Thanks again Michael - The image below points to the areas to be trimmed. Those trimmed surfaces will then need to have chamfers or fillets added to them to create some depth and volume. I won't be attempting the interior, just need to get the outside looking right.






The image below has all of what needs to be rolled edges highlighted by MoI selection. These lines need to be rounded off rather than coming to a sharp edge. The other edges don't really need to be rounded as they are fairly accurate with the way that they just alter how light bounces across the surfaces.




I hope you can understand what it is i am trying to get across - Surfaces that are timmed then get the trimmed edge either offset or extruded as to have another surface to fillet. I choose fillets as they are more rounded than the blend which has that "s" type of shape to it and just don't work right in this situation. I have not found a way in MoI to extract what Rhino calls an isocurve which would have been more suitable for doing a subtle blend of the connecting sub surfaces to create the more massive surface.

Michael - "Just in general vehicle modeling is one of the more challenging and advanced types of projects to undertake, by the way."

Oh yes, I have been trying to master this art-form for years. I can do things like bottles, pistons, nuts n bolts and all that kind of modelling with no problems, that's why I can't grasp why I can't do vehicles. The only one i have managed to complete is an old 1950's bedford van as shown below.



Many thanks for the offer of help Michael - It's appreciated.


Martin

Hi Martin, so trimming those marked areas should not be a problem you can do the trim at any point I would think.

re: filleting - you will definitely have significant problems filleting the areas that you show there with this kind of fragmented "lots of separate sub patch" type modeling technique.

It's difficult in general for the filleter to handle cases where 2 surfaces come together at only a slight crease where they are like within 5 to 10 degrees of being smooth with one another but not actually totally smooth. That kind of only slight sharpness usually means that the fillets that would be generated are very small in size particularly in corner juncture areas where multiple fillets are colliding together. The whole process of intersecting and cutting back fillets that meet at a juncture point tends to get confused when shallow angle corners since the fillets are close to having overlapping surface areas instead of having a sharp intersection line between them, and it also causes problems when the corner patch itself is extremely thin or slivery.

Also having more complex topology with multiple edges coming together at one juncture point also makes it hard for the corner aptch to be generated, so like for example this area here in your model is unlikely to be filletable:



Also areas like this where you only want to smooth some edges and not all of them can also make it difficult for the area at the juncture to be fillable:



Usually the best way to generate smoothness in areas like that is to build them out of larger surfaces instead of using fragmented sub patches. You can also build a surface to be extended and broader than you actually need the final result to be and then trim away some parts of it - it can often be easier to shape a more simplified 4-sided extended surface rather than trying to build surfaces that all directly hug every outline of your final result.

Also although you mentioned you don't like Blend , it may be better route for connecting up some areas of a model like this rather than fillet.

You're basically into an area of quite advanced surface modeling doing this kind of stuff, and there are some kinds of advanced surfacing tools that MoI simply does not have yet, like a "MatchSrf" tool for editing one surface to make it smooth to another one at an untrimmed edge. You may get good results taking your model into Rhino and using Rhino's MatchSrf or Patch tools to edit some areas of the model to make some smoother areas.

I do plan on working on adding more of these advanced surfacing tools in MoI v3 but for now using Rhino alongside of MoI may be your best bet for doing advanced surface "trim and patch" type modeling.

- Michael

Hi Martin,

> that's why I can't grasp why I can't do vehicles.

Vehicles are a fundamentally more difficult shape to create - they are more towards the "organic" side of shaping with a lot of subtle variation in their shapes and not as fully defined just by 2D profile curves like other kinds of models.

They're kind of in a gray area in fact where you may be better off using tools that are more focused on organic character modeling to them like sub-d modeling tools.

- Michael

Thanks fort he reply Michael,

> They're kind of in a gray area in fact where you may be better off using tools that are more focused on organic character modeling to them like sub-d modeling tools.

You know what - That's got to be the best description of the scenario anyone has ever offered. I have tried my hand with Sub D but I find it way more difficult than Nurbs. The surfaces generated by Nurbs are wonderfully smooth and give pretty much instant gratification, sadly i struggle with poly modelling and the amount of time that needs to be invested in that technique makes it somewhat prohibitive to me - Instant results and the "honest" feedback that Nurbs delivers is far superior.

But i will give this lambo a try in Rhino and see what happens with an import to MoI and then Export to Obj to try in Blender Cycles. It's a shame I don't have more time to play with MoI as I would love to work on an exporting script for an external rendering engine such as LuxRender.

Martin

Hi Martin,
Can you post some of the sample surfaces that you want to see this on? You can just break out one area with the curves highlighted that you would like to see smoothed out.. Since you are already doing patch modeling, I may be able to show you a method to get the curvature you want.. (Be sure to include one of the complex juncture areas Michael is speaking about... The front fendfer area would be easy and not present any problems, but I dont want to lead you with this, if it cant do the other areas you need done)

Thanks for offering to take a look BurrMan, Here is the exported 3DM file. On the photo you will see the angular "seams", for want of a better word. Although these areas are sharp compared to most other cars, these are still like rolled seams. Feel free to play with it and see what you can come up with, as I am positive the error is with my modelling technique and not MoI's toolset. There are more fancy commands in Rhino, but they are still using the basic infrastructure that MoI has, more like refined scripts.

The area round where the door will fit needs to have more volume, as said in previous posts, I normally offset an edge and then loft them together to get surface which can then be Filleted.

