[SOLVED] Weird UV Unwrapping issue in Blender

[Butler Offcourse]

@Kyrah Abattoir Thank you very much for this lovely explanation with images, I appreciate that a lot!

so by doing this I can remove one more face loop from the pipe. Well, I like the knife tool, I use it sometimes to exercise correcting topology or reducing age loops but I still need to continue to practice those techniques but I am quite ok using the knife tool. M if i am not wrong is the one where you choose to snap the two selected vertices in the center...etc if i am not mistaken. Or else I could also use the snap tool to the vertices and I can select the merge vertices options and just to be sure, after finishing, I can make Clean mesh by distance to make sure that I have no doubles, could that be an acceptable alternative? Because the M shortcut menu I did not use a lot, so I may have more trouble in the beginning using it. Thank you very much!

[Kyrah Abattoir]

It isn't strictly in the center you can pick center, first, and last selected vertice, it's in the menu that shows up when you hit M. the last selected element shows in bright orange, vs dark orange (sorry colorblind folks ) .Numerous tools in blender allow you to do something to all selected elements, with the last selected element as some sort of reference.

You might be able top use cleanup, but make sure that you removed the internal faces first, and also double check that cleanup didn't do something undesireable, the "main" use of cleanup is to fuse vertices that have been places on top of eachothers but haven't been fused. (not the only use but the most common because the larger gap you set, the more chances it is going to swallow more than you wanted)

Edited March 1, 2021 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Butler Offcourse]

@Kyrah Abattoir , thank you very much again for your reply and explanations

Well, the last selected vertice option is definitely useful, as I said, I still did not get the "natural" feeling of using it, and most probably I am doing certain stuff in the long way just because I do not use the M menu yet but I would like to start.

Yes when I do the clean up, I mostly keep it in the minimum value and I always check on the status bar how many vertices it deleted and if I notice an unusual big number I always check trying to understand if it did remove wrong vertices. Because sometimes when I use vertex snap, I forget to check the merge vertex button/fuse vertex, so I use the clean to double check.

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello @Kyrah Abattoir ☺️ I hope that my last replies from yesterday were not meaningless as while I was typing I fell asleep twice, my eyes were closing! lol

So this morning, I followed your advice, and I integrated the pipe to the shoe making it a 1 piece model. So I alligned the interior and exterior edge vertexes of the shoe body to the pipe with merge on last command thru M. At first I tried adding some new cuts to the body creating quads to permit the extra segments of the pipe but then I decided to at firs match the pipe segments to the body and see if i can get away with it. If I want I can increase the segments on the front part to make a better curvature, OR, once done, I can apply a subdisivion modifer with the value 1 and bake the normals and texture with it and and may get away with the material preview. What do you think? ☺️

Here's the result, I'm at total of 2118 triangles with the pipe included! Sharing two photos one with the seams and sharps enabled in overlay and one with disabled. ☺️

 

Now again to check, I baked textures on it fastly, uploaded the model to SL and fastly sharing with your my experience for feedback, positive or negative is always welcome as critics will always let me improve myself. I tried three different things, I tried one with combined bake texture which is the first image, then I used 3 different textures for Materials, diffuse/colour, Bump/Normal and Shine/AO set to the model in edit mode in SL and then I applied a subdivision modifier and rebaked the diffuse, bump and shine and applied to see if it makes any difference. Here's the results:

Standard Combined Bake: 

 

Then here with Materials set with Diffuse bake without direct and indirect lights, normal and shine on normal modal:

 

 

So, strangely, it was looking dark, I couldn't guess why, tried different windlight settings as well, then I changed the diffuse texture with the combined one while keeping the normal and shine textures with my baked ones and the quality increased a lot:

 

Then I applied a subdivision modifier to the model and rebaked all three textures and made a second trial, and the result, to my surprise was very similar if not the same:

 

I was expecting the silver/chrome pipe to be smoother as I see on the 3d of the extre high poly model (8k triangles with the subdivision modifier set on value 1) but it did not change anything. But I also noticed that the normal map did not really assign anything to the pipe, as seen below on my combined and normal map, so you see that in the bottom i have the pipe but on the normal it is almost inexistant.. but guess what, I have an idea, I had straigtened the pipe in the UV unwrap instead of keeping it's curvy shape, could that be the reason? The examples below are the ones from the extra high poly version.

