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Tutorial for seat cusions - buttons, seams, etc?


-andrew-

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Hi all,

 

Can anyone recommend a tutorial that addresses creating "soft" seating such as car seats or sofas that have seams, stitching, dimples, etc. such as shown below ?  I don't mind using bump mapping for the finer details, but would like to create geometry for the primary form(s).

leather_seat_covers.jpg

modern-leather-sofa-2.jpg

 

Thanks!

Andrew

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Hi Joe  - thanks for the note!

 

For freeform stuff that looks like a great way to do it.

 

However... for some of the stuff I'm planning on modeling, I need more precision - also the ability to revise some of the "landmarks" that will be used to create the geometry.

Still going to experiment with this method though - if nothing else it looks like fun.

 

cheers

Andrew

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Well... I guess that's ONE way of doing it!

 

Thing is, I need to modify a lot of these. If the same base shape is the same for the major cushions, I need to be able to draw surface geometry (via imprinting then meshing, maybe?) and mesh it so I can "recess" the features I've drawn down into the cusion by 1" or so (or whatever the depth ends up being...)

 

Hmmm...

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There are a lot of good tutorials on realistic furniture modeling on YouTube.  Unfortunately, they are all using 3DS MAX.  The good news is that the method is somewhat transferable to other modeling programs, including Form.z.  In Max the method is to mesh a plane or box and then extrude and chamfer segments and points to create creases and seams, bulges and sags.  Adding seam segments and additional meshing in areas is easy enough.  The only problem I run into in Form.z is the tendency for geometry to become easily non planar resulting in unexpected results and frequent crashes.  Hit save a lot.  Furniture is hard at first.

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Hi Andrew,

 

Yes, many tutorials for other programs are applicable to formZ as well.  In any program you do need to be careful to maintain planarity of surfaces for a number of reasons, but while nonplanar surfaces are not well defined, they should never cause crashes.  If you ever find a case where this does happen, please make sure to send it in so we can investigate and correct the issue.  And of course, saving early and often is also a good idea in any program...

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Thanks guys.

 

I've just actually posted a question about meshing to try a few things out.

 

As far as nonplanar faces goes, is the best way to handle this by using Triangulate > Non Planar Faces Only once in a while?

 

cheers & Happy New Year,

Andrew

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Hi Andrew,

  

Ideally, if you are working on a base object for Subdivision modeling, you will want to keep all quads, so the best practice is to carefully move the parts and not generate non-planar surfaces in the first place, but non-planar faces can be properly defined by Triangulating them (preferably with the Strict Planarity option).

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Hi Andrew.

I'v spent tens of hours researching what is the best way to model this kind of objects in FormZ. This is what I found out:

As for the car seats there is no problem to create this kind of geometry with NURBS or with less presision with Sub D.

Going to chesterfield kind of surfaces FormZ would not be my weapon of choice. As it goes to some complex NURBS it becames incredibly slow and buggy.

I made a post about it in year 2014 (I guess) in Tutorials by Users. Unfortunately it is buried in time since Autodessys moved to new forum engine.

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Hi Andrew,

 

Take a look at the second tutorial on this page (for the Barcelona Chair):

 

http://www.formz.com/support/downloads/tutorials.html

 

SubDivision modeling may also be a good way to go to generate the automotive chairs you show in your first post.

 

Does that help? ;)

Hello Tech.

Unfortunately when we are not talking about primitive modeling of this Barselona chair, but something high end standard modeled FormZ is not what can accomplish this task. Or you can prove opposite modeling something like this:

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/classic-chesterfield-sofa-chester-3d-model/627521

with the same presision and clariity?

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Morning everyone!

Yeah... without really knowing how to do it, I was trying to figure out, based on our discussion here, why you couldn't do it in formZ... I didn't see any particular thing that seemed like it couldn't be handled in formZ, but I am not sure if the tacks (or nails) can be copy/repeated along a path?

It's certainly a beautiful model. 

 

Last night I started playing around with nurbs (wow/weird), and I'd guess that's a good tool for this kind of thing; I imagine a workflow starting with a very "regular/geometric" model of something like this that is then converted to nurbs. I guess the catch is how, if possible, to keep quads, so you revert/edit the cage?

 

Anyway... thanks guys. Fun stuff. 

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Hi Anton,

 

Yes, you can model this in formZ.

 

Will this be an easy task in any software? No, that is a complex model that will take more than $49 worth of your time to create (in any software).

