Hello group

Sorry for not having been as active as I would like the past couple of weeks but several changes and real life have had to have my attention else where. None the less I came across this cool Beginners tutorial that will also appeal to the Star Wars fan in all of us. At the moment the tutorials creator only has part one up but he usually follows up his tutorials usually with in a week so here it is Blender Beginner Tutorial: Create a Lightsaber

Welcome back, Lobo. Hope all is well.

Yes what I can control is fine what is out of my hands will just have to live with thanks LuxXeon

Hope all is well with you Lobo. Thanks for the heads-up/link to the tut.

But...

That tutorial is horrible. I had to turn it off when he couldn't figure out why he was getting artifacting on his power-box. That tut is a how not to Mech-bevel model a non-organic mesh model. He could have substituted setting all hard edges for his compounding coincident vertices/edges that wreak havoc on facets, UV-mapping, and any future morph work (if needed/desired). Especially if only to be used within Blender, and not exported to other software.

As a mech-bevel polygonal modeler for years it made me cringe every time he introduced another full edge loop at coincident 0,0 on top of an already coincident edge loop, even when only needing a localized loop. For mech-bevel (hard-edges defined by "support" loops) modeling, one only has to go within a tolerance of main loop for complete hardness without introducing coincident edge loops. I usually work within 20 - 1% (0.80 - 0.99) depending on the size of the mesh within the default world space from grid center. Default average usually being 10% (0.90).

For straight polygonal meshing, the tolerance is tighter. For Sub-D meshing, looser, due to iterations closing the gaps on main loops.

If you are a beginner modeler, take heed with his technique. Other than that, he demonstrates things well, has nice pacing, and shows a couple of good shortcuts for selections.

Take care all...

Ken

Thanks for point out some of the issues with his modeling technique and that is something good since how one person does something does not mean it is the only way to do something. I have found most of his tutorials to give some decent pointers and his workflow as to how he does things in his videos easy to usually follow. he is not on the level of some more professionally done videos Like CG Masters who I personally think are great but the pricing on some of their DVD can be a bit steep and would turn away most noobies. Andrew Price also does some amazing tutorials but has not posted anything as of late and the new structure of video tutorials at CG Cookie leave something to be wanting compared to many of their older archived videos. But again thank you for pointing out where this tutorial falls short. I know he has uploaded Part 2 with in the last 24 hours and hopefully that will still include some useful information to get beginners to using Blender

DaremoK3 posted at 6:28PM Tue, 22 September 2015 - #4229915

Hope all is well with you Lobo. Thanks for the heads-up/link to the tut.

But...

That tutorial is horrible. I had to turn it off when he couldn't figure out why he was getting artifacting on his power-box. That tut is a how not to Mech-bevel model a non-organic mesh model. He could have substituted setting all hard edges for his compounding coincident vertices/edges that wreak havoc on facets, UV-mapping, and any future morph work (if needed/desired). Especially if only to be used within Blender, and not exported to other software.

As a mech-bevel polygonal modeler for years it made me cringe every time he introduced another full edge loop at coincident 0,0 on top of an already coincident edge loop, even when only needing a localized loop. For mech-bevel (hard-edges defined by "support" loops) modeling, one only has to go within a tolerance of main loop for complete hardness without introducing coincident edge loops. I usually work within 20 - 1% (0.80 - 0.99) depending on the size of the mesh within the default world space from grid center. Default average usually being 10% (0.90).

For straight polygonal meshing, the tolerance is tighter. For Sub-D meshing, looser, due to iterations closing the gaps on main loops.

If you are a beginner modeler, take heed with his technique. Other than that, he demonstrates things well, has nice pacing, and shows a couple of good shortcuts for selections.

Take care all...

Ken

LOL - as someone who is very much a beginning modeler, I have to say I did not understand one single word of your post. I'd love to learn from someone with your experience but is there any way to dumb that down for me? Are you talking about they way he seemed to be sliding edges right on top of one another to make them sharper?

LOL - as someone who is very much a beginning modeler, I have to say I did not understand one single word of your post. I'd love to learn from someone with your experience but is there any way to dumb that down for me? Are you talking about they way he seemed to be sliding edges right on top of one another to make them sharper?

