Even / relax the surface to make it smooth

[Gerard van den Brul]

I am trying to model a truck cabin and already outlined the basic shapes. However I noticed that the surface is not completely smooth.

Things I tried so far:

Aligning the vertices to the reference curvature by hand.
Looptools – relax
Vertices – Smooth

It’s a mesh with sub-d and smooth modifier applied.

Any suggestions how to smoothen the slightly curved surface?

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hoi Gerard,

The main problem is the uneven spacing of the Edge Loops (paralel to the X-Axis):

You also have way too many of them, start with as few as possible and le the Subdivision Surface Modifier take care of the rest.

[Gerard van den Brul]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for clearing out the problem. I will redo the piece.

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hey Gerard,

If you have time, you can go to the Livestreams section on CGCookie and look for the ‘first Collab’s’  Backhoe videos:

[Gerard van den Brul]

Thanks, I will take a look and watch them.

I restored a copy of the part and with much less geometry the surface is looking fine.

[Omar Domenech]

I was going to say that, it’s all about having too much geometry that things start to bunch up and create those ridges. You have to shoot for a balance, the right amount of loops so that it’s easy to control, too much and it becomes a nightmare and loops so close together create the problem you have, too little geometry and there’s no definition in the shapes. So there’s always a sweet spot.

[Gerard van den Brul]

Hi Omar. Thanks for the explanation. I did focus too much on the side outlines (and quad topology) which made it too dense at the end.
After Martins comment I immediately restored the copy I made earlier and I see that with less geometry I even get a better result.

So less is more, and I understand your comment about finding the sweet spot. 

I have added the (quick) result, but still need to fine tune it.

[Gerard van den Brul]

I want to share my initial problem which lead me to adding extra geometry. I know that if it looks good its ok, but it still bothers me that I end up with 2 triangles where some edges / lines come together. (The right angles on the white render which I posted earlier). I tried a diamond pattern making it quad, but than again the edges are running very closely together.  Any suggestions on how to approach this?

[Martin Bergwerf]

Hi Gerard,

It really depends on the exact look, but something like this might work as a starting idea:

You can easily add extra holding Edges where needed. Just keep your eye on that Pole, to see if it causes problems. You might need to move it to a flat(ter) part of the Surface (which will be do-able with the extra holding Edges).

Car modeling is really hard, for one, because there are many ‘details’ like this, that are non-trivial to model.

[Omar Domenech]

You really want to avoid this:

Not only is it six sided, but it is resting on the defining part of the contour, at the edge of where the surface changes. When you have a pole there, it always causes problems, even worst when is the ugly and evil six sided pole that you have there. So as Martin showcased, it’s better to move the pole to a flat surface and not the edge of an angle. 

[Gerard van den Brul]

Hi Omar & Martin, thanks for the shown suggestions! Really appreciated.

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