Blender – Split curve

Software:
Blender 2.92

To split part of a curve to a separate curve:

  1. Select the split end points, press V and select Free.
    > This keeps the new curve ends at original direction, if their handle type was Automatic.
  2. In Edit mode, select a sequence of control-points.
  3. Press P and select Separate.

3ds max – Model a terrain from an Autocad topographical plan file

Software:
3ds max 2019

To model a terrain form an DWG (Autocad) file containing a topographical plan:

  1. Import the DWG file to into the 3ds max scene, and move the plan to the center of the 3ds max scene if necessary.
  2. Select the VIZBlock object and extract its linked geometry:
    Annotation 2019-12-12 181552.jpg
  3. Right click the Linked Geometry object and select:
    Convert To: Editable Spline
    Annotation-2019-12-12-181552b.jpg
  4. Enter Spline editing mode, select all the splines that are not part of the topography, and delete, or detach them so only the terrain ‘height lines’ will remain.
    Annotation 2019-12-12 182223.jpg
    Annotation 2019-12-12 182255.jpg
  5. With the topographical plan editable spline selected,
    Choose Create > Compound Objects > Terrain
    Annotation 2019-12-12 182640.jpg
  6. A Terrain object is now created:
    Annotation 2019-12-12 182716.jpg

To retopologize the terrain mesh to more usable quad polygon mesh:

  1. Create a new Plane primitive above the terrain mesh, slightly smaller at the sides, that has the wanted polygon resolution:
    Annotation 2019-12-12 183519.jpg
  2. From the Top view (important), with the new plane selected, choose:
    Create > Compound Objects > Conform:
    Annotation 2019-12-12 183607.jpg
  3. Set the creation method to ‘Move“, click Pick Wrap-To Object and than click the terrain mesh.
    It will now take some time for the new conformed mesh to be calculated..
    When the new object is ready, right click the viewport to exit the object picking mode.
    Annotation 2019-12-12 184044.jpg
  4. The Conform object is no ready, and contains both the terrain mesh and the new conformed quad polygon mesh:
    Right click it and choose:Convert To: Editable PolyAnnotation 2019-12-12 184552.jpg
  5. In Element editing mode, select the terrain mesh part and delete it to remain only with the new quad polygon mesh:
    Annotation 2019-12-12 184621.jpg
  6. Fix non conformed mesh parts by either moving or deleting them:
    Annotation 2019-12-12 184655Annotation 2019-12-12 184719
  7. The new retopologized terrain is ready:
    Annotation 2019-12-12 184752.jpg

 

The example demonstrated here is a DWG file by Jose Vega, free to download from Bibliocad.com

Blender – Modeling character clothes using cloth simulation

Software:
Blender 2.8

This character project is the first one in which I’m using physical cloth simulation in Blender to model the character’s clothes at proxy quality (they will be detailed further manually). learning this approach to clothes modeling demanded a lot experiments, trials and errors to get it right, in this short article, I’ll try to provide some insights, tips, and settings that can speed up the process.

Watch the full modeling process here

General notes and tips:

  1. When modeling the basic shape of the cloth try to “cut” a realistic cloth pattern for your desired cloth model. if you’ll search images on the web for “trousers cutting pattern” or “coat cutting pattern” you’ll find many examples.
    * See images below
  2. Create proper UVs for the cloth mesh when its still flat (before the simulation)
  3. In Blender cloth simulation, isolated edges in the mesh (edges without polygons) are treated as sawing springs, and are an important part of the cloth setup.
  4. Use a low poly proxy model for your characters body mesh, it will speed up the cloth simulation.

Early experiments:

In this experiment I used a simple tubular pants-like mesh that I quickly modeled around the character’s legs and pelvis (not a realistic cloth cutting pattern), with the top (weist) vertices defined as a vertex group with shrinking cloth property.
The result looks like training suit pants. it wasn’t at all what I wanted for this character, but I actually like it and probably will use such pants on other characters or on this one as a secondary look.

cloth_study

In this experiment I started trying to model an actual man’s trousers cutting pattern, and as you see, it still needs tweaking.

Blender_Cloth

This experiment is beginning to produce reasonable results, the undershirt initial shape is still cut too low at the back.
* Note that there is an animated belt collision object to bring the undershirt to it’s shape at the weist

Blender_Cloth_B2

Final Settings:

The final undershirt initial model:

Annotation 2019-12-08 120355

The final pants initial model:
* Note that the belt mesh is a vertex group defined a fixed in the cloth simulation, and that it’s split to parts corresponding to the edges of the pants shape that need to be sawed to it. (see the process here)

Annotation 2019-12-08 120618

The full final cloth setup for the character. the setup includes a low poly collision object of the whole character and shoes, undershirt mesh, pans mesh and animated (contracting) belt collision for the undershirt:

