Circular holes on a curvylinear bumper!

[Sonnu]

Hello good people!

I just joined this forum, hoping I would get some serious help on modeling cars and the issues that arise out of it. A friend advised me to check this one out before trying to post at Cgtalk.

Let's get to the point. I am modeling some car and creating a custom body kit for it. while making the front bumper, I am running into a problem which many of you might have faced; especially on curvy bumpers.

1] The thing is, I am trying to cut circular holes in the bumper as shown in the figure...I have got the holes in place, but I can't get rid of the dents that arise out of it, no matter what I do.

2] There's a criss-cross of chamfers/bevels at the corners, and I have managed to isolate it so the dent that comes with it is minimized. If I spread the tesselation and try to carry around the loops, then the dents become worse and unmanageable.

Please suggest a suitable solution to this problem, because I cannot stand the sight of a slightest dent in a thing so beautiful as a car. I would also be very grateful if someone could point me to a step by step NURBS based car modeling tutorial in Max, since I have heard NURBS create perfect curves with almost no dents, but have yet to experience that.

Sincere regards,
Sonnu.

[marty-bett]

close up wire of the holes please..
also, u cant use nurbs in max because max isnt made for nurbs...
i think u can get a plug-in called power nurbs or something but ur best bet for nurbs is rhino i believe..

[Sonnu]

Thanks...here's a close-up. Do you need more screenies at different angles?

Hmmm..so Rhinoceros is an option at best. So I continue with box modeling in Max. But what's the deal with making a spline cage and applying a surface modifier? I never got that concept right. And I think it's a waste anyway, because eventually it gets converted to editable poly, and we have to introduce cuts.

Regards,
Sonnu.

[Catlin]

you might want to try a double chamfer.

[Sonnu]

Thanks a bunch man! The double chamfer reduced the problem somewhat. But still those bumps exist! What the extra edge loop on the outer side of the hole end did was to clamp the dent to the hard edge, but it is still not that effective. See that bump on top of the hole? And what about the second part in my first post? Can anyone get the really close chamfers and abruptly ended edge loops to work without getting dents?

[Catlin]

just try moving the top vertices of the hole backwards and forwards and see if it looks flush.

[Sonnu]

Well if we do that, the dents get worse and sometimes new dents arise. I suppose there is no one here that might have a genuine solution to this problem?

[Catlin]

I never really come accross that but i usually have higher amount of polys when making a circular object in high poly.

[darth carth]

I think that the reason why you are having bumps on there is cause the verts in the middle (vertical) are really close to those of the bumper... try moving the ones from the bumper up (top one) and down (bottom one) a bit. Then do like Catlin said off moving the verts inwards and outwards untill it smooths out nicely.

The reason why you were getting worse bumps and new ones is because those two verts are really close to eachother, meaning the effect of the moving is much greater then when they are further apart

[Sonnu]

What you mean is a concentric hexagon at the outer side of the hole and then moving verts inward or outward... like that in the picture, right? I have tried that before you posted, and found that the bump created by the close chamfer spreads out creating a more ugly look. The vertices you mentioned are placed there to clamp the stretching of both diagonal edges starting from the top and bottom vertices.

This would not have beena problem it the bumper was curved in only the Y direction or Z direction. Its a pain because it is curved in all three directions, although at varying degrees. I tried this with boolean a long time ago too, but that is the stupidest mistake someone would make, and I avoid booleans at all costs. Perhaps you could more understand me and provide a better solution if I share a part of the mesh...is that okay?

[rickyss]

this is a geometry problem and i think after the cuts are made the vertices should not be moved (too much) because the bumper being curved on all 3 axes at various angles it is hard to move the cut vertices along the surface and they come out or get pushed in the bumper, resulting the inafamous effect.

[Silent][Moebius]

you should try to model your way around it and throw away the idea of 'cutting' the holes in. that usually never works.

[rickyss]

sorry to bring up old topics but it just hit me...
you should use face constraint when handling those vertices )))