Blender - A better sphere - #4 Subdivision Surface Modelling in Blender.

Learn more about Sub-D modelling www.hardvertex.com
The blender spheres are not much use in subdivision surface modelling and the usual methods of creating a quadsphere are incorrect.
We can go a long way towards fixing it to give you a much better sphere.
It takes ages to make these!! Please consider supporting me!
/ ianmcglasham
www.buymeacoffee.com/ianmcglashC

[@AnatomyAcademy]

This sphere is really handy; I’ve now set it as my default object in Blender instead of the cube. It’s good to have around.

[@dkdnd]

How did you add your sphere to the add menu?

[@AnatomyAcademy]

@@dkdnd I didn't add it to the add menu, I just saved the default blender scene with the sphere instead of the default cube - but now I don't do that, I use the asset browser for things like this

[@dkdnd]

@@AnatomyAcademy Ah okay! Thank you.

[@soundbeee]

Simpler way to get a perfect quad sphere: Activate the "Add Mesh: Extra Objects" add-on, then Add->Mesh->Round Cube and select the "Quadshere" preset from the menu on the bottom left. Perfectly round, no vertex editing necessary.

[@dabnoj]

thx bruh

[@jujuandjesus]

I tried it, but when I went to the striped matcap, it didn't look as clean imho. On the other hand, I'll probably just use it, because it's pretty much perfect. I managed some decent results by just shrink-wrapping a 100% smooth x2 subdivided cube and targeting a uv sphere. Would be happy to know if there is so sort of issue with that method though.

[@sansvital]

So underrated video. Thanks for the magic in step 3, man!

[@ianmcglasham]

Thank you!!

[@KismetBP]

I love it when he says "its not"... because it so true. :)

[@jmoconcept6672]

Thank's again Ian really enjoying yous tutos. I found that shrink wrapping the sphere on a high definition Icosphere was giving a good result too.

[@ianmcglasham]

I'm not sure that would work!

[@terencehill3142]

Thanks, you explained all I wanted to know super fast and straight (after I had searched for a while) :D

[@mopozuJIko]

Always new that UV sphere was not great for Sub-D modelling, but never new that there is such a great alternative! Thanks a lot!

[@cipitipy]

exactly what i was looking for, thank you mate

[@VasanthanDevaraj]

excellent tutorial.

[@jetboattv]

NICE! best sphere to use forsure!

[@felipedonoso5749]

Thanks for the succint explanations about blender spheres. Keep up the good work! Liked and subscribed btw

[@JohnSatan]

Subdivided cube with Cast modifier set to 1.01 influence gives perfect sphere

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi John. The cast modifier at 1.01 does not make enough difference to a catmul-clark subdivided cube to remove the need for the manual movement of vertices. A simple subdivided cube ,when used with the cast modifier, brings a while new set of problems with entire edges between the 3 spoked oles becoming problematic with stretching because of unequal face sizes at those 'borders'. Love your channel though!

[@movepigeon]

Thank you for creating this! I was going mental trying to create a smooth sphere.

[@user-xw1ti5mp1m]

I like this method because it's very easy, sophisticated and basic

[@D4mations]

Really hope you keep making videos Ian. By far the best on the tube!! If you need any support, give a shout

[@ianmcglasham]

Thanks D4mations. That is really kind. I'm taking a bit of a break for now. Back in September!

[@PicardyNelson]

This is great. Thank you for making this!!

[@joymagine]

EXCELLENT THANK YOU

[@REDDCCXXVII]

damn good job!!! For whatever reason I rarely comment but I need you to know that this is a damn good video!!! thank you

[@ianmcglasham]

Thank you. Feedback like that keeps me going. These videos are just a set up to make sure that the really good stuff coming in the next videos is easier to understand! I nearly didn't make them at all! Thanks!

[@castletransport]

Why have I not found your channel before? You're fantastic haha

[@ianmcglasham]

That's really kind of you to say castletransport. Thank you!

[@sebastianlorenzocardenete]

Thanks a lot, you solved my problem today at work

[@ianmcglasham]

Oh good! What was the problem if you don't mind me asking?

[@datamage]

Appreciate the video and insight.

[@ianmcglasham]

Appreciate the comment!

[@TimBrennan]

So what your saying is that Blender’s default geometries are spherely limited!

[@ianmcglasham]

Yes. But it a well rounded piece of software. You just have to circumnavigate some easy problems to give yourself some latitude.

[@nobodyfromnowher]

best tutorial! thanks!

[@ianmcglasham]

Thank you!

[@Divadosaurus]

The only thing we have to fear is sphere itself.

[@ianmcglasham]

Ha. That's a well rounded comment.

[@mitsukuramura9901]

@@ianmcglasham hello there, I would love for you to teach me one on one by discord. Because I want to learn how to build avatars.. But nobody wants to so that

[@betelgeuse4568]

THX!!!!

[@Sirusdark]

Would love to know a bit more about the technical details of why this is and why no one talks about this issue??

