Blender - subsurf, creasing and other stuff

James, as always, you succeed to trigger my curiosity.

In the "wheels" thread, post #8, you show a cylinder with a reflecting oval. Is it part of the cylinder mesh, or added on top ? In any case, how do you create such an oval ? Looptools - I didn't think so; but then I can't come up with anything else, except subdividing many, many times and then carefully selecting the edges. But even then it would be difficult to get to such a smotth oval shape.

As far as the subsurf and creasing goes, I think I understand how it works, so all I need is some more practice and experimenting.

Hello Guy,

The cylinder has a hole cut in it, but technically it wasn't a hole. Let me explain. ;) I selected a rectangular selection on the side of the cylinder and then pressed P to separate that into a new object. The new object is still there, it's just been clicked to "Not Render". The reason it is rounded is because it has a SubSurf Modifier on it. The reflections you are seeing are from the 3 mirrored spheres inside the cylinder.

You can see a better, slightly modified, version of that image HERE. <-- http://www.jamesalexander.de/Guy_Thumbnail.jpg

Re: Experimenting

Yes...that is my approach as well. Explore something, and the unexpected but useful functions start crawling out of the woodwork. ;)

I'm hoping that I don't have too much work (re: Texture Mapping, etc.) relearning when the new Cycles update comes out. It is likely that the old way of mapping (which I thought was EASY) will be replaced by Cycles method, which will likely require some UV Unwrapping and using Nodes to get all the functionality back. We will see!

Hope this helps...

James

Thank you James, yes, that helps, but...

I would have thought that with these explanations I could manage the sphere, but no - I don't seem to get any indents - oval or not...

As for Cycles - I have no idea what to expect, but I'm still deeply in my learning phase, so hopefully it doesn't get worse (i.e more difficult to learn).

Hello Guy,

I forgot that you need the Inset Tool. (I get in a rhythm of doing things and then remembering back, didn't remember the Inset step)

Make sure it's turned on (enabled in User Preferences) and then on the left tool menu (when in Edit mode) you'll see it. After clicking it, turn Region OFF (because you want each face to have an inset, not the whole selection as one large area).

This (w/ SubSurf) will give the ovals... adding Crease will make them more crisply cut. (You can also make the selected ovals convex instead of concave, just by dragging the mouse left instead of right for the offset.)

Take care,

James

Thanks James.

It worked, after a while.

At first I only got small circles, not the larger ovals like you had. Then it dawned that I should lower the number of segments and rings when adding the UV-sphere.

All in all, a very fruitful day...

Very cool, Guy

It's rewarding to add to the "trick bag" of what you can do. Never know when you might need some particular technique.

I must say your persistence has really paid off!

Was it Edison who said that genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration?

Peace

James