Have attached arm and hand, let me know what you think...

[Roger]

Ok,

 

 

I seem to have munged up the cp's by the base of the arm/ armpit a bit, but other than that things look ok.

 

I'm pretty happy with the way that I managed to get the hand attached. I think it turned out best.

 

All I have left to attach is the foot and the head, and now that I think I have the hang of things I may change the head slightly.

 

 

[attachmentid=18354]

[robcat2075]

looks good so far.

 

-the indentation as the arm leads to the hand looks un-anatomical

 

-the crease at the shoulder might be a splinage issue

[Roger]

looks good so far.

 

-the indentation as the arm leads to the hand looks un-anatomical

 

-the crease at the shoulder might be a splinage issue

 

 

Well the indentation of hand to arm is easily fixed...........how would you deal w/ the other thing?

 

 

Roger

[robcat2075]

Well the indentation of hand to arm is easily fixed...........how would you deal w/ the other thing?

 

post a wireframe that shows that area. It might just be my imagination.

[Roger]

Well the indentation of hand to arm is easily fixed...........how would you deal w/ the other thing?

 

post a wireframe that shows that area. It might just be my imagination.

 

 

Ok, well, here it is.........[attachmentid=18375][attachmentid=18376]

[pwknox]

Roger,

 

Robcat's hunch was right (he usually is). The place were you see the creasing is due to more than 2 splines crossing at a Control Point. In fact, you have a spline entering a CP without exiting.

 

This almost always creases. I have included a possible solution.

 

Take heart, though. Shoulders are hard. Happy splining!

 

Phil

[Eric2575]

On your first dragon post, I didn't see a tail. You're gonna add one, right?

[thejobe]

should be using 5 point patches for those

always seems to work for me

heres what i do

hope this helps a bit

[Roger]

Roger,

 

Robcat's hunch was right (he usually is). The place were you see the creasing is due to more than 2 splines crossing at a Control Point. In fact, you have a spline entering a CP without exiting.

 

This almost always creases. I have included a possible solution.

 

Take heart, though. Shoulders are hard. Happy splining!

 

Phil

 

Hmmm ok well I guess I will have to break some splines and see if I can't fix that.

 

and yes Eric I will be adding a tail

 

There's a tail stump but I haven't bothered extruding it yet since that will be the last step after I finish modelling the feet, attaching them, and modelling the head and attaching it and then welding the 2 halves

of the body together. I should have a complete model within 2 days, I hope.

 

Thanks guys

 

Roger

[Ilidrake]

Reminds me of Puff the Magic Dragon Good luck with him.

[Roger]

Roger,

 

Robcat's hunch was right (he usually is). The place were you see the creasing is due to more than 2 splines crossing at a Control Point. In fact, you have a spline entering a CP without exiting.

 

This almost always creases. I have included a possible solution.

 

Take heart, though. Shoulders are hard. Happy splining!

 

Phil

 

Ok, I tried fixing it the way you showed........but I think I made it worse. It was easy enough to delete the bad splines and start creating new ones, however, sometimes the new splines I create look all funky, other times they are curved nice. I know this can sometimes be fixed w/ gamma and bias but I really don't know which to apply and when, its sort of like voodoo for me. I had to create another patch inside the one large 5 pt patch that is created by making the modifications you suggested, for some reason it just would not render closed.

 

I think I may go back to the old version I had, its not quite that noticeable. I would have liked to have fixed it, maybe there is still something I am doing wrong. I have posted pics of the problems I had. [attachmentid=18404][attachmentid=18406]

[Ilidrake]

I've had this problem myself along the way and it is simply a matter of breaking the splines apart and reconnecting them. You may need to do it several times, in various ways before you get a smooth look that is pleasing to the eye. Don't give up. Believe me, I know it's frustrating but you can fix this, and once you learn to fix this you'll be a bit wiser when something like this rears it's head. Just keep plugging away at it. Try extending the splines as I've detailed in the pic, that may help smooth the spline curve out. And once you get it as smooth as you can apply Porclien Material to it to really smooth it out. Good luck

[Fishman]

I t5hink you were close, but you overdid it. You still have 3 splines intersecting at a control point. This will crease badly. Try the attached. Delete the spline shown by the black X. Make the two pink splines continuous. Move the hook shown by the arrow to the middle rather than the 1/4 hook. This will leave you with a 5 point patch to close and then you'll be good to go.

