Thanks a lot Lobo!!

Lobo3433 posted at 4:19PM Thu, 30 July 2020 - #4395587

Boni I found this a bit ago it might help with sculpting the type of look you may want with in Blender plus has a link to a set of free Sculpting Brushes

Sculpting Stone for Beginners in Blender 2.8 [ + FREE BRUSH SET]

Yeah, that's probably a good way to do it. My only suggestion is to make a duplicate copy of whatever object you are going to sculpt on because the Dynotopo will destroy the UV's and quad surface of the mesh. Then you can use the original geometry as a low poly topology to bake the details of the sculpted version into a normal map.

The tutorial was great Lux and I am going over the stone tutorial, Lobo, but lagging on catching on for my models. I'll have questions later. Thank you so much!!

Look forward to helping where I can I am also working on my project revamping most of it after finding something I had issue with but all the creative juices flowing around is been a good thing

Hi Boni, I was going to post this earlier in the thread before you got the sudden rush of replies and moved past where this was more relevant. With the modeling of your ampitheater using the array modifier with the simple deform modifier can give the flexibility to check out some different variations on your model before committing to your final design.

Keppel!! I love these!! what great ideas!! I will most certainly consider them!!

Hea, guys I really want to clean up the mesh ... especially on the dome. There are squeezed triangles and huge quads around the edges. How do I retopolate and fix that?

Boni posted at 3:53PM Sat, 01 August 2020 - #4395721

Keppel!! I love these!! what great ideas!! I will most certainly consider them!!

Hea, guys I really want to clean up the mesh ... especially on the dome. There are squeezed triangles and huge quads around the edges. How do I retopolate and fix that?

Boni, did you use Booleans for the dome? Can you show an example of what your topology looks like? If you used a simple UV sphere, then the only triangles should be up at the poles (north and south ends of the sphere), and those are really easy to convert to quads. There are several different techniques to do that, depending on what you plan to do with the object (sculpting or subdividing). I'm curious what you mean about triangles around the edges though.

Hi Boni, one way to do the dome is to use a cube instead of a sphere, sounds odd but you end up with much better topology. Add a subdivision modifier to your cube with two levels of subdivision and then apply the modifier. Delete the faces so that you are left with the quarter sphere (Dome) Add a solidify modifier for thickness and apply. You are now left with a dome made of quads. Select the bottom edges and scale along the z axis to 0 to flatten the bottom of the dome. Add some controlling edge loops to tighten the edges and add another sub division modifier to smooth to the level you want.

I won't be able to do this until Monday but, but I think Keppel's solution might be better than struggling with this Boolean dome. Again I love what I am learning here.

Oh, I didn't know you used booleans for the dome after all. I thought it was just a UV sphere.

Anyway, looks like you're in good hands now though, so I'll leave you to it. I'll check back later in the week to see how it turned out. Good luck! Can't wait to see your finished product.

Well, I have the bottom edges picked ... but I don't have the z scale understood nor the controlling edge loops. I could use some help.

here is what I have:

Hi Boni, from looking at your picture you haven't applied the solidify modifier yet. Once you do that switch to vertex mode and select all the bottom vertices. Press "S" then "Z" then 0. "S" for scale, "Z" to constrain the scale to the z axis, 0 scales all selected vertices to the gizmo location.

A controlling edge loop is used to reduce the influence of the subdivision modifier. Carrying on from my last post add a subdivision modifier and look at the effect it has on the shape of your dome. Go back into edit mode, edges, and select the edges highlighted and subdivide. Deselect everything and select the edge loop highlighted. Double tap the "G" key to slide the edge loop rightwards towards the edge of the dome. Now you can see the effect the edge loop you just added has on the shape of your dome. You will need to add another edge loop to the bottom edges and slide the new edge loop towards the base of the dome to tighten that area up as well.

Nice work, Keppel! I don't know if it will help much since Keppel explained it well enough already, but here's a quick video of how I would do it. It's basically the same way Keppel suggested. I begin the video with the surface, just after subdividing the cube and removing the necessary polygons. Hope this is also helpful.

