Technical Slop

Pui Pui Entry 9

I finally got the arms and legs to where I'm happy with them. Turns out I was being too danty. All I had to do was get mad and man-handle them verts! Grrr!

BTW, I decided to leave the spike on his back out. I just don't like them enough to include.

Since I'm now happy with him, time to get busy with the lines. This is where things get a bit funky. In Max, lines can be either visible or invisible. Visible lines define a poly. So, if a bunch of tri/faces are surrounded by visible lines, but have invisible lines between them, they are collectively a polygon. Although, not all polygons are defined this way, some are are broken up by extreme angles. So, if some faces have invisible lines, but are at a hard angle, they will be broken into smaller polygons. Yeah, kinda weird.

So, I'm taking advantage of defining my own polygons for three reasons:

1) Smooth groups! These are a lot easier to custom define if I can select a bunch of faces at once with purpose.

2) The wireframe for textureing. When I export the wireframe, only visible lines will be visible. Umm... yeah.

3) MeshSmooth. I can tell MeshSmooth to operate on Smoothing Groups, which is a major bonus.

So I got to work making bunches and bunches of lines visible and invisible to suit my needs. More grunt work, but it pays off down the road.

Big graphic:

Upper-left: all lines visible.

Upper-right: visible and invisible lines in his face. When I do the wireframe for his face, the outside edges, around the mouth, and around the eyes will be visible.

Lower-right: the visible and invisible lines in his armour.

Lower-left: a quick render with smoothing groups in place. While this may look overly smooth, the creases will be brought out more after it's textured.

Just to give you an idea of some more of the grunt work involved, here is my Smoothing Group list:

1. hands feet shoulder head
2. rims, for gloves and boots
3. ribs 1
4. ribs 2
5. ribs 3
6. ribs 4
8. solar plexis
9. back 1
10. back 2
11. pecks right
12. pecks left
13. face
14. abs 1
15. abs 2
16. abs 3
17. abs 4
18. abs 5
19. abs 6

Blah! Imagine trying to do that face by face.

Notice that I have two listing for pecs, 11 and 12. Have to use two seperate numbers because I don't want them to smooth together when I mirror the mesh. So, once I mirror the mesh, I'll have to do a bit more Smooth Group work. Pretty much the same thing for the abs -- I don't want the smoothings to be mirrored.

Coming soon: UVW Mapping.

Stay tuned.