 

Scott

[Roger]

I t5hink you were close, but you overdid it. You still have 3 splines intersecting at a control point. This will crease badly. Try the attached. Delete the spline shown by the black X. Make the two pink splines continuous. Move the hook shown by the arrow to the middle rather than the 1/4 hook. This will leave you with a 5 point patch to close and then you'll be good to go.

 

Scott

 

 

I am confused......by continuous, do you mean that they are 2 unbroken splines that overlap each other? Or are they joined by a hook at that point?

 

thanks

[Fishman]

The two splines being continuous means they cross at the control point. The concern is that you would have 4 splines that dead end at a CP but they look like two splines. The way to be sure is to disconnect one of the splines using Shift-K. If you get a spline running through the CP when you pull the CP you're good. If you get a spline that deadends into the CP, then you need to detatch the other side, connect them together and then reattach.

 

Here is a good page on getting rid of creases - it is for J-Patch, but the principles work for AM.

 

http://www.jpatch.com/?page=crease_tutorial

 

Scott

[Roger]

The two splines being continuous means they cross at the control point. The concern is that you would have 4 splines that dead end at a CP but they look like two splines. The way to be sure is to disconnect one of the splines using Shift-K. If you get a spline running through the CP when you pull the CP you're good. If you get a spline that deadends into the CP, then you need to detatch the other side, connect them together and then reattach.

 

Here is a good page on getting rid of creases - it is for J-Patch, but the principles work for AM.

 

http://www.jpatch.com/?page=crease_tutorial

 

Scott

 

I don't think this is quite it yet, but if it weren't for the peaked or faceted look, I think this would be pretty close.

What do you think? I am not quite sure why its doing that.

 

I'll take a look at the tutorial. [attachmentid=18416][attachmentid=18417]

 

The two splines being continuous means they cross at the control point. The concern is that you would have 4 splines that dead end at a CP but they look like two splines. The way to be sure is to disconnect one of the splines using Shift-K. If you get a spline running through the CP when you pull the CP you're good. If you get a spline that deadends into the CP, then you need to detatch the other side, connect them together and then reattach.

 

Here is a good page on getting rid of creases - it is for J-Patch, but the principles work for AM.

 

http://www.jpatch.com/?page=crease_tutorial

 

Scott

 

 

Ok, I think I just about have it now. I'm cleaning up some more spots, I'll post in a bit.

[Roger]

Ok......I think this is about as close as I'm going to get.

 

Might it not be a better idea to start over from an earlier version, before I attached the arm, and make the circular hole out of a continuous spline, reconnect it to the body, and then attach the arm to that?

 

 

I think that might be the way to go. Just as I get one area ironed out, another seems to need fixing. Its getting a little tedious. I will save my progress so far, and try modifying the hole, to see if that helps.

 

Here is a screenshot of what I have so far, with a clay material applied.

 

 

[attachmentid=18419][attachmentid=18420]

 

I think things look better, but given the faceting around the arm I think I have the right idea.

[Eric2575]

Roger, select the whole area you were working on and hit "O". It looks like your splines were somehow peaked.

[Roger]

Eric

 

 

tried that already, didn't work.

 

 

however, I'm trying something else and it seems to be working.

 

crosses fingers

 

I will post it if I can get it straightened out.

 

Eric

 

 

tried that already, didn't work.

 

 

however, I'm trying something else and it seems to be working.

 

crosses fingers

 

I will post it if I can get it straightened out.

 

 

hmmm ok I think I am making progress.......I may still have creases in the arm pits but that's not bad compared to how it was.

[Roger]

I'm beat for now.

 

 

I think this is as close as I'm going to get it.

 

I'll leave it this way for now, take a break, do the giraffe tutorial, and then come back to it.

 

Maybe I will re-render the original with the clay shader, see what it looks like and if its not too bad I will stick with that one.

 

 

thanks to everyone that gave suggestions, I seem to be either not getting something or something is not working quite right.

 

I'll give it another go tomorrow maybe.

[Eric2575]

Roger, I've almost finished making a Wink tutorial on making a three toed foot. It's very basic and just one of many ways to do it. Hopefully Rodney will find a to get it loaded into the tutorial section if he deems it helpful.

 

If you want, send me your dino model file and I'll see what the problem is. I won't change the original, but will return a modified one with explanation of what went wrong. I'm sure it's pretty simple to fix. Let me know by sending me a PM.

 

Eric

[Eric2575]

Here is the tut link: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=S...t=0#entry186928

[Ilidrake]

Any updates today? I would like to see any new pics on your model.

[Roger]

Any updates today? I would like to see any new pics on your model.