Hello MDO2010

I not going to try and dumb down what Ken spoke on will let him do that. But like I mentioned everyone has different techniques to perform the same functions and the edge sliding method used in the tutorial is fine when all you are going to use is Blender for rendering but sometimes and can and often happens with those new to Blender going just a bit to far will give you overlapping edges that if exported from Blender to other applications like Poser for instance you may get some bad artifacts or stray edges looking horrible. There are a few built in tools In Blender to give you sharp edges without additional loop cuts. watch a few of LuxXeon tutorial videos that he does I think will help immensely since he is both well verse in 3DsMax but also bringing his skill over to Blender in a very concise and straight forward manner that usually following one of his tutorials and doing it from start to finish you will learn allot.

Lobo, I respectfully disagree [edited] (with first sentence only). I agree with the rest of your post (sorry, I did not read fully, was in a hurry). Definitely watch LuxXeons tutorials to help with Blender learning. [edited]

While I wholeheartedly agree that there are many avenues to reach the same conclusions in modeling, and the tutorial shows one I have been employing for years. But, the author is performing that particular technique incorrectly, and worse yet, he is directing this towards beginners who might not know any better.

Like I said before, you can get away with it, but it is just not good practice, and possibilities for future issues with mesh may arise. I'm not the creator of the technique, or the know-all, end-all master of the technique, but I am a big proponent of it who has been using the technique for several years in mesh modeling.

So, in layman's terms; Yes, use the CTRL + R (Edge loop-n-slide), but do not send your control/support loops all the way to 100% (1.0). Depending on how "razor edge" you need your edges, generally you will go 50% to 90% on your edge sliding. Going from 90% - 99% only when absolutely necessary (sword edge, razor blade, etc.).

Someone said it best at this Blender_StackExchange page ("There are almost no razor sharp edges in nature") located here : http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/247/how-can-i-make-sharp-geometric-3d-models-look-more-realistic

There is a lot of good info related to hard surface modeling on that page.

Here is a good example that was part of the material that I learned years ago on the mech-beveling technique. It is from the Wings3D community where I cut my teeth modeling since 2001 by one of the more prolific users there. It's not a tutorial, but can be more thought of as a primer. Find it here : http://www.wings3d.com/paulthepuzzles/spoiler.html

And here is a beginners Maya tutorial on the mech-bevel/hard surface technique. Ignore the actual Maya tool selections (though, they do have counterparts in Blender), and focus on the technique he is teaching and the whys of the technique. Look at the differences between the three cubes in the beginning of the tut, and then pay attention to the loop-cut/slides to create the control/support loops around the 7:15 minute mark. The tut is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=554L6ycWPo8

Here is an example of a hard surface mesh I created with the mech-bevel technique. It is a polygonal mesh final, not a sub-d mesh.

Take note of the edging in the organic wood (matching the real-world counterpart), and the grips. Then look at the corresponding wires in those areas. Even the organic parts contain control loops (only where necessary).

-Right click to view at full size...

Okay, here is an organic Sub-D example which utilizes the technique in key areas needing edge control as primer for my displacement work...

And last, another example of mixed hard/soft meshing employing mech-bevel technique...

DaremoK3 posted at 5:51AM Wed, 23 September 2015 - #4230213

Lobo, I respectfully disagree [edited] (with first sentence only). I agree with the rest of your post (sorry, I did not read fully, was in a hurry). Definitely watch LuxXeons tutorials to help with Blender learning. [edited]

While I wholeheartedly agree that there are many avenues to reach the same conclusions in modeling, and the tutorial shows one I have been employing for years. But, the author is performing that particular technique incorrectly, and worse yet, he is directing this towards beginners who might not know any better.

Like I said before, you can get away with it, but it is just not good practice, and possibilities for future issues with mesh may arise. I'm not the creator of the technique, or the know-all, end-all master of the technique, but I am a big proponent of it who has been using the technique for several years in mesh modeling.

So, in layman's terms; Yes, use the CTRL + R (Edge loop-n-slide), but do not send your control/support loops all the way to 100% (1.0). Depending on how "razor edge" you need your edges, generally you will go 50% to 90% on your edge sliding. Going from 90% - 99% only when absolutely necessary (sword edge, razor blade, etc.).