 

And finally to finish my post, I am adding the inspect window to my post, I am using 12 mb of vram, with the material mode as I am using 3 textures (1024 pixel each) , the final result is 1 prim tho! Even tho it does not mean anything on clothes (I suppose) but still, I am glad as my very first trials always resulted as 6-8 prims, if not more!

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Aquila Kytori]

Good morning

 

1 hour ago, Butler Offcourse said:

but then I decided to at firs match the pipe segments to the body and see if i can get away with it

While you were doing that I was making screenshots explaining exactly that and then using the snap tool to snap the vertices together. But I guess they aren't needed anymore 

I will post my shoe with piping anyhow :

 

Your shoe still looks like it has some issues with the shading. I  think perhaps you should next be working on cleaning up the edge flow to try and remove the distortions?

 

it is difficult to say how  exactly but perhaps something like in the image below, removing the red edge loop completely and directing the green one around the shoe?

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Aquila Kytori

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello @Aquila Kytori , when you posted this valuable post with advices, I had edited my previous post where you can see more about my progress and doubts lol. 

Those are exactly the kind of advices I am seeking, to improve the  project! Thank you! I agree and I see some problems on the shading as well, and had no idea how to fix it. I have never ever experimented on redirecting the edge loop, to clean the edge flow! Your image with green and red line is actually very helpful! I will try it, like I guess that I will have to remove edge loops and then add new vertexes/seperations with kinfe tool to finally create a new direct for the edge, am I correct? It will be interesting, fun and hard to do for my level but I will definitely, try and won't give up till I achieve a good result! 

I see the white arrows, I suppose that You are telling me to push them upwards, right? Well, the reason I pushed it this low are the toes:

 

If I raise them , there is too much space between the toes and the pipe, making it look too fake and I saw that it is the problem of many flat shoes in SL, so this was what I was trying to eliminate, on the other hand, If I lower the vertexes in front of them towards the toe end, then the toes are going out of the shoe, so I was trying to keep a compromise there. 🤷‍♂️

By the way your model looks so much smoother than mine with less triangles! oh my god! Still need to improve!

Edited March 1, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Aquila Kytori]

I think it would be worthwhile to add a few more longitudinal edge loops at the toe to smooth out the piping's curve some.

 

And something else that is bothering me ............

Have a look at the two images in my previous post. I seem to have alot more geometry in the front of the shoe than you have in yours yet the tri counts are very similar, both around 2000. If you still have my blend file have a look where you are using more geometry than I have.

 

If you don't  then you can download it again, this time with piping from here :

https://pasteall.org/blend/5043da453d97408ab23d7c04048bdff7

 

and that is me done for the day I am working afternoon shifts this week.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Aquila Kytori

[Kyrah Abattoir]

@Butler OffcourseLighting in SL can be a bit hit & miss, if you work with materials you typically don't have to pump as much details into your diffuse as you would if you don't use materials at all.

The main issue that can arise is that a too deep shading of the diffuse texture, or baked in specular highlights have a tendency to negate the ones added by your material.

Also a note on reflective surfaces, don't necessarily trust your bake to be accurate, the appearance we know as "chrome" and other polished surfaces is really just a reflection of their surrounding, which is something that you CAN bake, but you have to use your best judgement there. you want "something" in your diffuse texture that says "metallic", for when specular/environment fail to convey the message. But something too busy or too detailed will end up looking like a blotchy surface as soon as the camera moves.

[Butler Offcourse]

@Aquila Kytori Actually i had looked and now I looked it again! I am jealous of your model and modelling skills! ☺️ 

Actually I agree on the edge loop lack on the front, I had them earlier but then I deleted them "ruthlessly" ( 😅  )  when I was trying to reduce the number of faces while trying to optimize it, but I suppose that I have exaggerated it!  LOL You have as you said, more vertical edge loops compared to me, on the toe part, adding more definition to the toe and the opening both on the body surfaces and the pipe, but on the other hand, you have less horizontal edge loop that goes all around the shoe. After seeing your initial screenshots and model, I had tried to delete some of the horizontal edge loops, i actually did delete one, but this was what I thought was the necessary minimum. Having said that, an other part where we have difference is that you have less faces inside the shoe, paired with some triangles, same on the insole and the sole where i kept the quads, I feel like I should play with them to achieve more surface quote that i can use on other parts.  

I also see that your pipe has more horizontal loops compared to mine, making it smoother compared to mine. Those were my first trials of being ruthless LOL 🙂

Thank you very much again for your reply and help, much appreciated! 🙂

@Kyrah Abattoir , thank You very much for your reply! 