 

 

Sorry, I was so burnt out from yesterday that I quit around 8pm last night, and I just got back from the gym so I haven't done much with it yet.

 

I hope that I will have a completed model up today. If I futz with the arm for an hour and I don't get any further, I will get it to look as good as I can and just press forward.

 

I'm glad to see that you're interested.

[Roger]

Ok, I am battling with this thing again today.

 

I know what constitutes a valid four point patch, and I think I'm getting the hang of using continuous splines,

and I know why 3 point patches are bad.....

 

However, I have what I believe to be valid 5 point patches here, and I am not sure why they are not closing off.

 

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance

 

 

Roger[attachmentid=18464]

[Ilidrake]

One quirk about AM is that if you have a hook near your 5 point patch, as you do here, it won't allow you to close it. Simply extend your splines and hook them furthur down the line. 'A' is effecting patch 'B' and hook 'C' is effecting patch 'D'. Once you have the hooks moved simply select the individual cps by hoding the Alt key and picking them one by one and then lock them. Deselect them then reselect them, and you should be able to apply a five-point patch.

[Roger]

How about this then? Ignore the geometry on the left......I detached some points and haven't fixed it yet.

 

I extended that one spline clear down to point A.........and that 5 point patch STILL won't close.

 

There are no other hooks near that patch, so I don't know whats going on. Do you have an idea what may be keeping it from closing?[attachmentid=18466]

[Ilidrake]

Show me a shot with the circled splines included so i can see where there going. But looking at this I see no reason why it wouldn't close. Select the 5 cps that make this patch up, lock them so you edit only them, and then reselect all of them, then see if it will allow you to make a 5-point.

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23028&hl=

Check that page out. It's of a model I just finished. If you look under the arm you'll notice I have 2 5-point patches side by side so I see no reason for yours to work. Don't give up yet. There's an answer somewhere

[Roger]

Ok,

 

Here is a wider shot with more of the patches visible.

 

I can assure you there are no hooks in the armpit area, and all the patches down there are 4 pointers.

 

I tried selecting the holes of the 5 pt patch, deselecting and reselecting but I must be doing something wrong because it stays open. First I select them, hit the lock button, and then deselect them. Then I reselect them.

Nada.

 

 

Roger[attachmentid=18468]

[Ilidrake]

You may have extra cps lurking in there. I've had it happen where I accidently put and extra cp on top of another. You should be able to make a 5-point out of that. My only answer to this dilema now would be to take and break all the splines in this area, pull them aside and check for additional cps, reconnect them, and try again. What version of AM are you using by the way? That may have something to do with it.

[Roger]

You may have extra cps lurking in there. I've had it happen where I accidently put and extra cp on top of another. You should be able to make a 5-point out of that. My only answer to this dilema now would be to take and break all the splines in this area, pull them aside and check for additional cps, reconnect them, and try again. What version of AM are you using by the way? That may have something to do with it.

 

 

That was exactly the kind of answer I was hoping NOT to hear......

 

Anyway I am using v12.od

[Ilidrake]

That was exactly the kind of answer I was hoping NOT to hear......

Anyway I am using v12.od

Don't worry. That model I did took a week. I had to redo his upper torso 9 times! 9 times And I ain't talking rebreak a spline or two. I mean I deleted everything and started over 9 times. But the end result is nice. Go ahead and break them apart and see if that solves your problem. Another thing you could try before going that far is to select the 5 points and then hide the rest of the mesh. Then select them and see if they'll form a 5 point patch. Keep cranking away at it. I really wanna see this dragon finished. It's gonna be an awesome model.

[Fishman]

Another popular way to get a 5 pointer to register is to select the 5 points and then hit the "." key twice. For some reason this jolts the program into recognizing the 5 point patch.

 

Scott

[KenH]

It's most unlikely a bug. There looks to be some splinage issues causing creases that's causing it.

[Roger]

It's most unlikely a bug. There looks to be some splinage issues causing creases that's causing it.

 

 

No, it wasn't a bug.......I didn't know there was a "make five pt patch" button. So, once I corrected some things and learned how to use that.........things started to look a lot better.

 

I don't think I got things perfect, but I do think that the current screenshot I have looks much better. The clay shader I have hides some of the goofy artifacts that are visible in a plain render.

 

Anyway, let me know if this is an improvement. There is one little bit on the front side of the arm that could stand to be tweaked, and I think the underarm is a touch funky (not really a concern--I don't plain on having it visible much) but it looks scads better.

 

Eric2575 thanks again for your assistance.