Someone said it best at this Blender_StackExchange page ("There are almost no razor sharp edges in nature") located here : http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/247/how-can-i-make-sharp-geometric-3d-models-look-more-realistic

There is a lot of good info related to hard surface modeling on that page.

Here is a good example that was part of the material that I learned years ago on the mech-beveling technique. It is from the Wings3D community where I cut my teeth modeling since 2001 by one of the more prolific users there. It's not a tutorial, but can be more thought of as a primer. Find it here : http://www.wings3d.com/paulthepuzzles/spoiler.html

And here is a beginners Maya tutorial on the mech-bevel/hard surface technique. Ignore the actual Maya tool selections (though, they do have counterparts in Blender), and focus on the technique he is teaching and the whys of the technique. Look at the differences between the three cubes in the beginning of the tut, and then pay attention to the loop-cut/slides to create the control/support loops around the 7:15 minute mark. The tut is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=554L6ycWPo8

Thank you - I will check out those links. And thank you for showing some examples as well. For a beginner, trying to learn mostly on my own, there is sometimes conflicting information on best practices - I imagine it's as much art (literally) as science and may be situation specific, and more experienced people probably make a lot of calls on technique based on that experience but it's nice to have some guidelines and examples when just starting out.

DaremoK3 posted at 11:41AM Wed, 23 September 2015 - #4230213

Lobo, I respectfully disagree [edited] (with first sentence only). I agree with the rest of your post (sorry, I did not read fully, was in a hurry). Definitely watch LuxXeons tutorials to help with Blender learning. [edited]

While I wholeheartedly agree that there are many avenues to reach the same conclusions in modeling, and the tutorial shows one I have been employing for years. But, the author is performing that particular technique incorrectly, and worse yet, he is directing this towards beginners who might not know any better.

Like I said before, you can get away with it, but it is just not good practice, and possibilities for future issues with mesh may arise. I'm not the creator of the technique, or the know-all, end-all master of the technique, but I am a big proponent of it who has been using the technique for several years in mesh modeling.

So, in layman's terms; Yes, use the CTRL + R (Edge loop-n-slide), but do not send your control/support loops all the way to 100% (1.0). Depending on how "razor edge" you need your edges, generally you will go 50% to 90% on your edge sliding. Going from 90% - 99% only when absolutely necessary (sword edge, razor blade, etc.).

Someone said it best at this Blender_StackExchange page ("There are almost no razor sharp edges in nature") located here : http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/247/how-can-i-make-sharp-geometric-3d-models-look-more-realistic

There is a lot of good info related to hard surface modeling on that page.

Here is a good example that was part of the material that I learned years ago on the mech-beveling technique. It is from the Wings3D community where I cut my teeth modeling since 2001 by one of the more prolific users there. It's not a tutorial, but can be more thought of as a primer. Find it here : http://www.wings3d.com/paulthepuzzles/spoiler.html

And here is a beginners Maya tutorial on the mech-bevel/hard surface technique. Ignore the actual Maya tool selections (though, they do have counterparts in Blender), and focus on the technique he is teaching and the whys of the technique. Look at the differences between the three cubes in the beginning of the tut, and then pay attention to the loop-cut/slides to create the control/support loops around the 7:15 minute mark. The tut is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=554L6ycWPo8

Hello Ken

I do not mind when someone disagrees with me I usually love it especially when it is present in a constructive way as you have it gives me more of an opportunity to learn myself. I have always claimed that I am but a novice still in Blender and have acquired the knowledge I have from bringing up subjects and then seeing what my fellow members will post to either enlighten me personally or post more detailed information that will help the group as a whole. One of the main reasons I also pointed out LuxXeon's tutorials which I feel are some of the best member contributions to our forum. I will look at some of the links you have posted and look forward adding to my own knowledge base and thank you for sharing the information you have thus far.

I'd like to echo the sentiment of recommending Luxxeon's tutorials too. They are literally the very reason I'm still using Blender at this point. I mean, you will notice his channel does pay more attention to 3dsmax, but most of his Blender tutorials are just superb at packing TONS of valuable information into relatively short, concise timeframes. Even if you're not into the kinds of abstract models he's making, it's worth a watch just for the knowledge gained. https://www.youtube.com/user/luxxeon3d