Um ... could you explain the subdivide and deleting polygons? I don't know which subdivide method I need to use ... and what polygons to delete.

No prob. I'll give you another quick video showing that process.

Boni, here's a video showing how to start out from just a standard cube. This video ends with the exact model we started with in the previous video.

Let me know if you have questions. Hope it wasn't confusing.

You are so helpful, thank you!

Your instructions were wonderful ... however, I messed up somewhere. If you could direct me in how to fix this ...?

This was just at subdivision surface ... It revert back to when I was having trouble before. I have to log off in a couple minutes. So I'll get back to this tomorrow.

Looks like you got the shape, but it seems you may have applied a subdivision surface where you didn't need to. Did you apply a solidify modifier yet? I can't tell from this image. If you have the ability, can you somehow send me your .blend file? If not, don't worry. Here's what we can do. I will create the dome for you and send you my .blend file. You can study it and try to recreate it again, or feel free just to use my dome for your project.

I know it's difficult to follow tutorials sometimes, especially when you have to stop and start again over the course of some days. So let me just send you my .blend file of the dome. I will even UV unwrap it for you if you want. This way you can study the object and maybe get a better grasp on it, but you can also use it in your project. I don't care if it's a commercial project. Consider it a freebie.

I'm not sure which stage of subdivision you got stuck at, but I'd love to have a look at your blend file if possible to get a better idea where you are at. However, if that's not possible, allow me to send you my blend file of the dome as I mentioned. You can feel free to use it in your project, and it might help you get a better idea where you went wrong on yours by studying the object.

Are you stuck at the end of the second video (which was really the first step in the process)? Or are you stuck on some part of the first video (the second phase of the process)? If you're stuck on the second video, then I think what may be happening is that you've added another subdivision modifier after you deleted the faces of the cube to get the dome shape? After you subdivide the cube to make it round, you need to apply that subdivision surface modifier, then go into edit mode and start deleting the faces as shown in the second video. Once that is done and you exit edit mode, do not apply another subdivision surface modifier. Just add a solidify modifier and adjust the thickness of that. Then apply that modifier as well.

Let me know if that is where you went wrong. If that's not helping, then I'd like to have a look at your .blend file. Let me know. If that's not possible, I'll send you my file.

I believe I made my mistakes in the subdivide and polygon deleted ... I will be happy to share my file and accept your gracious gift. Even at that for study I might start the done from scratch tomorrow as a practice learning exercise.

Sounds great, Boni. Give me half hour and I'll have the file uploaded somewhere for you to download. I don't think we can attach .blend files to the thread. The only issue might be will you be able to open my file? I'm working with Blender 2.83. However, is do still have Blender 2.81 installed. So maybe I'll save it with 2.81. Either way, you should be able to append the object into your current scene. If you don't know how to append an object from one blend file to another, I'll show you how that's done as well. Let me know. I'll upload it shortly.

Boni, I sent you a private message with a link to download the .blend file. Let me know you got that, and if you send me your file I'll be happy to look it over.

Hi, Boni. I got your .blend file and looked it over. Your dome looks fine. However, I noticed something strange. I noticed you have an object in the collection named cube, but you also have a cube.001. Cube.001 is your dome. The other object named simply, "cube" is just a line with no geometry? I noticed that line is the one you have a subdivision surface modifier attached to, but the actual dome does not have a subdivision surface.

The actual dome object (cube.001) looks just fine. It could have been perhaps a little thicker when you applied the solidify modifier, but if that's the thickness you wanted then that's ok too. I think it looks good. The only thing you need to do now is to follow the first video from about the 1:13 point on. Just add some creased edges and CTRL+R to insert edge loop cuts. Then when you add the subdivision surface modifier, it should work as expected.

I made a new tutorial video for you, using your own .blend as the source. It will show you exactly what to do to your dome to get the final process. I will upload it in a few minutes.

