SUBDIVISION SURFACE MODELLING
You have heard the term "Sub-D modelling". But what is it? Why is it the standard used in professional modelling?
There is a lot to learn to become a Sub-D modeller. Check out this ever growing list of useful concepts to really learn how professionals use it.
The Primitives
Blender's primitives are not good Sub-D objects. Learn what the problems are and how to recreate them correctly.
Remaking the cylinder as a sub-D object is a great place to start learning about the structure of a subdivision surface model.
The sphere has been a problem since the birth of Computer graphics. Learn how to make a great Sub-D sphere.
Creating cubes with rounded edges is not as straightforward as it might seem. Learn more about the cube here.
The primitive cone has a terrible topology. Learn how to make a cone with great control and a light geometry from all quads.
The torus has a good topology but lacks the ability to control it's shape after it has been created.
Bonus: Mobius Torus.
Technique
Controlling rigid body animation is really simple. learn how to make any rigid body object fall exactly where you want it to.
Booleans and Bevels are often used for "Hard Surface" Modelling but the clean-up is difficult.
Learn to create these models using Sub-D techniques.
The UV sphere a great topology to create interesting designs but the megapoles at the top and bottom mean it does not work as a Sub-D model. Learn to fix that here.
Joining cylinders is a common task in modelling and Booleans are never the correct solution. To create a flexible and easily editable mesh, some more advanced techniques are required.
Insetting is a widely misunderstood Method of protecting details on a mesh to create lightweight, individually controlled curvature. Learn how important it is when combined with softbody animation.
Sometimes the Boolean operations are the best solution to cuttting out shapes but there is always work to do to clean them up. Learn the basics of cutting complex geometry from your shapes.
The Curve Tool is one of the most powerful operators in blender when working with complex geometry. It can Fix problem geometry quickly. Learn how it works and how it is used to create very complex curvature effortlessly with a process called panel beating.
Chess Set
The Pawn is the easiest of the Chess pieces to make. We can use the quadspehere to create a lightweight mesh which can handle any distortion or animation we need. Find out why Booleans and non-manifold meshes are not a good solution.
The 'notch' on the bishop presents a seemingly difficult problem. Rather than use a boolean, we can use Sub-D to create a bishop with great topology and excellent curvature control.
E-Poles are a very common problem in modelling and extruding faces is never the correct way to go about creating detail. Learn a much better way to create a rook which gives enormous control over the design and leaves us with an excellent lightweight topology.
Making the queen is relatively simple with lots of options to create good Sub-D topology. It also gives us a great reason to look at radial connection reduction to add lightweight detail to heavy meshes.
The King requires a transition from a rectangular to a circular topology which can often cause "ridge clusters". Find out what they are and how to fix them here.
Coming soon!
Using what we learned about "the cube" we can create a chessboard with a great deal of accuracy and control.
Retopologising Text
Text in any 3D-software is a real problem. Automatic retopology is no where near good enough for the complex shapes involved. Learn the basic method to recreate any text as a sub-D object.
When retopologising an entire typeface we will expand on the basic method to leave us with very accurate, highly deformable, lightweight meshes Which can be used any animation you can think of.
Continuing the professional method of retopologising text we will talk about the difficulties of creating the lowercase 'e'.
More letters from the Arial Black typeface. Speeding up a little to show how any shape can be created.
Creating the "m" presents a few new challenges. Learn how "arrays", "Ghost Geometry" and "The Lattice" can be used with good topology to create interesting animations quickly.
Some More letters for Arial Black. The softbody animation at the beginning of the video can be created and simulated completely in just 5 minutes because of the flexible, light topology.
Download the Arial Black typeface, recreated as sub-D objects for use in all your projects.