The polygon modeling tutorial covered a lot of basics that I have gone through, but some of them helped me a lot with creating a more complex 3D model that I will present in the next post.

Topics covered:

– loop selection

– path selection tool

– invert selection

– line cut

– loop cut

– ring selection

– connect points and edges

– close polygon hole

– bridge (click and drag on the points, then select other points —> connection between them is being created)

It also covered and helped me to solve and issue I had in the past. When I selected and moved the polygons with a Live Selection tool, they seemed to be disconnected from the rest of the object (in the case of a cylinder).

Solution: cylinder uses Caps, which are disconnected. We have to use command called ‘Optimize’, which connects those points together. It is also a good way to get rid of unused points in our model.

Stitch and Sew – this is a new tool to me, which is used to reduce the details of my geometry. Once the object is converted to be editable. I’m doing it by dragging one point onto another with this tool on.

Dissolve – when applied with a few polygons selected, it removes the edges between them.

After this tutorial, I went through the Subdivision Surface modeling introduction.

There is no way around it if we want to model realistic looking objects.

I learned the Q shortcut to switch in between the Subdivision and normal mode. In order to test it, I’ve made a regular cube and removed a few surfaces to have some edges standing out. I then made it a child of the Subdivision Surface effector and observed how the edges become rounded

There’s also another way to adjust the edges – Weighting. It’s based on selecting the edge with and edge loop selection tool and holding down the dot (point) button to then move the cursor left and right to adjust the weight. Clicking on the Weight icon next to the object name reveals a heat map, which shows the weight around the edges.

The overall aim of my project is to be diverse within modeling and learn a lot of new techniques. Even though my final model idea probably won’t involve Sub-D, it is essential to have a knowledge about this area too.