Modeling Standards for Archviz Furniture and Turbo/Meshsmoothing Modifiers

[Marcellus Ludovicus]

Hi all,

I would like to start modeling furniture in 3ds max.

Is there a basic rule of thumb when determining how many polygons is too much?  I ask because I am experimenting with the turbosmooth modifier seriously for the first time.  Previously I would only chamfer edges.

Is it necessary to use turbosmooth on furniture models for Arch Viz renders? Especially if these models get shared with others?  If so, when do you apply the UVW Map unwrap in the modifier stack?  Before or after turbosmoothing?  I have heard some people like to keep the turbosmooth modifier off until render time, but then this leaves me confused on how you would unwrap map the object without collapsing the turbosmooth modifier first?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Juraj]

Unless it's not possible because of some resulting artifacts, unwrap at 0-level/No turbosmooth.

Turbosmooth is not necessary if you can get by with chamfers and primitives, but then you have finite level of detail, which can either be too much or too low.
With unmerged turbosmooth (but rest merged down to avoid issues) you can set any amount of detail you need. And with today's amount of memory in PC's, there is no reason to be economical.

I personally use models at turbosmooth 0 in big scenes to save viewport performance, and level 1 in smaller scenes so I can see what I am working on :- ). Then render-time I up it easily into 3-4 (overkill sometimes necessary to avoid terminator bug).

With unmerged turbosmooth, you can also export meshes into realtime (Unreal,etc..) without too much fiddling.

[Freakaz]

Unless it's not possible because of some resulting artifacts, unwrap at 0-level/No turbosmooth.

Unwrapping at 0 level wil most of the times cause texture stretching and artifacts.  I usualy collapse the first level of turbosmooth and then do the UV mapping.
 

[Marcellus Ludovicus]

Unless it's not possible because of some resulting artifacts, unwrap at 0-level/No turbosmooth.

Unwrapping at 0 level wil most of the times cause texture stretching and artifacts.  I usualy collapse the first level of turbosmooth and then do the UV mapping.
 

My first turbosmoothed furniture.  Found out about the texture stretching as I mapped at no turbosmooth.  This was mostly on the grey painted metal strap bindings when I had experimented with some metal glossiness maps.  Can't tell from a distance though. 

Thanks for the help.  Crits welcome.

[Ricky Johnson]

Found out about the texture stretching as I mapped at no turbosmooth. 

You can control the stretching by adding more loops in the geometry to break up long narrow polygons. For instance, if you added in 10 loops along the length of your metal strap and a few loops along the width (I'm guessing at the moment you've just introduced additional loops at the corners to sharpen them). This is effectively similar to what you'd be achieving by collapsing at 1 level of Turbosmooth but by adding the loops in manually you can keep your original '0-level Turbosmooth' structure at the corners and other important areas which makes the mesh more flexible to edit in the future.
You can UVW Unwrap and collapse before you add these additional edge loops, just for ease.

I think, by the way, if those are metal straps that wrap around the timber legs then it would improve your model to make them realistically as such. At the moment it looks as though the timber legs disappear into a solid block of the painted metal.

[Marcellus Ludovicus]

Excellent tip for the extra edge loops.  Thank you!

On the metal straps...erm... If I called them metal termination blocks would that change the degree of realism?

[dubcat]

A rule of thumb is to have the seam surrounded by two edge loops.

Quick tip I learned from Chung Kan at Blizzard.
Model like normal, when you are ready to unwrap, find a spot, click where the green arrow is, ring, connect.
The red arrow is your new seam loop.

[pokoy]

I thought I'd jump in on the UVs stretching problem with TS. The legacy meshsmooth modifier hass different subd modes and as far as I remember 'Classic' can minimize stretching in some cases. Also, the new OpenSubD (OSD) modifier handles UV element borders better than TS to avoid stretching, it also supports creased edges which TS does not. So if TS fails it might help to look if Meshsmooth or OSD handle things better.

[romullus]

Lots of good advices here, but i would model such bench without subdivision at all. No TS - no problems with UV stretching ;]

[Marcellus Ludovicus]

Yeah, maybe TS is overkill, but it was easier to learn edge loops on something square (I usually model in sketchup, but that has its drawbacks).  Basically, I need more edge loops.  Also, pretty much what dubcat said is how I looped; click, ring, connect (2), or just select all the parallel lines in an ortho view and click connect.  Made it real easy.  Thanks to Neil Blevins' vid tutorials.

Also, I'm using max 2013 so I don't have the more recent subdiv modifiers.
I like the idea of unwrapping first then applying edge loops.  Will try with the next model.

[Freakaz]

From your attached wire, you should first fix the geometry before unwrapping. See attached.
I agree with romullus, no need for subdivision for this kind of model, use simple quad chamfer.

[Ricky Johnson]

On the metal straps...erm... If I called them metal termination blocks would that change the degree of realism?

Yes, fair enough. Good luck lifting the bench though :).

Below is a suggestion of how to approach the whole thing in principle - keeping a Turbosmooth workflow rather than using fixed edge chamfers.
There are pro's and con's to each but I've always preferred the former. With the way that the quad chamfering works these days I think it's almost as simple.

1 & 2 - Model basic shape without any supporting edge loops. As Freakaz has posted already, circular elements are more correctly modelled using minimum of 8 sides.
3 - Unwrap the mesh at this stage because the overall shape won't change from here on in. It's easy and clean to unwrap now because there's no additional edge's crowding corners where seams go.
(collapse the UVW Unwrap at this stage. You could keep stacks of modifiers as an alternative. I prefer collapsing).
4 - Select corners that you want to be chamfered in the final result. Apply a quad chamfer with the following settings (with tension set to 0 this doesn't move your original edges and basically has the effect of adding 2 edge loops at the corners).
5 - The result with Turbosmooth modifier applied. As Dubcat has pointed out, with 2 loops at the corners you shouldn't get any issues with stretching. The UVW Unwrap from Step 3 is maintained and should not be adversely effected by the chamfering. So my earlier post regarding the edge loops along the length and width was unnecessary really for the particular aim of stopping the texture stretching (although sometimes it's useful to create a more evenly spaced mesh for other purposes).

I would try and consider any supporting loops at corner edges as temporary 'pins' as much as possible that can be applied (ideally using quad chamfer for speed) and removed temporarily if required to make major changes to the basic shapes. If you are changing the basic shape then you'll have to apply a new UVW Unwrap and relax the shape again but your seams should be intact. There are obviously many alterations that are best performed without removing any edge loops that you've already applied but I've always thought it best to try and keep it so that they're not set in stone.