Not so Smoooooth Modeling

[Russell]

I started in modeling a face per the excercies. I created a nose and added an eye. So far so good..then I tried to tie the eye to the forehead and the cheek. My smooth curved splines suddenly became sprung wire angles. I tried adjusting the bias handles and things seemed to get worse. I kept tweaking the splines in the problem area until I would get them "kinda'" like I wanted and wamo zamo my tweaking had changed the spline bias for another area. I went back and watched the tutorial video. The instructor didn't seem to have a problem with his eyes and nose attaching nor did the example in the manual. What did I miss and what should I know to keep my models face from suffering from bubonic plague. See attachment

[Julian]

Do you have porcelain turned on? I can see from your screenshot that the patches with dark corners have their normals flipped inward. Select a patch with inward-pointing normals using the patch selection tool (Shift-P) and flip the normal by pressing F. At least, that's what I have the shortcuts set to, but I don't remember if they're the defaults.

[robcat2075]

One thing you'll want to do is use hooks in all those spots where a spline is dead-ennding into the middle of the side of an otherwise rectangular patch. Search HOOKS in the A:M Help for info

[Russell]

Do you have porcelain turned on? I can see from your screenshot that the patches with dark corners have their normals flipped inward. Select a patch with inward-pointing normals using the patch selection tool (Shift-P) and flip the normal by pressing F. At least, that's what I have the shortcuts set to, but I don't remember if they're the defaults.

 

 

How do I know if I do?

[Russell]

One thing you'll want to do is use hooks in all those spots where a spline is dead-ennding into the middle of the side of an otherwise rectangular patch. Search HOOKS in the A:M Help for info

 

mmm... I thought tey were hooks. How can I tell a hook from a non-hook? I checked to key assignment and it indicates " ` " for the attachment of a spline.

 

Russ

[Paul Forwood]

Porcelain is a material so you would have applied it to a group. When porcelain is applied to a suface any patches with inverted normals show up as dark patches, like in the image that you posted.

 

To turn those dead-end splines from a simple attached CP to a hook you need to do the following:

1) click on the dead end CP and press Shift/K to disconnect it. Move the cp slightly so that you can see that there are actually two CPs there.

2) Click on the other CP to select it and press delete.

3) Select the other CP again and drag it to where it was previously connected and, without taking your finger off the left mouse button, press the right mouse button. The spline will connect seamlessly with the crossing spline. You will probably find that the connection is not exactly where the previous connection was because hooks connect at specific locations along a spline. I think it works on quarters so you could connect at one quarter the way along a spline or half way or three quarters of the way.

 

Once you have created a hook you will instantly see the difference between a hook and a standard connection. You cannot drag hooks around. They will maintain a balanced distance between the two CPs on either side of them.

 

Hope that is of some help.

[robcat2075]

mmm... I thought tey were hooks. How can I tell a hook from a non-hook? I checked to key assignment and it indicates " ` " for the attachment of a spline.

That isn't what the Help says to do. That's why you didn't get a hook.

 

Search on "Hooks" in the Help. Really, really, really... read that section about hooks.

[largento]

Hey Russell, it's easier to do this with a two-button mouse. The mighty mouse doesn't let you click both buttons at the same time.

 

Do this:

 

a) Click "a" to add a spline.

 

Drag the spline out away from any other splines and then left click and right click to end the spline.

 

c) Click and drag the end of that spline to the spline where you want to hook it and without letting go of the mouse button, hit the tilde key.

 

You'll be able to tell it's a hook because the spline will no longer end in a control point.

 

I ended up buying a 3rd party mouse so that I could do this with the mouse instead of having to use the keyboard. You may want to consider doing that if you find yourself doing a lot of modeling in A:M.

[zandoriastudios]

Where I have marked your image in RED, you are dead-ending a spline (thats a nono...).

Where I marked in BLUE, you should HOOK instead.

 

Where I marked in GREEN, consider alternate flow of the splines...

 

May I recommend this tutorial:

[KenH]

Also, I've marked another area that needs fixing You need to turn on the bias handles (if you're not experienced) to see the flow of the splines. The center spline should flow straight up.

[Russell]

Hey Russell, it's easier to do this with a two-button mouse. The mighty mouse doesn't let you click both buttons at the same time.

 

Do this:

 

a) Click "a" to add a spline.

 

Drag the spline out away from any other splines and then left click and right click to end the spline.

 

c) Click and drag the end of that spline to the spline where you want to hook it and without letting go of the mouse button, hit the tilde key.

 

You'll be able to tell it's a hook because the spline will no longer end in a control point.

 

I ended up buying a 3rd party mouse so that I could do this with the mouse instead of having to use the keyboard. You may want to consider doing that if you find yourself doing a lot of modeling in A:M.

 

 

Well I give up. What's the trick? I have a Intel Mac and no matter how I drag and click and tilde or whatever I can't get a hook. I created as new model and tried hooking a spline and I still end up with a CP. I made sure that I could find the mid-point, 50%, and the quarters, 25 and 75%, and still no joy. I checked the keyboard assignment for "attach a CP" and reset it to make sure I knew the key. I still can't get a hook.

 

Russ

[phatso]

Where do I find the porcelain material? I've looked. (I'm using V13 at the moment)

[Julian]

Well I give up. What's the trick? I have a Intel Mac and no matter how I drag and click and tilde or whatever I can't get a hook.

When you extend a spline with the intention of making a hook, press Shift-A instead of A. (A lot of longtime A:M users will forget to tell you do that, because this behavior was introduced with the stitch feature back in version 10.)

[Julian]

Where do I find the porcelain material? I've looked. (I'm using V13 at the moment)

On the A:M CD, it's in Data\Materials\Geometry\Porcelain.mat. When you open it, it looks just like a regular material with one attribute, except that at the very bottom of the Surface properties there's an extra value called "Normal Weight". Usually, you want to set it to 100%, unless you find that this amount of smoothing is obscuring some detail you want to keep.

[Russell]

Well I give up. What's the trick? I have a Intel Mac and no matter how I drag and click and tilde or whatever I can't get a hook.

When you extend a spline with the intention of making a hook, press Shift-A instead of A. (A lot of longtime A:M users will forget to tell you do that, because this behavior was introduced with the stitch feature back in version 10.)

 

 

Ta da. The man gets a cigar. All is well in Mudville and I even upgraded to AM 14.0. Thank you for the help and also to all of the other great people who helped!!!!

 

Russ