[@DominikWysocki-ml2he]

It really is too bad how Blender 4.0 (by now!) doesnt have an option for the polygonal sphere. Also, the ability to turn or flip around the line that intersects a single face (like you can do in 3dsmax). Even maya disabled that strangely because it is really useful. Especially when dealing with low polygons. Back to the subject - you shouldn't have to look u tutorials for this simple function. In any case, thank you for this clip.

[@thejagman22]

Hey, very nice advice. I've personally found that after applying the 3x subdiv and applying the casting to sphere, if you select only the 'corner' verts and run a Relax operation with 5 or so iterations, it pretty much eliminates any visible sign of stretching when the secondary subdiv is applied? I'm not a massively advanced user, so I'm possibly missing something, but seems to do the trick...

[@marqusee]

Dude this shit is sick!

[@ianmcglasham]

Cheers marqusee!

[@shohamtzubery8456]

Thanks for sharing the solution for the weird corner bumps! But I still wonder if there's a math-perfect solution

[@ianmcglasham]

Yes. Me too. I have spoken to a few math folk about it but the underlying problem lies somewhere between the Catmul Clarke algorithm and the fundamental math of the shading tech. A few have said that finding the math fix and implementing it in only one of these areas would likely break things in the other and a unified solution would tricky to find! I am still searching for an answer myself!

[@tamaracarter3894]

This is fantastic thank you so much for making this video! How would you recommend a good UV Unwrap for this kind of sphere?

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi Tamara. The unwrap for this sphere is largely the same as it would be unwrapping a cube. The difference is that each side is unwrapped from its corresponding orthographic view which removes distortion due to curvature. Does that make sense? It is really simple to do but as I type it it sounds complicated!

[@tamaracarter3894]

@@ianmcglasham oh excellent, thank you for the prompt reply Ian! I’ll give that a go. :)

[@BouleTrainingDanielDias]

Awsome video. Unfortunately I cant follow your video. Due to I am a Blender starter - my issue: at minute 1:56 in the video, when I select the sphere with the cursor, I cant grab the mesh of the sphere, it is still the silouette of the cube around. I can see the subdivided surface mesh in object mode but not in edit mode. My settings seem to be the same as yours. What am Im doing wrong?

[@ianmcglasham]

You need to hover your mouse over the subdivision surface modifier in the properties window and press "ctrl-a"

[@00TheRealTC]

Perhaps there's something wrong with my keyboard, but absolutely nothing happens when I have my subdivided cube in Edit Mode and press Shift + Alt + S. I do not get a "draggable" arrow to pull any vertices at all.

[@DoubleMoudDesigns]

Did they improve the cast modifier? I made a quad sphere in version 4.0 and the shading is all good after the SubD and cast Edit: Shading is all good if cast modifier is the put after SubD, anytime I tried adding a SubD modifier after Cast the shading became flawed

[@penguinsushi8442]

In Blender 3.0, creating a cube, then subdividing 3x, shaping to sphere, I get no distortions. Wonder if something changed in Blender?

[@wildguardian]

Ian how would you make a low poly (as low as possible) sphere for subdiv modifier.. if you want them to be changed later in a scene.. like particles, or distribute points on a faces geometric node (like the donut tutorial, imagine the sprinkles as spheres).. a low poly uv sphere will distort to a elipse with subdiv.. and this one has a high number of polys for a scene with hundreds of spheres for subdiving later.. any ideas? sure I can eyeball and make a low poly "sphere" that would be more circular after I apply the modifier.. but that would be imprecise and the wrong way to do it..

[@raysandrarexxia941]

When texture painting on this sphere, I get lines where the cube's edges were

[@toshaharris6521]

me too, anyone one know how to do this with the current version of blender?

[@TdclatinsportsBlogspot]

*Help me bro i have a trouble with putting the modifier with my video card, so i move and nothing happen*

[@jsteve1115]

Thanks. Outcome is really good for the modeling part but im confused with how to properly uv this to use a planet texture on it. when i use blender generated UVMap it looks great in 3d. but on 2d (when you open exported texture maps in image editors) it looks weird. like sides of the texture map are empty and all the image is squeezed in the middle. i wonder if using an auto generated uvmap is ok (since it looks good in 3d) or is there a better way to uv this?

[@ianmcglasham]

www.subpng.com/png-hjisw4/ This is the UV mapping projection used for this type of Sphere. It should not need any additional UV unwrapping as the original Cube that it came from will have had a UV map which will be adapted automatically with the processes in the video.

[@jsteve1115]

@@ianmcglasham great. thank you so much for the reply. i cant wait for your future videos!

[@LKM__]

Didn't know modeling a sphere would be hard

[@ianmcglasham]

Neither did I for a long time!

[@LKM__]

@@ianmcglasham very informative tho thanks

[@vipermjs]

use a spherize tool. better than manually moving verts.