 

[attachmentid=18476] and another: [attachmentid=18477]

 

BTW I spent the last 4 hours working on this damn arm, I am about ready to go have a beer or blow some stuff up in Quake 4.

 

I think you gentlemen will agree though that that is substantially improved from the other day.

 

 

LOL

[Scottj3d]

Roger, try hiding most of the arm so that you can see the body and part of the arm say just past the bicep area. Looking straight at it from the side add a continuous spline to create a solid ring all the way around the area I have marked in yellow. Unhide the rest and break the splines between where I have marked in yellow and blue or for that matter cut the arm at the outside of the yellow and delete the rest of the arm then extrude the arm out from the new (yellow) spline ring and you should get a nice smooth transition. You could cut it as I was saying and connect the old arm to the new geometry but I think you'll find it easier just to extrude the arm as I have said. Save the hand and reconnect it to the extruded arm. Also the two poorly drawn arrows in red show two splines that appear to intersect three splines causing a crease. A good rule of thumb is not to intersect more than two splines. You can hook one of those in before you extrude. so that you don't have both of them running down the arm. If it gives you trouble I'd be happy to respline it to demonstrate what I have explained. I think (if you want to) you can zip the model and post it and I can download it and re-post the fix. Once you get the hang of the technique it will be something you can use alot later. Also try saving just before trying to fill those 5 pointer's sometimes this helps. And occaisionally I have to click the 1st cp once to select it then while holding shift (PC) click it again to show the bounding box and then work my way around to get the 5 point patch tool to highlight. Good luck.

[Roger]

Roger, try hiding most of the arm so that you can see the body and part of the arm say just past the bicep area. Looking straight at it from the side add a continuous spline to create a solid ring all the way around the area I have marked in yellow. Unhide the rest and break the splines between where I have marked in yellow and blue or for that matter cut the arm at the outside of the yellow and delete the rest of the arm then extrude the arm out from the new (yellow) spline ring and you should get a nice smooth transition. You could cut it as I was saying and connect the old arm to the new geometry but I think you'll find it easier just to extrude the arm as I have said. Save the hand and reconnect it to the extruded arm. Also the two poorly drawn arrows in red show two splines that appear to intersect three splines causing a crease. A good rule of thumb is not to intersect more than two splines. You can hook one of those in before you extrude. so that you don't have both of them running down the arm. If it gives you trouble I'd be happy to respline it to demonstrate what I have explained. I think (if you want to) you can zip the model and post it and I can download it and re-post the fix. Once you get the hang of the technique it will be something you can use alot later. Also try saving just before trying to fill those 5 pointer's sometimes this helps. And occaisionally I have to click the 1st cp once to select it then while holding shift (PC) click it again to show the bounding box and then work my way around to get the 5 point patch tool to highlight. Good luck.

 

Scott,

 

I could try the extrude from a new ring thing, but my new geometry doesn't look anywhere near as bad as the old. I don't have multiple splines going into the same point anymore. It still looks a touch funky because I haven't tweaked/adjusted all the cp's yet but its a million times better than what it was. All patches are quad with I think the exception of 2 5 pointers, and all splines are continuous. I'm not quite sure why there would be any residual funkiness, it looks good to me. I can post a wireframe image, with the rest of the arm hidden (so only the socket is visible) but I think you would agree that its better.

I need to go to the gym again, but I will try to post a wireframe later tonight.

 

thanks again everyone for your suggestions and help, it looks much better. I will have to wait and see how it animates, but I think it will be ok.

 

Roger

 

ok I lied here is the wireframe: [attachmentid=18485]

 

and there are actually 4 5pt patches, but you will see that the existing patches are all kosher etc.

There may be a few minor tweaks I can do but I think this is about the limits of my patience. I am eager

to start doing some other things.....

[Scottj3d]

That should work very well. Look's much cleaner and should extrude well. You might round out those 3 cp's (o key) at the bottom of that hole at the 5,6,and 7 oclock position though. Good job!

[Roger]

That should work very well. Look's much cleaner and should extrude well. You might round out those 3 cp's (o key) at the bottom of that hole at the 5,6,and 7 oclock position though. Good job!

 

 

Here's the thing, though, I've tried selecting those bastiches and hitting the O key and nothing happens.........they stay peaked looking. Soooooo I am not sure what is up with that.

 

Any clues what I could be doing wrong?

