Blender Hard Surface - SUBD Explained

there are three main ways in which you can model hard surface using subd in this video I will show you how and when to use each of them let's go so the three main ways in which you can approach subd are number one plan Extrusion and shape exploration number two Boolean to quad and number three Boolean sculpt or import to retopo so now let's talk about all of them now before we start let me tell you that if you new to blender and you are just starting with hard surface I would recommend highly to grab our free course which is called jump start hard surface in blender even if you are intermediate I still think you're going to learn quite a few Nifty tricks so go ahead and get it it's free the link is in the video description this course will teach you just in a few hours all the tools menus the hard surface workflow all the foundations you need to get started with blender now like I said the course is free and the link is in the video description so go ahead and get it now going back to subd so let's start with the first method which is going to be Extrusion now you can extrude edges faes uh verts it doesn't really matter what it is we're going to go with vers okay so we're going to start with this vert here and we're going to extrude it here then we're going to ex it here and you know maybe one at somewhere here and here and then we're going to go um up on the z-axis and move it somewhere here this one we're going to move down and then up here so a little bit too wide I making a weapon grip by the way something like this maybe you can just combine them here like that okay so we got this going on and let just align this and then we need to Simply select go press F and then press K could actually align these two as well um and we just going to run quads here like this maybe we're going to combine these two here all right cool and then we have all quads so I can run a loop here or two Loop in here and I think we good there's other loop in here as well so this a basic shape kind of a profile so now you can see that uh we extruded vs around to create this kind of a profile and uh we have a flat surface and now we're going to be actually you know sort of adding some Dimensions to it so we can bend this a little bit here then press e and extrude it here and extrude it like this and we can just move everything in here and move origin to that alt x to the other side and then we're going to grab this one and we can extrude it like this I'll text it our side let's make it a bit more narrow because it's you know uh too F let's just scale it so apply scale we can add some D you know sort of like depth in here as well so we could grab these edges and push them a little bit out side like this okay to create a bit of a you know a little bit of a shape in here maybe move these ones a bit in actually this is fine okay so now we got this basic shape it's a little bit too um it's a bit too short so we could do just scale it up a bit all this and apply subdivision and then we can just you know close it so close it with faces here and the same on the top so we have quads everywhere okay and then we can inser this top here a little bit and maybe add an edge here and do the same thing on the bottom bottom could be a little bit more loose so let's it smoooth and you got a basic you know weapon grip and then you can start playing with uh with this here so we could for example add an edge in the middle and you know move it in here like this um to tighten the top but at the same time move this one a bit to the middle and to the front to round up the bottom so you're going to have this kind of a nice sort of a uh Pinch at the top and a softer bevel here in the bottom right could even move this edge here a little bit to the back sort of like here to kind of create a better curvature over there and dissolve this one in the middle and there you go and you can actually make it a bit more tight in here um there you go right so you know this is this is how would I um how would I go about it you know um when I'm just you know concepting and um later on you can just start adding more details okay so this will be plain Extrusion of a shape another example would be when you're working with a flat shape like this and you're trying to let me just grab a circle actually um when you're trying to create some shape in on a flat surface and then you simply extrude it for efficiency so let me show what I mean let me change the number of vers here to 12 because we don't need that many we're going to grab these and flatten them let's just align them here and mirror so we're going to uh move them down here and scale them let's just grab this one and maybe extrude it inwards here like this and scale it okay so we can actually uh delete this Edge and these two so we have something like this and then we can simply you know connect them so J here come j let me just put a face here so we we got the uh J here and we connect these and we connect these and we also need to connect these here to the sides right and then we just going to run an edge here maybe and create a triangle here you can solve this one later don't worry about it so we have a basic shape like this and then let's say we wanted to add some some more stuff to it so let's say we wanted to add some you know I don't know uh some openings here so let's say we're going to add a circle and scroll it down I just rotate it there you go and connected here this is a very quick draft okay this probably should be done a bit better because the the quads have a different you know different size let's just delete that I'll text select all these edges go to mesh tools and offset edges there you go and change to um Extrusion we got the supporting Edge now you have you know all the edges you need so you can select everything right now and EXT SC it and now when you do that you're going to have G on both sides so you don't have to you know repeat the same thing on the bottom and all you need really is just securing Loops here and here and you can technically run a subdivision on it shade smooth of course you can add some you know supporting Loops here and there if you want to right and you guys are kind of basic you know basic shape in here right um this one there we go needed some cleaning here we also need some Loops in here to