Blender - Hard Surfaces - #12 Subdivision Surface Modelling in Blender

Learn more about Sub-D modelling www.hardvertex...
Hard surface modelling with Booleans is a bad idea if you hope to have lightweight, controllable, easy to texture models which may need deformation, transparency, sub surface scattering and the ability to be understood by any other 3d and 2d software.
If you are messing around with normals to make your models look acceptable, you probably have bad geometry.
A better understanding of the inset tool and basic topology will get you much further!
It takes ages to make these!! Please consider supporting me!
ko-fi.com/ianm...

[@nicolaslabonte4177]

Easily the best channel to learn Sub-D modeling on YT. Could someone explain to me why we rebuild the interior geometry rather than simply extruding inwards? Look forward to progressing to more difficult videos!

[@christophschmitt4600]

Please go on with these kind of modelling techniques tutorials. Very well done!

[@ianmcglasham]

Thank you Christoph. Much appreciated. I'm working on it!

[@3d_chip]

this channel is gold

[@snarkbucham4077]

this channel is worth gold, thank you very much

[@bubulckak]

this is so useful especially you stated the 'hard surface modelling' stuffs, I was having a hard time following some so called 'hard surface modelling' tutorial, without any clear edge flow the shading looks shit, luckily my 3D modeller colleague stoped me. I am so glad that there are also people on KZbin called this out

[@SKKEE]

Those “hard surface modeling” tutorials are totally scam. They are just Box cutter add-on sellers. Their methods are really useless.

[@user-se6et3jn2t]

did you know that you are the best person in the world?

[@micemincer]

nice tuts without clowning around - good job.

[@ianmcglasham]

Cheers micemincer. I tried to make my first ones funny. but it turns out I'm not funny so I deleted them and started again without messing around.

[@micemincer]

@@ianmcglasham Unless your sense of humor is not like from adhd 10 y old kids induced with pepsi or other stuff then jokes are perfectly fine ;)

[@fullyleaded]

Woohoo new video from Mr. McGlasham. What a great way to start my weekend. I’ve not even watched it but I know it’s gonna excellent! Thank you 🙏

[@fullyleaded]

I was correct. Excellent as always. Thank you again.

[@ianmcglasham]

Yes! You are always there for me Fully Leaded! Cheers!

[@rewdonaghy1305]

Your tutorials are brilliant. You always end up with super clean topology.

[@ElveraViljoen]

The finger painting gave me a good giggle. I do agree that Booleans are problematic. Must say your videos are giving me some boneshaking insights into topology. Very interesting. Thanks for making them.

[@ianmcglasham]

Thanks Elvera! Glad you like them.

[@Markoz87]

Great explanated. I love when someone can explain stuff empirically, step by step. In my opinion this is the best way to learn well. Thank you for that wideo. Waiting for more! :)

[@ianmcglasham]

Thanks so much Markoz87! I've got stacks of videos coming! I'm determined to persuade people to stop messing around with Booleans!

I recently embarked on the journey of learning Blender, and I must say, your tutorials provide a level of clarity that is truly a game-changer compared to others I've come across. Thank you immensely for that! On a different note, I'm curious if the horse chess piece tutorial is on the horizon?

[@powersprouter]

fantastic energy & a helpful perspective I haven't heard. Thank you.

[@ianmcglasham]

Thanks powersprouter. It means a lot to hear it. Cheers!

[@AlenZhiYe]

All I want to say is THANK YOU SIR!

[@daniellee6912]

Thanks a lot

[@ragusarendering828]

Ian great video as usual, would really love to see video on the importance of F2 add-on.

[@ianmcglasham]

Thanks Ragusa Rendering! I'll get the F2 one made quickly!

[@hunter8980]

Very impressive tutorial on hard surface modeling. Very helpful and very useful from a real professional. Thank you!!!!!! Please display small ACTION KEYS at the bottom right or left so that we would know exactly what key functions you are using. This will help us a lot. I am a beginner and I feel nice that I happened to see this tutorial very early to avoid any mistakes in the future. Thanks again!

[@ianmcglasham]

Thank you very much Chetan. My little overlay action keys add-on stopped working with blender 3.0!!! I am trying to find another one I like and I will certainly try to add that to future videos.

[@hunter8980]

@@ianmcglasham You are the best!!!!

[@3behappy]

you saved me a lot of time, thanks

[@markokovacevic3225]

This is great! Thanks for sharing!

[@anissar7301]

perfection. Thank you

[@ianmcglasham]

Cheers Aniss Ar!

[@channelname8623]

4:50 has anyone been able to get this to work? when i loop cut with ctrl + r, then hit r, i get rotation, then if i hit f while the rotation is still "live", nothing happens. edit: after some testing i found that hitting "E" straightens the loopcut, then i can hit f to toggle between straight and following nearby loops. just a heads up for anyone who got stuck there.

[@jujuandjesus]

"Relying on Booleans to model is the 3D equivalent of finger painting"

[@kenliuuzaki3655]

Great series for learning subD. But booleans definitely plays a role in hard surface modelling, especially when making static meshes which have no need for deformation.