 

Roger

[Eric2575]

Yes, when you have a spline that is peaked and you cannot get it smooth by hitting "o" then you have two separate splines meeting at the peaked point. Select the left or right side of the point and hit shift "k". Move the cp off the point to make sure it has separated. Do the same with the other side just like I showed you in the tutorial. Now select the right cp and drag it over to the left cp to join. Then reconnect the continuous spline to the original point of detachment.

 

This is easy to write, but a bit hard to visualize. Sorry.

[Scottj3d]

Yes, when you have a spline that is peaked and you cannot get it smooth by hitting "o" then you have two separate splines meeting at the peaked point. Select the left or right side of the point and hit shift "k". Move the cp off the point to make sure it has separated. Do the same with the other side just like I showed you in the tutorial. Now select the right cp and drag it over to the right cp to join. Then reconnect the continuous spline to the original point of detachment.

 

This is easy to write, but a bit hard to visualize. Sorry.

 

Yeah,what Eric said:)

[Roger]

Couldn't sleep.

 

Got up, looked at the model.....

 

I realized that what I had been doing to get those peaked points is that I was holding down shift while connecting the control point.....doh....

 

anyway I am doing a test render now and I will probably have to go break a bunch of patches and reattach them but I think that that is what was keeping it from looking smooth.

 

 

thanks for jogging the memory.

 

Roger

 

booyah.

 

that's what did the trick.

 

I am too tired to screw with this now, but I will hit the offending splines tomorrow and post a good clear shot.

 

 

Thanks again.

 

 

Roger

[Roger]

Ok, update on the dragon project.

 

Rather than start a new thread, I just decided to post stuff about the foot in this one.

In the future I guess I am going to have to give my threads names which are a little

more all-encompassing.

 

Anyway, here it is:

 

[attachmentid=18567][attachmentid=18568][attachmentid=18569]

 

 

My thoughts are that the ball of the foot is a little funky and that I will need to tweak it, but otherwise

it looks ok to me. Rather than start over from scratch modelling a foot I just took that hand that

I had made and modified that, it doesn't look too bad.

 

Hopefully tonight I will also get some work done on the head, attaching the eyes and the horns and whatnot

and sticking it on his neck. I haven't decided whether I want to have an animatable mouth or if I am just happy with a snout for now.

 

let me know what you think.

 

Roger

[Roger]

This is why, at the risk of being a PITA, I start new threads of I am wanting to know about a new model

for the same project.

 

I figure few people are going to go into the thread and find this all the way at the end.

 

Does anybody have any crits or advice to offer on the foot? I'll wait another day or so before I post it as its own thread, I'm really not sure what forum etiquette is in re: to that.

 

later

 

 

Roger

[Ilidrake]

The ball of the foot could use tweaking, maybe add a back claw there? You could model a human foot and then tweak it to the shape you want. Just a thought. Keep up the good work.

[Roger]

Ok.....

 

I took a break from modelling for several days because I had some home repairs/ maintenance that needed tending to.

 

Anyway, I have tweaked the foot.....I made the arch a little more pronounced, and fixed the top so that it slopes up more. I also tweaked the ball and heel of the foot, so that they would look better. I may add claws to the toes. Any suggestions on making claws? I'm thinking just lathing a cone shape.

 

The only other thing that I am noticing that still needs fixing maybe is moving the other toes down so the bottoms match with where the bottom of the big toe hits. Otherwise, it will look kind of wierd if I leave it the way that it is now.

 

If anyone has any comments/criticisms to make, feel free.

 

Thanks

 

Roger[attachmentid=18855][attachmentid=18856]

[Ilidrake]

I think it looks pretty good. How about a wire frame, that'll help to determine how it'll animate.

[Roger]

I think it looks pretty good. How about a wire frame, that'll help to determine how it'll animate.

 

 

I will post a wireframe as soon as I fix some of the issues I am having with creasing. Its looking better, the very back of the heel is going to look a little odd since it has a bunch of splines all converging at one point where I closed off a hole, but I am not too worried about that spot since I really don't think its going to be visible most of the time. I am anxious to get the whole model put together and start rigging it so I can see what its going to look like and maybe start doing some animation tests.

 

 

Roger

[Roger]

OK....

 

 

Here are 2 wireframes....side view and 3/4 view:

 

[attachmentid=18867][attachmentid=18868]

[Roger]

Ok, I have attached the foot, so now I have the foot attached to the leg and the hand attached to the arm.

 

 

One problem.......I've got the foot attached so that the big toe is on the outside instead of on the inside, so I think I am going to have to go back and detach it, then mirror it and reattach so that when I do a copy/flip/attach it comes out looking right instead of arse-backwords.

 

 

doh.