Alias Surfacing: Transitional Surfaces

[@john-nu9gk]

I'm blown away. Last time I looked for Alias tut vids these didn't exist! Thank you so much and keep it up!!!

[@mustafaelewa7133]

This is one of the best informative, perhaps the best, video that give a clear, realistic sight on working with alias.

[@kevindrouglazet2379]

I loved this video . I was just planning on having a quick look at how you work and ended up watching all of it ! Your voice over is very fluid and easy to listen while still raising a lot of very interesting points that are rarely mentionned in more classic tutorials .

[@abhishakprince9473]

i started from your channel and ended up here.

[@kevindrouglazet2379]

glad you ended up here ! This channel definitely worth watching .

[@dejunco]

If you ever decide to create some new videos, please do Kev! Both you and Raymundo have great, quality content in Alias, which is always often a bit harder to find - a bit more niche tool than other modeling programs :P.

[@surf2553]

Interesting to compare HB3D and French Kev's modeling styles. I find myself doing a hybrid of both depending on the situation and what the designer wants. And of course, if I have 5 minutes or 5 hours to fix something.

[@azzoboj]

From hard edges to silky ones... Even the description could not be Better🙃 I abandoned Nurbs (Just an hobby for me) due to a lack of time, but your technics Is sooooooo inspiring...thanks for share.

[@music11325]

Thank you for sharing such a detailed video about your guide lines of surfacing and experiences. As I'm learning automobile surfacing, I really learned a lot from this. Looking forward for your future uploads! Great video!

[@piaoingrou]

37:30 use the tubular offset tool to get close to the nearby COS ,then duplicate it and align it to the surface. This is a smart move. I must remember it.

[@ryanriehl9259]

This is a great model and technique.

[@brentahlers8477]

Awesome job. Loved your video!

[@lacilaci]

What you're talking about at the end is exactly why i'm interrested in nurbs/alias modeling. I'm doing mostly photorealistic visualizations and if I needed to do modeling it was always polygon/subD. But those models can be very difficult to work with when you need to show some higlight flow in the renderings. What's a bit frustrating, is that I've seen really good polygon modellers able to do greatly detailed stuff even cars, but then they go and render it out in a sort of light tunnel environment showing off highlight flow that's completely messed up, and they don't even see a problem with that... Anyways, your videos and Barry Kimball's/autodesk class a tutorials are the best I think. I like the idea of a video you mentioned seeing how you do things at the very beginning (curve network, base surfaces) not technical stuff but more generaly on how you approach things in the beginning. And also maybe how would you go about creating interior for this car (maybe even if it would be just a sped up timelapse, including all the errors just like, raw documentational stuff). And lastly maybe a condensed video, with couple of examples of isolated difficult surfacing situations you encountered in past and how to go about them... Yeah I know, such demands :D... Just throwing ideas out there if you find some time etc.. Again, thanks and enjoy your vacation.

[@chronokoks]

There are several reasons why poly modelers never go to NURBS. 1. They usually have absolutely no idea that the manufacturing industry uses NURBS and specific workflows to get precise surfaces (they literally have no idea that there is something like this out there) 2. The transition from SubD to Class A NURBS is a complete nightmare. 3. Alias (for that matter Icem Surf) is such a GUI and workflow nightmare it takes years to really master (especially if you come from no bullshit packages like Houdini, 3ds Max or Maya). 4. The price of the packages is absolutely prohibitive (Alias, ICEM surf, NX) to any solo designer. 5. Prolly the biggest issue is the lack of proper Tutorials.. there is a site that has tutorials but there are not that many tutorials there to really explain all of the aspects. What helped me personally is that a long time ago I started with Siemens NX to get a hang of the process as it has a very friendly GUI and is easy to use . It has 3 important tools that are similair to tools in Alias and ICEM Surf. Those are Studio Surface (4 edge surface creation), Match Edge is like Alias align and Xform is for pulling CVs in many ways). With NX you can follow 90 percent of Alias tutorials with a bit of creativity.. after you learn to create the basic transitions (3 fillet transitions like the Y fillet, or 4 and more transitions) and learn to pull CVs and align edges you can go Alias and get sick from the horrific GUI it has.

