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Mike--
This thread has been pretty awesome already.
Lots of things to learn and I bet a lot of folks , me included ,have not played nearly as much with the VM as we should or could have. So thanks for all your hints and I think this is so helpful in growing the talent pool in modeling which is so important if we hope to reach the level of detail and style we need to get to make folks take notice of our endevers.
rich
This thread is certainly helping me come to terms with the VM - something which seldom gets much discussion here.
So..looking for next hint, please.
I've got to the point in modeling the goth teenager that I want to start getting some detail and it would help a lot if this could be done symmetrically. Symmetrical modeling seems to be very unreliable - sometimes moving verts works symmetrically, sometimes not. So I thought I'd cut it in half, work on one half and then mirror it and weld. The duplicate with symmetry command doesn't give an option on which plane to duplicate and defaults to the Y plane.
Reading the manual, it seems the working plane must be re-orientated - when I Ctrl-click on a vert on the cut line, the half-model flips so that it is lying sideways, so the orientation of the plane has changed, but when I duplicate it, the duplicate isn't mirrored, but occupies the same space as the original.
Any advice, please?
EDIT: OK, something else I need some help with. I'm practicing doing some poly-by-poly modeling - the only way I know to do a human head decently. Normally I would start with a flattened circle around an eye and do edge extrusion to build the mesh up from there. What I did was start with one flattened circle, copy/paste it and scale up then use ruled surfaces to join - so far, so good. But when it came to do edge extrusions, all i got was a mess - extra points being added in random places and other strange behavior.
The only references to edge extrusion I could find in the manual are:_
New Edge Extrusion: The Edge Extrusion
tool lets you extrude corners of objects
interactively.
Check the Edge Extrude option to enable Edge
Extrusion mode, which allows you to extrude
edges into corners.
Can't fathom what corners have to do with anything!
The only way I could figure to add to the mesh was to draw closed poly lines, fill polygon and weld each co-incident set of verts, one by one. This will work, but it is a pretty inefficient way of working.
Surely there must be a better method?
thanks Mike for the 'convert' help.
sorry Roy, don't know answer yet :)
Roy heres' the only way I found so fa rto duplicate and flip a mesh
make the half a mesh
in the assembly room duplicate it with symmetry
this won't change the mesh in the VM though!
still in assembly room
arrange the two meshes with enough space between them so you can easilit slelect only half later
group the two halves
export as obj
import with "only one obj" ticked
in VM position the two halves then weld
must be an easier way!
To duplicate by symmetry;
Most important, first set the duplication plane by clicking on the working plane icon on the left,
Select the edges around the symmetry plane of your object
Bring down the view menu and 'send working box to selection'
Select the whole object
Now when you 'duplicate with symmetry' it will work around the working plane.
When it asks to attempt a weld click 'no', it's more reliable to do that manually.
To weld, switch to the front view, select the central loop and weld by custom tolerance (the value may need to be very small depending on mesh density)
To tidy up; reset the working box, select the whole model and 'Center Symmetry Plane on selection'
Symmetry in Carrara usually works very well but it has a very low tolerance of misplaced verteces so try not to break it again (I know there will be complaints that it should know but I find that it encourages very rigorous modelling practices, besides which it's pretty easy to cut in half and duplicate, as you will see)
Last image for previous post
I think the only extra steps for symmetrical duplication compared to other modellers is the selecting of the plane and then moving it.
Most of the commonly used tools are there in Carrara and some are unique.
Good to see people working with the modeller instead of just complaining that it can't do anything.
It's a terminology thing, I think.
The 'edge extrusion' is different to what you're thinking of and the extrusion tool is context sensitive so will already know that you want to extrude from an edge or multiple selected edges.
Leave the edge extrusion unchecked.
Parallel extrusion works best for what you are trying to do. You'll be adjusting anyway
Just select the edges that you want to extrude and pull.
It's difficult to describe what edge extrusion does, but it's sort of like pulling out a solid section along with the edge and is best used from the middle of a plane. Try it and see.
my dumb solution has been to rotate the whole half model to be on its side before using duplicate with symmetry
Mike , Headwax RoguePilot---and wendy and all --- thanks for your insights and help with the vertex modeler.
And indeed this is a great opportunity to indeed make use of the Vertex Modeler in Carrara and for everyone to grow thier skills. And the more tuts and more questions asked the further expanded everyone skills can grow.
And who knows .......maybe if we could get Daz to make a few tweaks here and there with it. It could be an all in one solution for more folks
So, keep the fun rolling here folks.......just model some stuff....the movie project and the short shot project need lots of props indeed.
Rich
HI All,. :)
Just playing around with the watch model idea in the last couple of days,... hope it's OK to post these here.
With the exception of the face dial texture maps, the rest of the shaders are procedural.
Modelled, shaded and rendered in Carrara 8
Link to scene file .... 75kb
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7907045/watch42.car
3dage.....
Very nice indeed . thanks for posting that. and indeed hopefully someone as talented and knowledgeable as yourself can participate in the short test project and or movie project.
rich
Hey Roygee,
So , here is what you can do.
1. In the vm room delete half of your model and then exit to the Assembly room.
2. In Assembly room Edit/Duplicate with symmetry in the appropriate axis .
3 move this new duplicate so it lines up with the other half of the model .