Annotation 2019-12-08 120941

The final cloth simulation:

cloth

cf

cb

Cloth Settings:

Cloth simulation settings for the undershirt:

cloth_undershirt

Cloth simulation settings for the pants:

cloth_pants.jpg

Related posts:
Blender 2.8 Character Project

Blender 2.8 character project

Software:
Blender 2.8

feature

I Recently started a personal character modeling project using Blender 2.8.
The project has the following goals:

  1. Get back to development of creative 3D content (character development, animation, rigging etc.).
    * the last 10 years or so I have been generally doing (and teaching) photorealistic rendering for technical visualization projects.
  2. Get used to Blender 2.8
  3. Practice A sculpting > re-topology workflow.
    * When I learned organic modeling 20 ago, there was no such workflow, you would create final topology from the get go.

I will be video capturing the whole project’s progress and sharing it on my vimeo channel.

You’re welcome to read about the project creation steps and watch the actual work process captured here:

  1. Part 1 – Sculpting – Freestyle rough draft
  2. Part 2 – Sculpting – Refining the model
  3. Part 3 – Modeling proxy clothes and props

Blender 2.8 character project – Part 3 – Modeling proxy clothes and props

Software:
Blender 2.8

This is the third part of a personal project I began working on,
Development of a realistic character in Blender 2.8 for games and animation.

<– Go to the project home
<– Go to the first part of the project
<– Go to the second part of the project

The third part of the project was a ~7 hour modeling session in which the focus was mainly on proxy-quality (rough) modeling of clothing and props.
In this stage of the project, I decided that the creative theme for character will be a tough detective. a sort of an Asian ‘Dirty harry’ character, and this concept was the drive behind the styling of the characters clothes and and props.


Result after part 3:

> Total accumulated work time: ~17.5 hours

 

Some tips and settings for modeling the clothes

 

Blender 2.8 character project – Part 2 – Sculpting – Refining the model

Software:
Blender 2.8

This is the second part of a personal project I began working on,
Development of a realistic character in Blender 2.8 for games and animation.

I will be video capturing the whole project’s progress and sharing it on my vimeo channel.

<– Go to the project home
<– Go to the first part of the project

The second part of the project was a ~5 hour sculpting session focused mainly on refining the model, improving its proportions and anatomical detail, and adding internal parts like eyeballs and teeth.
In this part the character design was developed into a more masculine man and less skinny, the general idea still being an elder Asian action figure.

Result after part 2:
> Total accumulated work time: ~10.5 hours

tt_25.06.19.gif

 

Go to part 3 of the project –>

Blender 2.8 character project – Part 1 – Sculpting – Freestyle rough draft

Software:
Blender 2.8

This is the first part of a personal project I began working on,
Development of a realistic character in Blender 2.8 for games and animation.

<– Go to the project home

The first step of the project is a completely free-style / free-form ~5.5 hour sculpting session in which I’m not really trying to do anything accurate but just get used to 3D sculpting in Blender 2.8.
I’m imagining an elder Asian action character, at this point not sure what he’ll end up being. possible themes are:
ninja, samurai, cyber themed ninja or tough detective.

Result after part 1:
> Total accumulated work time: ~5.5 hours

 

Go to part 2 of the project –>

Simple re-topology in Blender

Software:
Blender 2.79

Re-topology workflow in Blender is pretty straight forward and convenient,
Even without using a dedicated addon like ‘Bsurfaces’.

The simplest way to create new geometry over an existing surface is to activate snapping in face mode, and activate the ‘Project individual elements on the surface of other objects’ option.
This let’s you extend geometry, create new elements and transform existing elements while they’re constantly sticking to the surface behind them.
This can also be used with ‘Proportional Editing’ to allow organic tweaking of the new mesh over the surface.

Activating the ‘X Ray’ option in the display properties of the new low poly object helps by displaying the new mesh above the original surface.

Retopo

Another helpful tool in the process is the ‘Shrink Wrap’ modifier,
It can be used “press” mesh parts on to the original surface and than applied to create surface-tight mesh that can serve as the basic mesh for Re-topology or be joined to an existing mesh that was created earlier in the Re-topology process.

Retopo2

 

Blender Sub-D impact on animation playback

Software:
Blender 2.78

I noticed that the Subdivision Surface modifier in Blender significantly slows down the animation playback even if the mesh isn’t animated,
So my advice is, either apply the modifier when possible or set it to be disabled in viewport and enabled only in rendering.

Creating text height maps in photoshop

Software:
Photoshop CC 2017

When you need to create a 3D title that looks carved in stone by using a height map or normal map of the text design,
And you need to have the titles remain as live text in Photoshop so that you can easily make changes to the text if needed,
A simple way to make turn the text into a height map that would look carved or beveled inwards is to apply an inner glow effect and choose the “Precise”option in the “Technique” parameter of the effect.
Beveled_Text_Height_map