[@ianmcglasham]

Thanks Ken. I would never want to discount any of the tools in blender. Modelling needs some creative solutions sometimes and if someone can get the result they need more easily with a boolean, then they should use a boolean! Sometimes a Subdivision solution is really complicated and without the experience needed to solve it quickly, trying it just for the sake of good topology can leave artists making compromises and ending up with boring shapes. Booleans definitely have their place.

[@manart6506]

5:40 I often find later when using the F function that I created some edges overlapping, I can’t really figure it out how to notice it until later when some errors start to happen.

[@ianmcglasham]

Agreed MAN art. when I am going quickly I sometimes realise I have done things in the wrong order and have to undo a lot to fix it! I often wish the f2 addon had better feedback or a slightly different selection order for vertices and edges after it has finished it's task. I will be making a video all about it soon(ish!)

[@1zymn1]

Wouldn't edge creases be better for the topology as every edge loop you make morphs the overall shape of the cube when subdivided?

[@BMX-Bandit]

I've seen people use all kinds of intricate shapes to boolean their hardsurface models and later retopologize them with clean topology. I'm really curious what you think about this kind of a workflow.

[@ianmcglasham]

The boolean workflow is not truly compatible with retopology towards a subdivision solution as things often have to be approached in a different order to guarantee surface continuity. I do it myself sometimes with really complicated shapes like cutting a spiral out of a spheroid or something else which I don't have a method for but I try to collect as many true subdivision solutions as I can and retopologise silly things like that by hand. The order things are built can be really important in Sub-D modelling and retopology can be really lengthy and difficult later in the process.

[@angulinhiduje6093]

in previous videos you said loopcuts around the entire mesh are bad, why is it okay here? would there be a way to avoid it?

[@eitantal726]

Question about the Control loops: In this example, you place the control loop inside the "sidewalk". In other cases, such as the Bishop, you place the control loop not in the "sidewalk". Why?

[@MubangaDNB]

I was doing a boolean workflow course and felt so dirty, glad to have found your channel, this is way cleaner. I think I am slowly figuring it out on my own, but do you have a technique for doing panel lines in a subsurface workflow? Like seen in Scifi and Warhammer and Gundam models?

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi Douwe de Vries. Yes, I do. The technique is generally called "Panel Beating" and requires cubic curve interpolation. In Blender, this functionality is provided through the use of the "curve" tool within loop tools. My next video will talk about it. Cheers!

[@markdbest3244]

I was wonderig if you could help me. I downloaded rip human model theyre still a bit blocky so i shade smooth it. 1. My question is should I "control 3" it or directly shade smooth? 2. Can i edit these models using these technique , just to make it a mid poly?

[@diambangfajar5776]

Could you bring this technique into maya tutorials

[@ianmcglasham]

I suppose I could! I prefer blender these days!

[@gibson2623]

This would not work on curved surfaces, which would be a general case...On planar faces as is the case, anything goes

[@ianmcglasham]

I can definitely make this work on curved surfaces! If you look at my bishop tutorial it uses exactly the same principle just applied in a slightly different way. and if you look at my UV sphere tutorial I show how to compensate for any problems with normals if required. I will also apply this technique in a different way again when we model around the curvature of the rook!

[@gibson2623]

@@ianmcglasham Hi Ian... Thx for the reply....What I meant was that if you add loops on curved surfaces, new problems will arise (change in curvature, poles, pinching, etc) as in a flat surface there is nothing to go wrong, really. That s why after subdivision I always shrinkwrap to a perfect surface ;)...The Catmull-Clarke algorithm, divides at middle points.... so adding a loop not at a half distance will introduce new challenges ;)

[@ianmcglasham]

@@gibson2623 Hi Gib Son. Yes you are correct. I do have solutions for those things too! I've just not made the videos yet. lol. It is based on reparameterization of partial loops under the influence of a shrinkwrap modifier! Normal editing techniques can also be used but I think that is a dangerous (in terms of passing models down the cg pipeline) so i don't use them. Good planning is where the real skill lives sometimes!

[@sebastianosewolf2367]

interesting way, but I can do almost the same with Hops and Boxcutter Addon on Blender.

[@ianmcglasham]

I would be genuinely interested in seeing you do that.

[@yoana2636]

one thing I dont understand in this subdivision surface modelling is that I have like thousands of faces, is that a good thing? sorry if my question may seem silly, I am new in modelling.

[@ianmcglasham]

Hi yoana. Those thousands of faces are only to be considered by the rendering engines. They are not considered to be part of the mesh at all. when you go to edit mode and select everything - that is how many vertices, edges and faces you have. Those are what will be considered by all blender modifiers, animation tasks, physics simulations, modelling tasks and more - everything really. The thousands of faces are generated by the catmul-clark subdivision surface algorithm. They are not really real!

[@yoana2636]

@@ianmcglasham wow, didnt know that, thank you very much for the explanation

[@naenjamal4827]

after all the fancy talk(sounds brilliant and all)....delete the Default Cube and then create another cube(with slight chuckle)🤣...WOW, but still a great TUTS anyway...

[@polloq]

Потрясающе 👏👏👏