tighten it up and Bob janle right so this would be you know a very fast shape creation from a plane and then you extrude it it's a bit easier to um design stuff on a flat surface and and then simply extrude it okay so this will be method number one so this is Method number one from Extrusion second method is going to be bullant to quad so let's say we have a cube here like this right and uh let's just apply scale and we're going to put some bevel here four segments always remember to put four segments or multiplication of four it's going to be easier to run um quads on this mesh same here I'm going to go down to four battels press j e and extrude it up and we're going to mirror this and uh multiply so now we have this shape let me just recate sharpen um and what we need to do now is we need to change this andun based mesh into quads okay so this is a simple bullion mesh and you know all you do is just simply convert it into um quads so first of all what I would do here I would select all the sharp edges so go to select and select similar and sharpness contrl B and then just uh make sure that I'm going to change profile press P scroll down and maybe this kind of a size will do and we're going to change this uh corner here from shop so click here on the bevel and change from shop to Arc and it will change the way um this this corner is created this is far better because it gives us a very nice base to run um you know edges to it okay and click and basically remove the sharper just because we don't need them and then all you need to do really is you know add add simply Loops to the mesh and connect the mesh in a way that you're going to just end up with quads okay so you know have Loop in here and Loop in here so we can grab this one and align it and combine it and some here I'm using um Machine Tools to align this and you you can only work on one side because you know the other side it's going to be measured and then you know we need some Loops in here we also need Loops here so k click C to cut through a to you know and to cut the straight line and boom connect these here like this then connect these to create quads this is why I wanted four segments here right that's why I told you it's important to have four segments here the same we need a we need a loop here uh align this press J and then one more align it and J I'll take to the other side k c and a click click and we also need to connect these so we need one Loop here align it and combine this then we need to combine these run a quad and Bob jle and we got quads here the same here so quad and combine that Al text and boom and once you have all the quads we still have to fix this one so click CA 1 2 and this one could be actually combined I mean moved in here so press a to unlock this do something like this and then we could actually run a straight line here and here and then I'll tell you to the other side so now this situation here depends how you want to run the loops if you want to have a loop around here this is what you would do if you want to run them straight you're going to be a bit different depends what kind of detail you want in here right so once you have all the quads uh you know you can start thinking how to rearrange this topology maybe you you want to you know make things a little bit uh let me just fix this here GG three maybe you want to move things about to to make them a bit more even like for example you know move this Ed somewhere here to spread them about maybe you want to add more topology you know it really depends on what you want to do right so this would be basically Boolean to quad workflow and there's one more workflow which is um very different you simply create a new topology on top of what you already created so let's say you have a very complex Boolean shape or you have sculpted mesh or you have import from Cut software which is going to be basically radio really messy in terms of topology and you want to retopologize it so you lay New U sort of like a layer of topology on top of that mesh now since the previous method was Boolean to um to quads you may ask a question what the hell would we need to roliz booleans well sometimes a Boolean mesh could be so complex that connecting all the dots and all the all the vers you know into uh to in order to create quad match would be very complicated to almost impossible sometimes it's much easier to actually retopologize something rather than convert it to quads okay so if you have something like this when you have a cube and let's say I don't know you know I'm just going to riff some ideas in here okay so let's just fix this profile of this bevel to something like this yeah this will do and then we going to start stocking you know some crazy booleans on top of it so let's say uh we're going to go to C and let's just uh um let's just drop a you know kind of like a crazy bullion in here like this all right and we're going to add a lot of wordss in here for some reason because we need it to be very dense whatever right and press J now you know if I'm going to start adding more stuff on top of this let's say I'm going to add another Circle in here let's say a bullion like this um and then I'm going to uh let's say add another you know another Circle summer here right and press J and if I'm going to apply this you know combining all these would be basically close to Impossible okay CU there's just too much going on so it's easier to R apologize and the way you go about it is super simple okay all you need to do is simply add a plane and add some mod to it I can do it with hard UPS okay so it's a different color and we're going to go here to stop menu and first of all turn this magnet so it's going to be Auto snapping click on face project and click on uh back face calling okay so the it's going to be snapping to to the surface now we're going to shrink crop it so click here shift click q and Shrink drop and now you can't really see that a plane is on top here being shrink wrapped what we want to do is you want to see that on top of it right so we want to go here here to this menu go to viewport display and click in front that's one and now you can see that the plane is being dragged on top of the surface another thing what you want to do is go to your uh shrinkr modifier and enable the cage so the cage is going to be actually aligning