Been a while...I found inspiration when I re-watch DS9, especially...I fall in love with the shuttle craft Chaffe. Which was very briefly showed in an episode. So I am going to do this design I made: USS Mitchell, defiant class I think. The name: I choose Mitchell because it was an actual ship and it wasn't taken by others. My first choice was Minerva and Miranda, but no luck there. This is the very beginning a 2D sketch. Still have to do the bottom part too, and I think I am gonna do the back wing all the way accross.
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Well, what will you do then ? tesselate is messy, Smooth is basically the same option as turbosmooth (With less options), and MsSmooth gives the same results as the two previous.
The only other way would be to chamfer edges everywhere and do maybe 1 mssmooth. Is that what you mean ?
Colbmista, not sure what you mean by pylons but the side part that attach the engine are in the same shape has the top view. I did those a bit more flat. The engines however are different from my drawing, because the engine from the Defiant look more rounder. But it's not like the Chaffe, so...I might revised that part to get them more like the drawing or the Chaffe.
The side view I did on the drawing was very rough and not too accurate.
Ok thanks for the example. I will try it again a different way. I made an incremental saved before doing the deformation, so I can come back in time a bit. Not like ST 2009, but a bit
This looks a lot better. You're getting good advice here.
I'm not familiar with the modeller your using, but it looks to me like this turbo smooth is a lot like the subsurf mod in blender. It's a very powerful modifier but needs to be used carefully to work fight.
If you have the ability to select a line of verts and crease or split them to get a sharper edge that might help, it's one way we use the subsurf mod in blender.
Left - the lowpoly
#2 - regular turbosmooth, 2 iterations
#3 - turbosmooth modifier (2 iterations) set to respect smoothing groups. The red bit on the lowpoly, for example, one smoothing group
#4 - same as #3, but with one additional turbosmooth modifier (2 iterations, default settings, unaffected by smoothing groups)
Google double smooth 3ds max for more examples.
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Colbs, thank for your example. I might not have that level of skill you seems to have, so not sure if I can do what you propose that easily. I just learned how to make shapes from planar...In fact, I do them all starting with planes, I almost never use standard shapes anymore. But I still have difficulty in creating many structures into a single one. You see, what you have showed me...I am a bit puzzle on how to get there and having the same result as you.
Nobody showed me...I did. Maybe that's the problem. And yes, what you describe is what I was doing before: Start with a box and shape it with extrude along the way. But I kind of switch to making all my shapes with planes, then extrude them...I found it faster for making custom shapes and follow a drawing. I don't know which of the two techniques is correct.
I did the smooth group thing with one shape and now I see the main central pieces don't fit. So, I guess I have to redo them too. I might as well redo them in one shape, like you suggested Colbs. I still have to to do something about the bottom part, because what I draw doesn't fit at all.
There's nothing wrong with box modeling. By definition, that's where you start with any primitive shape (cube, cylinder, sphere, etc.) and modify it to fit your needs. Lots of us use this technique. I use it more often than I do spline modeling. Though, I typically use a blend of techniques. (I'm also self taught) There's no right or wrong way to get something done, it's all personal preference.
Whatever works. I'd never laugh at or criticize anybody's software or technique.
Anyway I did some refining, and made the two main textures (Who also have reflection and luminance).