Well, Tech, as I wrote I'v spent many hours investigating it. I insist: it is not possible to do it proper way with FormZ. As model goes more complex the each part movement takes minutes. Unlike what I see in corresponding 3DMax tutorial on Youtube. So, to me is not the matter of effort it is more about tool. What can be easily made with one, could not be done witĥ another.
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I'll weigh in with Anton here and say that FormZ isn't the right tool for the job in isolation.

 

If you look at the Andrews original hero imagery it's plainly evident that a sculpting package will be required too to add the natural folds and creases. The sculpt can then be used as a base for vector displacement to keep the polygon count to a reasonable level (vector displacement can be used with a renderer such as V-Ray).

 

The only DCC packages that I know of that could handle a sofa design like Andrews hero image in isolation would be Modo and Maya, as they both have integrated sculpting tools; and their native renderers handle vector displacement too. This isn't a criticism of FormZ as there's plenty that FormZ can do that leaves Modo and Maya in the dust but in this particular case FormZ isn't the best tool for the job. Even 3ds would require a roundtrip to Mudbox/ZBrush for the sculpt element of the modeling.

 

1llSd.jpg

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I'm currently experimenting with 3D-Coat; I believe this could be handled, or, at least, aided, by something like that. I'm assuming the primary modeling would be done in formZ and then the sculping/texturing would be done in 3d-Coat.

 

Hm...

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I'm currently experimenting with 3D-Coat; I believe this could be handled, or, at least, aided, by something like that. I'm assuming the primary modeling would be done in formZ and then the sculping/texturing would be done in 3d-Coat.

 

Hm...

 

Good route to go with 3d-Coat Andrew. Especially seeing as 3d-Coat has wonderfully simple UV unwrapping tools too (great for creating a dirt mask to mess up your pristine model).

 

The other route I's recommend is Modo Indie, which can be nabbed for 40% off for the next day or so (winter sale), bringing it down from £229.99 to £137.99 (inclusive of VAT). Modo Indie has very few restrictions over the main Modo package, (which sells for close to £1500 (in VAT)) and it includes one of the best native render engines on the market. 

 

The offer finishes in just under 48hrs so I'd recommend you download a Modo demo to see how it clicks with you.

 

Modo Indie - http://store.steampowered.com/app/401090?

 

Modo demo & tutorials - https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/learn/

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Thanks Jon-

 

Also for the heads-up on Modo. That's something I've been interested in for a while. I have to look  to see what restrictions may be in place, though.

 

cheers,

Andrew

 

These are the Modo Indie restrictions. The main difference is the lack of third party customisation via scripts & plugins and the 100K poly export limit for FBX and OBJ, but neither of these are major in the bigger scheme of things. The most generous aspect is the 4k render limit which is more than enough for most use cases.

 

MODO indie 901 Restrictions:

-OBJ and FBX export limited to 100k polys

-Bake and render resolution limited to 4k

-Command eval options unavailable

-Command, scripts, and command history panel results unavailable except “undo” and “history”

-Python editor, third-party scripts, and third-party plugins unavailable

-Can import all formats, but can only save in .lxf format

-Export formats limited to OBJ and FBX

-Image save formats limited to .png, .jpg, .tiff and .exr

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As far as I know you can only get global scene statistics via the 'Project Info' dialogue under the file menu.

 

If you're thinking with regards to the polygon export limit in Modo, individual objects should be possible in under 100K polygons with ease and if you're experimenting with the likes of Unity low polygon counts are essential. As an example the leather sofa you posted in your first post would be well under 100k polygons if you convert your sculpt to a vector displacement map (without vector displacement it will be significantly higher).

 

Modo Indie has no limitation with regards to polygon count when rendering within Modo (it will happily deal with 20-50 million poly's), the limitation is only on the export of individual models.

 

A real time architectural render scene in the likes of Unity should be under 250K to run optimally. A typical Vray scene (without vegetation) will be 5-10 million polygons. Once vegetation is involved you can easily have scenes with 100's of millions of polygons (and these are usually handled by external instancing for optimal performance and memory handling).

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 Hello Tech, hello guys.

Tech, I am sorry: you where right it IS possible to create this with FormZ. I did not consider a power of subdivision modeling.

 Here is how I did that in about an hour. And here is a model

post-46-0-17432400-1451859620_thumb.jpg

 

Best,

Anton.

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