Modeling Help Needed

[renochew]

Hi, I am new to Houdini, still don't quite get use to the way procedural modeling work, I've already spend two days just to experiment different ways of modeling a simple shape like the following but without success...

I want to bevel all the edges but I just can't make the select-loop works, and it is too tedious to select the edges individually (I need some bump in the front cross section so I make the faces fairly high rez), I think it is because the point order get messed up so I use a sort sop to try to clean it up but no luck.

A more general question is that, I use Boolean here to make the shape, is it the best way to go? I also tried using curve to outline the cross section shape, but due to holes in the middle, I can't get I clean polygon either.

I've attached the hip file, hope someone could give me some advices on how to approach this kind of modeling.

Thanks in advanced.

shapeTest2.hipnc

[zoki]

Hi

it looks to me that you would be better off with initial curve for profile-probably half of it because its symetrical!

then mirror it and fuse points together after this do poly extrude with all options on back, side and front.

you will get cleaner mesh that way then go in and try bevel or even polysplit edges manually for more controlable result?

If you want this one to subdivide nicely you will need cleaner topology and you can get away with one third of polys you have now

Maybe check 3dbuzz tutorial on subd shoe modeling

z

[kubabuk]

Hi renochew,

Looks great, looks a bit like an element of the slab.... in that case I

[sibarrick]

That Micro bevel thing was really intended for geometry where you have no possible way of manually creating a poly bevel - or perhaps in some extreme case where it saves memory to do it in the shader and not in the geometry.

I would say in this case it is very easy to create the shape you want and to bevel the edges. Just create profiles for the front face and the holes use a hole sop to make them into a single face and then a poly extrude to make the final shape. Finally use poly bevel to bevel the edges.

( www.houdinitools.com has a poly cusp bevel which will automatically select all the edges to bevel which is handy for these things)

If you need more polys (you won't for a shader bump) just append a divide sop at the end and bricker the whole thing.

Alternative but similar approach would be to again start with the profiles but then use an extrude sop and provide a second input with the bevels built in.

[renochew]

Hi

it looks to me that you would be better off with initial curve for profile-probably half of it because its symetrical!

then mirror it and fuse points together after this do poly extrude with all options on back, side and front.

you will get cleaner mesh that way then go in and try bevel or even polysplit edges manually for more controlable result?

If you want this one to subdivide nicely you will need cleaner topology and you can get away with one third of polys you have now

Maybe check 3dbuzz tutorial on subd shoe modeling

z

Hi, Zoki,

Thanks for the reply, I will try your suggestion to make a profile curve, but I would like to know how could I include the hole with the profile? In other app, say, when I create two concentric circle, it will recognize as a "circle with a hole", but it's not the case in Houdini.

Another question is, after I created the profile curve, what is the best way to create the detail of displacement "inside" the curve? What I did is use the bricker function of the divide op and then a mountain op, the divide op doesn't create clean mesh.

BTW, I can't find the shoe tut in 3dbuzz site, is it in the video training section?

Thanks again.

[zoki]

try doing also what simon says its almost the same and check out hole sop, I will also , I never used it

its very old tutorial I am almost sure is from buzz

check here

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_dl_list.php?c=11

Intro to modelling

[edward]

One idea is to use the Group SOP's Bounding Box selection. Then you can just use this group with the polybevel. But really, I think you should be beveling far earlier in the construction process and to only create as much geometry as needed.

[kubabuk]

The shoe is from the old SESI tutorials section, you can find it here - subd_shoe.avi

http://odforce.net/downloads/videos/v6/modeling/

kuba

[renochew]

Hi all,

Really thanks for all the suggestion! I think the problem I have is I make the beveling the last step at the flow, which is I used to to in other app. It seems that it is a bad move as Sibarrick and Edward suggested. I would try invert the workflow. The reason I need all the detail is because I want it to look uneven. btw, the model is actually a broken bridge.

One more question I have is that it seems the select-loop quite often does not work as you expected, say, I need to fuse and then bevel a geometry, but finding that I could only use select-loop before fusing but not after (after fusing, the loop could only loop through individual polygon), is it another workflow problem?

Kuba, Zoki,

Thanks for the links! I am sure they will help me get used to the modling tool in houdini.

Thanks again.

Edited August 15, 2007 by renochew

[sibarrick]

A picture speaks a thousand words and 4 or 5 sops does even better....

bevel_example.hip

[renochew]

A picture speaks a thousand words and 4 or 5 sops does even better....

sibarrick, thanks for taking the time to make the file, now I understood what's wrong with my original files.

Cheers.