4. now select either half of the model , for whatever reason I always like modeling on the right half of a symmetrical model.
5. With the half model selected hit the "Edit Vertex Object" wrench icon in the top left of the GUI(you can also go into the VM room)
6.Make sure you select "Edit the Master" as this will update the other half of the model while you are modeling .
Now you can model on one half while seeing the other side update.
7. Once you are done modeling you can select the one half and go into the VM room.(nice only seeing one half now)
8. Make sure all of you vertices on your symmetry plane are zeroed out or perfectly on the same plane.
9. Control+Click the grid in which you want to do the duplicate with symmetry, it should turn a darker colo which means it is the drawing plane now.
10. Ctrl click a vertex on your model which is on the symmetry plane. The grid should snap to the vertex.
11. Now select Duplicated with symmetry
12. Carrara asks if you want to Weld the halves together , choose yes.
13. The halves are welded but there is usually an issue where the weld happens but all you have to do is exit the VM room and come back in and the model looks fine.
Hope this helps.
Mike
3DAGE,
Great watch , to me this pretty well exactly what we want.. I will upload it to the Project Box (dropbox)
Mike
Roygee,
For poly by poly modeling I use the Dynamic Extrusion or H hotkey all the time.. If you select an edge and hit shift and then click the hotkey (H) for Dynamic extrusion it makes is sticky or selected. In the Properties panel under Dynamic extrusion use Normal Extrusion and make sure all the boxes are unchecked(link polygons,edge extrude and snap to grid)
Using the shift key and Ctrl keys while extruding the edge constrains the edge width and direction.
Let me know if this helps .
Mike
Thank you, RP and Mike - those methods work great - more mysteries revealed:)
Good to see 3dage contributing - hope to see many more from you:)
Cheers
Roygee -
Ditto on all accounts. Indeed -----we need to start collecting all the mysteries of the vertex modeler and other things in one spot so to be such a useful guide to help grow some skills. I often have commented ---you usually will get a manual of what something does but it is so much better to learn how to use it.
rich
Absolutely!
Time for some more brains trust - is there any method of locking a mesh from accidental selection?
Since replacing my burned-out NVidea card with a more powerful ATi card, I have display issues using images in the backdrop of the Ass room and on the grid in the VM - the images split up.
So what I've done is map images onto a grid - I prefer working that way in Hex, anyway. In Hex I can lock the grid so that it doesn't get selected by mistake and end up being part of the model - can't find any reference to this action in the C manual - anyone able to help?
Try working with the VM in the Assembly room with your reference as a separate object.
I work with V4 like that.
You'll have to crank up your preview settings to max quality to show the image at full resolution
Graphics memory will be the issue here but if you only have your reference images on display you should be ok.
Considering that you have a new card.
HI Roy :)
In the Motion tab for the object,. change the Constraint type to "Locked".
that will prevent you from moving it.
:)
RoguePilot and 3dage --------thanks for those additional nuggets. You know if you keep this up people might actually learn to like the VM modeler as some of the issues that may have become frustrating become less frustrating with a little hint or guidance or tutorial here and there.
I know I it is starting to be that way for me. Smiles .
Thanks for the tips - I did try modeling it in the assembly room, but that never worked - couldn't find my starting poly line after drawing it blind (it obviously gets drawn somewhere behind the ref pic plane). What I ended up doing was to map the images onto planes instead of grids. That gives only 6 verts that could possibly be selected by accident, so no problem there. I originally wanted grids so I could use the internal edges as grid lines.
3dage - I wanted to lock the background ref pic meshes from any sort of selection - locking it from any accidental movement is also good - thank you.
Another question to add to the fund of knowledge - sorry to keep harping on about Hex, but that is what I compare any modeling app to - is there any way to zero the verts along the cut line (centre half of the mesh) ? This is necessary so that when it is duplicated with symmetry the two halves align perfectly. In Hex we select the edge loop and make sure that the size on the X-axis =0, i.e. all the verts are on the same plane.
Done the head, all by edge extrusion - hope it does Antara's sketch justice:)
Now for the hands!
Roygee------ i think that looks pretty nice and follows Antara's sketch very well. Can't wait to see what you do next.
rich
Hi Roy
Pretty much the same way as Hex.
Select your loop, scale it in the X-axis to zero use the value entry box.
Then move it to zero on the x-axis, again using the value entry box.
Wow! Definitely getting there :) Might need some detailing here and there for expressions, but already looks great!
Great thread guys. Will look into this as more time becomes available.
Roygee,
Great stuff with the model. :coolsmile:
Thanks - getting more confident in the VM and actually starting to enjoy it:)
Excellent, RP - I was under the impression that was only for sending individual verts to specific points::)
Done! My first Carrara humanoid:)
Not too painful. Now for the dreaded UV mapping, then to give him some really kick-ass boots.
Roygee,
This should work fine for our Dry Run animation and I hope we get some people who want to rig it.. Carrara and Hexagon are similar modeling apps in a quite a fiew ways , I haven't used Hexagon in a while..
Mike
too easy
just import a Carnegie Mellon bvh, line it up to the limbs (modeling your figure in a star jump advisable) select it and the root bone holding shift and go to animation attach skeleton and you are done!