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi Matt. There is not a spherical tool available that can do this correctly. The problem is not the placement of the vertices. It is the 3 spoked poles which connect some of them. The renderer (all renderers) interpret them incorrectly so they need to be moved by hand. There is no other way!

[@andrewwoodward5274]

Hi Ian, I am a member of your Patreon top tier but can't access the pdf's for these tutorials. Please can you help

[@stinkleaf]

levels doe nothing for me to the sphere in blender 4.1. Something change?

[@jcsekinger]

Thank you ! but tell us : why precisely those values to scale the "odd points" ?

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi Jean. Those are just the numbers I have come up with after a LOT of experimentation.

[@jcsekinger]

@@ianmcglasham 😯 bravo ! (and I didn't find a better solution !)

[@ianmcglasham]

@Jean-Christophe Sekinger I do have one more solution! Tey adding a laplacian smooth modifier to a quadshpere with a really small value. That will give a similar result. Not quite as good and I can't remember the value I use off the top of my head but that can be a good really quick fix if required! Works really well with sphere divided with only 1 or 2 subdivisions.

[@jcsekinger]

@@ianmcglasham kzbin.info/www/bejne/jZPdqGWQjdWXn68&ab_channel=Jean-ChristopheSekinger

[@nicholaspostlethwaite9554]

Or you just add a round cube provided in Mesh extra objects. To sphere to polish it. Have you looked at the rendered version not the mat cap? Ok, I was looking at a sphere with the hdri reflected but I can't see any issue.

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi Nicholas. The geometry of the mesh from extra objects is even worse and the "to sphere" operation cannot deal with the 3 spoked poles. The math for it does not seem to be in any mesh calculation outside of nurbs. The laplacian smooth can get you some way towards fixing the one from "Extra objects" but they all need something like this method to be as spherical as blender can manage. Good to see you here!

[@user-lz4sq5wg1o]

I think, I discovered the laziest method to do the trick 😁 Add a cube, shade it smooth, press Ctrl+5 (or add a Subdiv modifier with level 5), add a Cast modifier, duplicate the Cast modifier 8-10 times (you can use Shift+D with Cast modifier selected and mouse hovered over the modifiers section). Done in 7 seconds 😎 Can you please confirm, that this method is accurate as well, Ian? Or it's just the laziest method? 🙂

[@ianmcglasham]

Howdy user. It's an interesting attempt, but the resulting geometry is just too heavy to be considered in a subdivision surface model. Definitely interesting though! When you apply the cast modifier it is set to an Infuence of 0.5. I really don't know why as it would be used at an influence of 1, 99% of the time!!! It really annoys me. Once the cast modifier is set to 1 it dosent matter how many times you apply it, it always looks the same. Blender should fix that really! I'm sure they are a bit busy for such little things though!

[@user-lz4sq5wg1o]

​@@ianmcglasham Oh, really... I wasn't careful enough to spot and tweak the factor setting, it definitely should be 1, thank you! And for all the work you do on the channel, by the way 👍

[@north6935]

when I subdivide the cube into a spherical shape, edit mode still display the cube geometry...

[@north6935]

never mind, fixed it by ctrl+A and apply visual geometry to mesh

[@Max_McGamer]

a simpler way to scale the vertices is to select all vertices (shortcut A) and hit shift + alt + s and then hit 3 to snap it to a sphere shape rather than scale vertices individually

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi max. That does not work. The errors occur because of a mismatch in the way rendering algorithms interpret 3 spoked poles In a mesh. It will always need to be fixed either manually or using a laplacian smoothing operation.

[@Max_McGamer]

@@ianmcglasham I'm not that advanced so idk but I got this method from another video and it seems to solve to problem (for me at least) and I believe in the same way (slightly moving the corner vertices in). Like I said I'm not that advanced so I don't know if I'm missing something but it works well for me

[@lavatr8322]

Wait.... do other softwares have better spheres ?

[@iris89936]

3D is 3D 🤣🤣 How on earth would another program be different

[@ianmcglasham]

No. They are all the same!

[@estellemus7180]

im honestly still seeing the annoying bumps my mesh isnt a perfect sphere tho so maybe thats why i can still see them 🤷‍♀ but the bumps are really messing with my perfectionist brain 😭 they are so annoying

[@estellemus7180]

i can still see the bumps even with a rounded cube...

[@jmoconcept6672]

Well, after checking more closely : not that good...

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi jmo. What do you not like about it? I am always looking for new solutions?

[@jmoconcept6672]

@@ianmcglasham Well Ian, the mesh I get is full of weird shaky lines (even if the rendering looks Ok to me) I guess due to wrapp+subdivide.

[@aliensoup2420]

The Cast Modifier set to Sphere and Factor 1.0 works much better. No fudging necessary.

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi Alien Soup. The Cast modifier uses the same algorithm as the to-sphere operation and results in exactly the same issue. The problem is not the way the vertices are placed. It is a problem with the way the 3-spoked poles are interpreted by the rendering engines. There is no solution without moving some vertices by hand.