Hi again, Boni. Ok, here's a quick video showing exactly what to do using the dome you sent me. You almost had it finished. All you needed to do was the last few steps before adding subdivision. Hopefully, you can follow along. I didn't use Screencast keys to record my keystrokes or mouse, but I did incorporate annotations.

The only thing you needed to do was add edge creasing and control loops with the Loop Cut tool. Once that's done, your dome is ready for subdivision surface modifier.

Looking over all this on Monday. ?

Well that makes much more sense. thank you!!

I have decided to continue on with the project using Lux's dome ... now ... what should be my next step?

Boni posted at 5:58PM Mon, 10 August 2020 - #4396548

I have decided to continue on with the project using Lux's dome ... now ... what should be my next step?

Do you have all the objects you need for the project or do you need to model more shapes? If you're done with the basic shapes, the next thing might be to create support loops or just use creased edges on the objects so they hold their shape with subdivision, then create seams so you can unwrap the UVs for texturing.

If you're going to sculpt details on these models, then I might recommend making duplicates of the models so that you have a lower poly version and then your sculpted version. You can use the lower poly versions as a way to bake normal maps or displacement maps on to the models if you want.

Otherwise, you can just go to a good free PBR texture resource like CGTextures.com and look for some good stone or rock materials. You will need color, specular, roughness, normal map, and maybe a height map to get a good result.

I'll be honest, if this is your first production model, these next steps might be the most difficult depending on how realistic you want the results.

I don't want to make it too difficult but would I need to add some ground built up around the steps since I wouldn't be able to build it in Poser. Is this unrealistic of me?

Boni posted at 12:03AM Tue, 11 August 2020 - #4396574

I don't want to make it too difficult but would I need to add some ground built up around the steps since I wouldn't be able to build it in Poser. Is this unrealistic of me?

Hi, Boni. Well, the best thing to do is take it one step at a time. If this project is intended for a product, then don't forget that you can also release addons for it later down the road if you wanted. You can release a basic set first, then create more detail and addons down the road that people can purchase if they want to expand this set with far more details. This would give you the ability to have a "modular" product more or less. It will also allow customers to load the base product easier, keep polygon count manageable for those users with concerns over such things, and give you the satisfaction of having completed a product. On the other hand, if you're in no hurry, you can do all sorts of things to expand on this. It's just a matter of how much time you want to spend before you call it a finished product.

All things considered, at this point, once you add the support loops, unwrap the current objects, and then add subdivsion to them you should have something that looks similar to this:

This is basically a quick mockup of what you've indicated you were going for so far. I haven't seen your steps or ground completed yet, so they may be different. Once you have something like this, you can go a long way by adding materials, using proper PBR textures on each model. PBR textures can make these models look very unique and different than they look here, and can provide a lot of detail without doing much more. Of course, you can go all out with sculpting and baking, scattering rocks, adding blades of grass, dirt, all sorts of things. But like I said, this is a project you can add to with expansion packs or something too. So once you get to the point where your models are all unwrapped, support loops are added, and it looks good subdivided, then you have to think about the next step because there's a lot of options.

A while back, I made this model of a dome. This was before PBR textures were popular. This thing has very basic textures, and the overall geometry was very simple before subdivision..

If I had used PBR textures with this, I probably could have brought out a lot more details and realism. Think about if you want to incorporate any more details into the low poly base mesh without sculpting. You can go a long way with just basic shapes and polygon modeling these days, especially with PBR textures. Sculpting will always be more reaslistic and detailed, but again, you can expand on anything with addons or expansion packs too.

Wow, Lux, that is beatutiful!! Ok ... then I just need to figure how to import the dome you made into the main project. I've deleted the other dome and cubes which were the boolean objects to cut out the dome. I also made edge creases on all edges on the steps section and will do the same with the base. I'm still a little unsure about the edge loops to tighted the edges aside from the edge crease. I do know this is a very important step.

I have to agree with Boni, as that's one great looking dome Lux.