with the mesh okay so when you go to edit mode it's going to be aligning with the mesh so now what you want to do is you want to retopologize this mesh around so let me show you just you know go around here and start creating mesh on you know on top of this existing mesh and the great advantage of doing it this way is that you can actually create your preferred topology flow from scratch so for example I can have this you know topology flowing around this um cylinder here and I can actually choose the density of topology um you know so I don't have to go with this crazy ver count here and you know it's really simple because you can use add-ons to your advantage so here we can uh you know extrude it up like this on the z-axis or you can just do it manually like this and then use for example Machine Tools to fill it out something didn't work out in here so let's fix this press four there we go and you just continue around here and the bigger the polygons you have here the better uh because um it's going to be easier to um manipulate with this Smash If you need to right and you simply R apologize the whole thing going around and and you know and once you do you going to have a really clean uh clean clean mes CU I'll show you so let me just uh fix it here a little bit let just you know give some faces here so we have a nice Edge flow here around so when I go here and you know subdivide this you see how clean this is right the connection here is super clean and I can do whatever the hell I want with it I want can make it more you know more tough tight I can I can loosen it up I can grab this Loop and you know move it further away to create a gentle transition you know I can do whatever the hell I want so you know this is a really good method for very complex meshes or meses are simply impossible to fix like you know cut meshes because when you import something from Cut software like plasticity and you try to move any of the vars or change anything you will have problem with normals and with shading because the these mhes come with uh custom normals and you can't really fix that in blender okay so the retopology is going to be the only way to go by it now there's one more thing I want to talk about and that's basically uh adding details to your me and let's just grab this example in in talk about adding details now doesn't matter what kind of method you're using if you want to add more detail to your mesh whether it's uh created by extruding elements or you know bullion to quad or R topology um you you want to Simply densify your topology in order to add more details so when you are certain that your you know your shape is what you want like this is the basic shape I want and I'm happy with that and I'm ready to add details like say paneling screws Etc you cannot do this on this level because simply there's just topology is too big and you have a curved mesh and you'll be running into shading problem so what you need to do is you need to apply at least one level of subdivision right and see if you have enough Topo to start creating some details so for example if I wanted to now run a pel here I actually can because I have enough Topo you know to do that so let's just uh run a panel here I'm going to CH Cher this and I'm going to insert it and I'm going to extrude it and you can either delete that face or you can uh simply insert it okay it depends how deep it is and if I'm going to run a subdivision now you see we got this nice kind of a Ply line here and the reason why it's so clean is because simply we're running a you know smaller toppo on this mesh so here on the side if I wanted to create some kind of like you know a screw whatever uh I can grab a vert you know up in the circle uh let's just scroll to like eight of them and then combine it I don't know if it's going to be enough I mean I don't know if this topology is small enough to support it but you know we're going to see in a minute so let's just you know extrude it and insert it and just run a loop here and let's see and it looks fine so you know the curvature isn't that crazy here but if I want wanted to add some DET on this curvature as a good chance I would need more topology in here okay so it depends where you're adding your details and you know what you want to do you just have to basically um try something and see um if it's going to work you can create a duplicate of your mesh and create the backup so you can always come back because when you apply subdivision you know this is destructive right if I'm going to apply one more level of subdivision here right so I'm going to apply this um it's going to be much denser right and I cannot go back so at this going to be very difficult to you know revert the changes anyway so this would be you know approaches to subd you could take depending on what you're creating and what you want to achieve um you know depending on what you're building in blender and you know how you want to go about it you can use different ones sometimes it's easier to create something with bullion because it's a really fast workflow you can concept something very quickly and then convert it to subd or you can just start with subd like for example gun handles and something that's super organic is going to be easier to start with um you know with extrusions of flat surfaces and sometimes you need to Simply use retopology because mesh is so complicated and so you know it there so many details that you'll just be a headache to sort of you know solve the puzzle puzle of quads on it so it's easier to run a retopology is just faster also you can use tools like you know retopoflow add-on which is going to make it super easy okay all right guys well that's it for this one like I said if you want to learn more about hot surface drop our free course it's called jump start hard surface in blender it will teach you all the basics in just few hours over 880,000 people enrolled into that course and they absolutely loving it so go ahead and grab it the link is in the video description thanks for watching I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Ponte Ryuurui

Views: 5,611

Keywords: blender, blender tutorial, blender bros, ponte ryuurui, ryuu, hard surface, learn blender, blender 3D

Id: QV9cbiZXN1A

Length: 21min 30sec (1290 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2024