Network seems a good candidate ?

Mmmhh,

when using Network on one of the tail parts, it seems not to work with n-sided patches, right?

Regards
Stefan

Not ? :)

I offer this method:



The same principle will work with network too.

Pilou, but what happens here, looks not good.

Thanks Pilou and Andrei, much appreciated!

@Andrei your solution looks very elegant, will try that out.

Best regards
Stefan

Andrei,

Could you omit those areas and use the blend command to smooth in those areas?

Michael T.

Good Andrei:you should mirror the railscale spine and join them
using the rail-scale just on the top you scale your sweep just in one direction
you need to have the rail-scale also on the bottom of surface
if not , the object is not symmetric
this is after a quick watching...maybe is wrong...check it out :)

Michael T. do nut understand, what do you mean?

M-Dynamics it mirrors automatically when apply rail-scale, no need do mirror it than join.

Hi Stefan, branching structures that are all smooth and melty at their junctures tend to be difficult to build with NURBS modeling. Structures like that are usually a lot easier to build with sub-d modeling instead.

You can sometimes use the technique shown here to do branches though:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4388.55

But my main advice would be not to build that kind of thing out of NURBS geometry, sub-d modeling is better suited for that kind of shape.

NURBS modeling is strong when much of your model is defined by 2D profile curves and has distinct cuts in it. Your model there is not a form like that at all, it's more organic blobby with branches, that's where sub-d modeling is strong.

- Michael

Thank you very much for your explanation Michael,

yes, i should better try to do this shape in sub-d. However, prior reading your reply i tried also Andrei's example which worked nicely, but imho did not matched the tail right, like getting very thin at the end. So i tried to model the profiles and the curves in MoI again and tried the "Cover Surface" function out in an old copy of ViaCAD. My humble approach one can see here, how the tail (were it's getting thinner at the end) should imho look like. After that i imported the cover surface and mirrored it in MoI and made also a solid out of it. But i'm not sure if this would represent a good smooth surface model...

Best regards
Stefan

Hi Stefan, yeah it's generally difficult to get a high level of smoothness with NURBS when building things in separate patches like this. Usually you have to do a blend or fillet to make a smooth connection, just constructing things adjacent to one another they won't be smooth. That's pretty different than sub-d modeling, where everything that's connected together in the sub-d control cage will get smoothed out.

Your model is fairly close to being smooth, you can more easily see the small creases between patches if you export to a pretty high density polygon mesh and turn on some reflective lighting (called "metallic lighting" in MoI under Options > View > Lighting options):



You could probably improve the smoothness of the model in those areas though by cutting away a little bit of area and then putting in blends, same technique like Andrei shows in the video above in this same thread.

But really both branching and smoothing at the same time just tends to fit a sub-d modeling toolset better.

- Michael

Futagoza,
this is how it can be don perfectly smooth in one surface piece.
I made it with loft (Loose, exact).

I tried to make the same thing with sweep but found it boring, can not get good result for 5 minutes and leave this method.. I like here Loft more.



I attached project file, you can download it and tweek it for your needs)

Loft the return! :)

Sometimes it can definitely help to build an extended shape like Andrei shows above and then slice off some extra area of it.

But that can also just push some problems further down the road if you want to continue to build new pieces onto the model as well, if what Stefan showed was only one portion of the whole smooth blobby model and not actually the final full shape.

The way Stefan sketched out the shape for that very first screenshot by having a sort of outline hull of your shape is just not a good way to approach NURBS modeling for making big smooth surfaces, that kind of "non-rectangular topology outline hull" really matches the way sub-d modeling works.

For NURBS modeling it's usually best to make smooth surfaces out of one single big surface which can then be trimmed to give more possibilities (what Andrei shows above is a good example). But the more that your model becomes a large and complex all smooth skin it generally becomes more and more of a candidate for sub-d modeling techniques instead.

NURBS modeling usually works well when there is more of a kind of "component" nature to the model, and you have fillets connecting different component pieces together.

When you are trying to do one big complex all smooth melty looking skin with not very distinguishable components in different areas, that just does not match the NURBS workflow very well.

- Michael

Pillou, Yep)) I'll be back)))

Michael,
>if what Stefan showed was only one portion of the whole smooth blobby model and not actually the final full shape.

I think he can show the full model, and I can try to make it)

Nice techniques Andrei, thanks for sharing.

Marc

Hi Michael and Andrei,

thanks again for explaining and showing a Loft solution again, much appreciated!

@Andrei, actually the first picture in this thread of the wires, was the whole model, which the person made, to show if it's possible to model such a shape with NURBS. If i remember correctly this guy was a SCI-Fi enthusiast and wanted probably later add details to this model...

Best regards
Stefan

Deep Space Force are ready!!!

May the force be with you!



Adding a details is very simple and fun part. That is why I love moi)

Project attached.

Marc, Stefan
You are wellocme guys)