Will