Quick Tip: Understanding Support Edge Placement
basix

Quick Tip: Understanding Support Edge Placement

on Mar 18th 2011 with 24 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In today’s quick tip we’ll look at the basics of subdivision modeling and why it’s necessary to add extra geometry to a model before adding subdivision. We’ll briefly discuss how subdivision works and how to maintain control over a model’s look after smoothing has been applied.

Video 1

Download

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

Don’t miss more CG tutorials and guides, published daily – subscribe to Cgtuts+ by RSS.

 
Enjoyed this Post?

Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!

By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Ben is one half (literally) of the editor duo here at Cgtuts+. Ben has over eight years of experience in the computer graphics field and although he's primarily a hard surface modeler, he's also experienced in the fields of uvmapping, texturing, lighting and rendering. He has authored many tutorials and training materials focused on 3d Studio Max and hard surface modeling. You can check out Ben's website at bentateonline.com to see more of his work.  

Plus Premium
 
 
  • Ben Stanley

    Nice tut Ben! (And nice name too :P )

    Very helpful for beginners to understand how to control the turbosmooths and other modifiers.

    Thanks! And congrats on the editor job :)

  • Mike

    Really helpful tutorial, thanks. Seeing the Iron Man example really helped me to see the turbo smooth principals can be applied. Perfect Ben!

  • Juan Carlos Moreno

    Thanks for this tutorial!

    Just last week I was thinking that there should be a tutorial on this subject given that many people in their modelling tutorials talk about adding a turbo smooth or similar modifier to their model. Yet they never explain how to apply this concept to many different scenarios. So when you are doing another project on your own, it becomes difficult to determine where to place the support edges.

  • Manuwarna

    This was really helped me.Thanks ben.Thanks..^_^

  • Predrag Pesic

    Great tutorial Ben, as always. Also, your technique is pretty impressive. I have one tip, though, and I guess people will find it useful, especially if they are working on models for games.

    At 12:40 you chamfered an edge loop. That is ok if you are building the Hipoly version that should be used only in renders or CGI videos. But if you plan to use your Hipoly to build the Lowpoly later, then you should not use Chamfer to create support edges. That is because chamfering breaks up the silhouette (profile) of your mesh. That will later translate to your Lowpoly, where you have to collapse all such chamfered edge loops in order to retain the inital mesh profile.

    Proper method would be to select the desired edge loop on your Hipoly mesh and use ‘Extrude Options’. It will look messy, at first. So, set both Width and Height to 0 and then play with the Height until you are satisfied with the placement of the 2 newly created support edges.

    This ‘edge extrusion’ technique is pretty powerful and much quicker method than the ‘ring connect’. It also creates clean edge loops which are easily removed later.

    Again, well done and keep up the good work.

  • http://www.behance.net/mohdumer Umer

    support edge.! so that’s the term.. nicely explained.

  • Stenionet

    One more useful tutorial.
    Thanks, Ben Tate.

  • Nojvok

    Very helpful for us new guys. Quick question, is there any reason not to just use Crease to make an edge hard? It seems like to tutorials ever mention it so I’m wonder why that is when it seams to work great for me.

    Thanks!

    • Rey

      did a quick Google with the crease function… apparently it is not preserved when imported to other 3d applications… or something like that… can any one confirm this? Im new to highpoly and subdivision surfaces and am learning Maya too

  • vijeth

    thank you…very helpful…….

  • Dennis Moyes

    Video link was for a Blender tutorial not a Max quik top on subdividing surfaces!

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Staff

      Hey Dennis,

      Not sure why it was linking to the wrong video. I’ve checked both the embedded video and the download link, and both are working correctly for me. Blip hosts our videos and honestly sometimes it seems to glitch out. Can you maybe give it another shot :)

      Cheers!

  • http://www.free3dobject.com free 3d objects

    Thanks for nice tips

  • Diana

    This is not the real tutorial, the real one was very useful and it was for 3DS MAX, not Blender. I need to watch it again. Please fix this!

    • http://www.bentateonline.com Ben Tate
      Author

      Hey Diana,

      Sorry to hear you’re having a problem viewing the video! I’ve checked it out and everything seems to be working correctly. Both the embedded and downloadable versions are the correct ones. The problem was most likely a glitch with Blip (again!), it seems to happen randomly and for no apparent reason.

      In case it’s still giving you a problem, here is a direct link for the video:

      http://blip.tv/file/get/Cgtuts-QuickTipUnderstandingSupportEdges499.mp4

      Cheers!
      Ben

  • Cybta

    I got a problem smoothing a mesh all the polygons are getting smoothed except of like 10 polygons refusing to be smoothed, how can I fix this problem if some one could help me thanks in advance

  • Kev

    Hey dude,

    Would just like to say thank you for the share of wisdom, i now have a greater understanding of turbo smooth, it has been a thorn in my side, which has now been removed :)

    Also thanks for the tip on alterations, i went up as many as 4, that has now changed :)

    your the man!!!

    Hope u have an awesome day!!

    Smiley Face

  • Elie

    A great tutorial and very helpful for starters.
    Thanks

  • niki

    hi Ben, it’s me again .:)

    Thanks you very much for this really helpful tutorial.

  • http://www.nix24.net Online preisvergleich

    Hi colleagues, its impressive piece of writing regarding tutoringand fully defined, keep it up all the time.

  • Gabriel

    Hi to all Cg designers ! ( also a very good new year 2013 :-) )
    I have a question , I try to finde a good answer about that on google but I did not finde something …
    Is regarding polymodeling ( in 3d studio max ) , Is a good reason for 3d Models , highpoly or even to use this highpoly – maps and to lowpoly in game industry , so again.. is a good reason not to use creasing edge and weights vertex and use meshsmooth ( or turbosmooth ) or use chamfer edge or add new edges near the desire edge and use meshsmooth after that. In 99% modeling tutorials is used the second option, the weights end creasing never use …, why ? I’m think is a good reason for that, but I want to know whay that …
    Thank you very much for any help :-)

    • abc

      Creasing usually give bad results when You use smooth shading, It is more common to use them for pixar subdivisions.

      • Gabriel

        Thank you very much for the information, abc.

  • Newbie

    Learned extremely much from this. Thank you so much! I like your way of explaining and repeating, helps me understand better and the knowledge will stick with me. Thanks again!