Hope this all makes sense, it would be cool to learn how to do this part of modelling vehicles as it's always where i goof it up.

Martin

Part of your problem is the way you have built these surfaces. They will not join together, because there are edges that are not shared.

If you are going to make a patchwork type object, you have to make sure that each edge is joined to it's neighbours. Use the join command after you create each piece. There is a script to show open edges which you also need to use, otherwise you will overlook some edges that have not joined properly. When you get an eror you have to deal with it there and then. Going back later is not always possible.

Thanks for your reply SteveMacc, most of the surfaces will marry up, but the naked edges are not what the problem is, or I assume not - All of the surfaces need to have a fillet or blend applied first, and then they would be joined up after that process. If I join tem up now, the fillet wont work as the surfaces are joined - pop them apart again and it will work. If there was an Isocurv extraction facility then it would be as easy as trimming and then either blending or doing a 3 point arc and a twin rail sweep.

Martin

Hi Martin, you can fillet 2 separate unjoined surfaces but when you do that it performs a surface-surface fillet operation which is a little bit different than an edge-based fillet which is more usually used and which requires things to be joined.

Surface-surface fillets can indeed construct fillet surfaces in some kinds of difficult situations where the edge based one can fail, but one reason why is that unlike the edge-based one it does not try to construct corner patches where multiple fillets are coming together. So if you do surface-surface filleting you will usually have to do a lot of more low level trimming and manual construction of juncture areas.

re: Isoparm extraction, that is on my list of stuff to add, for the time being if you need isoparm extraction you would need to use Rhino in combination with MoI to do that particular operation though.

- Michael

I think you may run into problems with edges like this:



Personally, I would try to align surfaces as I built them rather than relay on trims and fillets later.

Here's another problem if you try to blend with G2 continuity, which you need for cars:



This is a problem related to the other thread discussing patches with continuity. In order to get curvature continuity at the edge, the actual surface created is wobbly. In order to avoid this you need the edges to be exactly aligned, then cut back by some distance on each side. If one edge is on or above the virtual intersection of the surfaces, you will get a wobble.

I have built a car model in direct Solidworks (although most of the ones I have done have been done using sub-D poygon methods). The approach used was to build a spline cage covering the whole side of the car, then creating one large surface. Details like the wheel arches, etc, were cut out afterwards. You can break down a car in to 4 or 5 main surfaces, that are then detailed afterwards.

Here are some renders of the Camaro I did in Solidworks:







There were some really tricky surfacing issues involved in the detail, which I don't think MoI could handle with the current toolset. This model took far longer to produce in Nurbs than it would have done in Sub-D. As it is a conceptual exercise and not engineering detail, nothing was gained by doing it in SW.

Yeah, MoI could do that, but these particular curves would have to be re-worked a bit. Here is a video that shows what Steve was talking about with regard to the joined surfaces. Fixing those, would allow a fillet in alot of those areas. In the last part of the video, i also show where, when you have an edge/angle that disappears or creates an issue for the filleter, you can trim the surfaces back and use the blend tool to fill in the gap. If you needed to do this, then this would need to be a "pre-thought" modeling method, because it would require you to have your surfaces extended "past the boundries" where you have defined the junctures, then trim them back. It wont work going to "Just the boundry", like you see in the video. This is Michaels explanation that the surfaces need to be created "larger", then trimmed.



If you need an example of what that looks like, i can present one here. You excluded the surfaces that had the more complex junctions from this model..

Wow - Lots of replies :)

Michael - Thanks for the advice, it certainly explains why i was having problems doing the fillets and blends, will have to wait and see how it goes with this one. All of the patch's down the left side now marry up, that was fun killing curves and stealing edges - but at least it now forms on big mass. One thing for sure though Michael, after reverting back to Rhino to try some things, your interface was sorely missed and i soon became miffed with Rhino, MoI's surface construction is much cleaner too!

SteveMacc - Nice work with solid works, I tried it on a 30 day download but it was way to cumbersome for my delicate grey matter. However i have followed your advice and made all patch's unite. The enclosed 3DM now has the image guides embedded so feel free to have a play at smoothing the seams provided or creating your own from the prints.

Same applies to anyone, just be kind and show me how you would do it in MoI.

Martin

Hi BurrMan - Dude you went to some trouble to explain the process there. Sadly I was replying to Michael & SteveMacc and missed the video post, but i have watched it and it explains really well, I especially like the trick with the edge stealing and the offsetting - Lesson learnt and taken on board!

A real big thank you

Martin

Nice video Burrman!

Marc

Thanks to one and all for your tips, here's the latest effort ... Comments are as always welcomed

Martin

Well this third incarnation is definitely going better than the other two, but i need some help again ...

As can be seen from the first screen grab, this model is coming along,



But is there a more efficient way of creating this kind of grill, the two of those add 15mb to the file, that seems rather heavy. I have already exported them out as there are another eight of the blighters to do which will push the model over 70mb at this rate, they are a networked surface but are simple planes, so any pointers would be good.



TIA

Martin

Hi Martin, usually it is much more efficient to use texture mapping inside of your rendering program to do small repetitive patterned detail like that, rather than actually modeling it directly.

- Michael

Thanks Michael, i know materials can save a huge amount of modelling, especially bumps and displacements and of course grid like items with holes. I just queried it as the those two grills alone are 15mb where as as a medium high resolution OBJ file (Angle 5, Divide 10 as planes) is 2mb in size, which is much more acceptable.

Martin