[@lacilaci]

I honestly was somewhat like that too. I did know about nurbs, but due to the way how it was implemented in maya/max it was "clearly inferior" to me. However once I started to do some visualizations for demanding clients it became more and more difficult to get really nice looking shapes/models. Also since a client for which I sometimes work onsite uses Alias I was kinda pushed to explore... Anyway, I agree that getting from subD's to alias is a nightmare, the moment I saw that you even have an action to "pick nothing" I was like: this is going to be my death. However, I learned the gui and how to use tools and basic principles within few months rather effectively(Now using handlebar3d's shortcuts). My biggest issue and a horrible habit from subD modeling, is that I never cared about how main surfaces and volumes are built cause they're always being recalculated within the vertex cage with the subD algorithm, so I always relied on the ultimate flexibility and simply moved couple vertices to get shapes kinda right(cause they're never perfect nor controlled by the user). Now I'm getting addicted to the surface quality, control and quick detail building you can do with alias, but when it comes to tutorials, what is really missing are tutorials more focused on some fundamentals, how to aproach surfacing and take organized and structured approach to complex modeling like in transportation design/surfacing. Autodesk has nice and simple tutorials for alias gui and basics as well as Barry Kimbal's class A tutorials for some specific problems, "little french kev" here on youtube and these handlebar's tutorials are very easy to consume and understand but ultimately they only kinda guide you. But fundamentals for people switching from one method to another are missing I guess... And I don't even know if such thing can be made since there are "infinite" ways to approach surfacing different things..

[@Zartizsunstrider]

A tip with the patch precision tool, is that you can project it straight onto your surface with the project command.

[@piaoingrou]

I think he was using the insert tool and it was set to COS.

[@devidtheyfar686]

What 3D program is?

[@nicksgameplan]

53:26 how did he fill that triangle ?

[@huoiopowsawfrqwaf1047]

super! i loive also working in vred, what not so typical for a designer. (its much more fun if you can)

[@hihoho4929]

Would you give us a lecture on the basic surface or 3D curve ?

[@HandleBar3D]

I will once some time opens up for me early next year

[@mnkrck]

Awesome as always! Short question: At 12:00 (and later at around 13:30) you talk about hotkeys for project, trimming and untrimming. Did you say ProjectTrim or Project -> Trim? Because ProjectTrim would be 3D Trimming, right? Sorry for beeing kinda nitpicking here :) I just checked your hotkeys and tried to update my own setup but I could not see that you have a hotkey for 3D trimming. Thanks

[@HandleBar3D]

In those examples I’m just projecting a curve on surface and trimming the surface afterwards. My project tool is P and T is for trimming.

[@mnkrck]

Ok, thanks!

[@AutomotiveCNC]

Hi, could you send me the 6 surfaces shown at 8:22 (or at least the one on the left side and the one at the right side)? I would like to try how this same blend will work in the far more limited Rhinoceros 5 and whether I can do it optically better. I noticed that the resulting 3 transition surfaces in the middle had some S-shaped reflections instead of C-shaped ones. By the way, sometimes the optical quality of surface blends is better when manually tuned by eye while putting stripes on the surface, rather than relying on numbers that show mathematically correct curvature which could look not so good in real life.

[@piaoingrou]

34:12 you deleted the copper fillet surfaces, untrimed the dark fascia surfaces, realigned some surfaces and adjusted the third row of CVs of the left front surface (I watched the video frame by frame at this part) and then, you did the surface fillet again and deleted them and repeated again (I noticed that you changed the thickness of the copper band at the 3rd time). What were you doing? especially while moving the third row of CVs at 34:29 ?

[@HandleBar3D]

Just adjusting the surface, adding more volume here and there. Fine tuning basically.

[@piaoingrou]

@@HandleBar3D Oh, I see. Design changes.

[@Taumisch]

Sweet !

[@huoiopowsawfrqwaf1047]

do you have a degree in Design and where have you studied? (Me out of Pforzheim)

[@HandleBar3D]

sylvester lai I have no degree, I am mostly self taught