Hi Boni, looks like your project is progressing nicely. One suggestion I have is to make sure that you get the scale correct before getting too far along in your constructions. A good trick is to export from Poser or Daz a base figure in a standing position and one in a sitting position. That way you can check, for example, that when your exported figures backside is sitting on a seat in your ampitheatre that their feet are on the ground and the clearance behind them for the next seat is correct. You can also check that any steps are at the right spacing and height, entrances have the correct clearances etc. I do a lot of work compositing 3D models into photos of empty properties for real estate agents and I use this trick for almost every job I do to make sure that the scale of the lounge suites, dining room chairs and tables, beds etc are correct for the room that I am virtually staging.

@Boni, @MissB Thank you both. Boni, let me know if you have any trouble appending the dome. I have a few ideas on some more stuff that could help detail your dome if you want. I'll also give you some ideas about what might work texture-wise for it. I think the same textures should work for the stairs as the dome, but that's up to you. One thing that might help with the project is to work on just one object at a time. Finish first the dome, then the stairs, then you can work out what to do with the ground. This will help keep things manageable for you. Sometimes a project like this can make you frustrated if you try to do too much at once. You have the basic shapes done, so that's a great start!

keppel posted at 12:52PM Tue, 11 August 2020 - #4396620

Hi Boni, looks like your project is progressing nicely. One suggestion I have is to make sure that you get the scale correct before getting too far along in your constructions. A good trick is to export from Poser or Daz a base figure in a standing position and one in a sitting position. That way you can check, for example, that when your exported figures backside is sitting on a seat in your ampitheatre that their feet are on the ground and the clearance behind them for the next seat is correct. You can also check that any steps are at the right spacing and height, entrances have the correct clearances etc. I do a lot of work compositing 3D models into photos of empty properties for real estate agents and I use this trick for almost every job I do to make sure that the scale of the lounge suites, dining room chairs and tables, beds etc are correct for the room that I am virtually staging.

This is very good advice. Proportions are important, especially in the seating. That's another good reason to work with base mesh and lower polygon base models as much as possible because they're easier to edit than something you have sculpted. If you need to make adjustments to the proportions of the stairs, for example, there are techniques to allow that without having to remodel anything from scratch.

I don't know anything about Poser. So perhaps Keppel can guide you in the right direction as far as preparing the models for export to that package. I personally don't own Poser, so I'm not sure how the import and scale variations work in that software.

Boni, just to give an idea of what can be done using only texture maps, I've quickly thrown together an example video. This is obviously not the kind of stone texture you had in mind, but I think it shows that with PBR texturing, even low poly models can be made to appear relatively detailed. I didn' t do any sculpting or baking for this, just used a tileable PBR texture map set with diffuse, roughness, normal map, and displacement. Something like this might be one optional way to go.

LuxXeon posted at 10:35PM Thu, 13 August 2020 - #4396750

Boni, just to give an idea of what can be done using only texture maps, I've quickly thrown together an example video. This is obviously not the kind of stone texture you had in mind, but I think it shows that with PBR texturing, even low poly models can be made to appear relatively detailed. I didn' t do any sculpting or baking for this, just used a tileable PBR texture map set with diffuse, roughness, normal map, and displacement. Something like this might be one optional way to go.

Was that rendered in cycles? That looks interesting. Like temple ruins or something that was just dug up and discovered by archeologists.

Now Superfly needs to import that cycles displacement upgrade. Wow. How was that done?

Here is the dome Lux made ... with a stone texture applied in Poser

I just imported as a Wavefront Obj. placed on floor at 100%.

And here it is at 300% with La Femme for scale.

That last render looks perfect, especially the size compared to LF.

?

Congrats, Boni. Looks great!

Ok, how do I solidify the "bleachers" and base into a single form to export to Poser?

Boni posted at 3:10PM Mon, 24 August 2020 - #4397614

Ok, how do I solidify the "bleachers" and base into a single form to export to Poser?

Not sure what you mean. Can you post a screenshot of what they look like now? The bleachers or steps really don't need to be solid models unless you're going to 3d print them down the road. In fact, you can delete the polygons on the bottom of the model entirely just to keep poly count lower if you want. Those faces would never be seen in a render anyway.