Actually my problem seemed a bit the opposite, I mean when I use the simple diffuse, set to only color, my shoe is very dark as the one visible on the screenshots I posted above, or in such case, I should pump it up even more the AO with Brightness and contrast in an app like photoshop? Or should I bake the Ambient Occlusion in a different way? There is this option called Bake from multires which I never enabled, that would help?

On reflective surfaces, I agree and it will never be accurate as the colors given in the diffuse map will be the colors of my environment in Blender and wherever you be, whether in an house or a forest, it will be reflected that way but well, this was a compromise I was thinking as there is no way around as far as I know. I see the metallic in BSDF and there are even certain textures which provide their own metallic texture, the one I used, I suppose, did not really have any, just a simple chrome, most probably a gray material with the roughness turned down, I should check. 

Thank you very much for the reply, much appreciated!  

[Kyrah Abattoir]

A note on make things more round, this is a really old model of mine but it illustrates a method I use sometimes when i need a rounder "rim" on something but also do not want to add an entire new edge loop.

 

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello @Kyrah Abattoir Thank you very much for the reply!  Yes all of these comes to retopology, rerouting..etc techniques that I have to dive in and master to achieve those results, I am observing the image and trying to understand, thank you!

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello @Aquila Kytori and @Kyrah Abattoir ,

Since yesterday I have some RL issues, that is why I could not post any progress as I could not really concentrate on the shoes. Having said that, I tried to play a bit with the idea of rerouting, disolving edges, adding new edge lopps and using the knife to add new cuts. Is this better? Or is it how I should do? I tried checking some youtube videos but it is mostly about reducing edge loops or rerouting to a full circle on a plane surface, but this one is a bit more complicated so I tried to do it on my own. 

I was thinking that using some triangles like the like in the post of Kyrah, could help to clean the topology more and reduce the number of edge loops.

I have been also practicing on some techniques to be able to reduce the number of loop cuts where it is not needed but while keeping it on the other spots where it is needed. Still need to get the hang of it, but I did this one on my own, trying to remember a tutorial i had seen on the subject last week, and then did it on my own way. It does not look very bad, right?

 

So now, I have not really been improving the shoe, but instead have been trying to improve my skills to optimize it as good as i can.  Then I wanted to try the 2 to 1 reduction as well but no matter how much I tried, I couldn't figure out how. So I shamelessly cheated 😅 and looked at the guides on google, and I found out why I couldn't figure out, because I was trying to do with quads whereas it was achieved by triangles. So to try, I replicated it on the shoe and the triangle part is being shaded pretty bad, so, what am I doing wrong? Or that type of reduction always creates problems? Is there an alternative?

Edited March 3, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Kyrah Abattoir]

Keep in mind that "quad only" doesn't really apply to low polygon modeling, (with a notable exception on joints).

The rightmost example you have is intented for subdivision modeling, but in low poly you typically want to avoid this sort of extreme quad shapes.

The reason it shades poorly is because the two "triangular" quads are creating two extremely thin triangle that cause the shading to pinch.

Quads can be deformed a lot before they triangulate improperly, but you typically want to avoid having 3 points of a quad in a row.

(in blue, how those quads triangulate)

I would dissolve the green marked edge so your transfer uses 3 triangles instead, for a low polygon mesh it will look just fine.

Likewise, that 3 to 1 on the left is nice, but completely overkill for low poly.

Rules:

Highpoly/Subdivided: Always use quads, triangles pinch in subdivision unless they are in a perfectly flat section.

Lowpoly: Use quads as much as possible, but having triangles here and there is ok as long as they aren't close to an animation joint.

This isn't the cleanest topology in the world, but you can see a generous amount of triangles 

As long as they aren't basically everywhere, and as long as they aren't in problematic areas (for rigged items), if the shading looks okay, it's probably okay.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Aquila Kytori]

This morning I tried to recreate your edge flow for the toe and found it perfectly OK . So forget my earlier image where I suggested you try redirecting some of the edges.

I think we can agree this does not look good :

 

I think the only thing wrong with your base model before subdivision modifier is not having enough longitudinal edges at the front.

 

 

I have to agree with Kyrah on your edge reductions. I don't see the point of that short vertical edge in the 2 down to 1 reduction:

 

Or the the need for the extra quad in the middle of your 3 to 1 reduction:

 

or even this :

Edited March 4, 2021 by Aquila Kytori

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello @Kyrah Abattoir and @Aquila Kytori , thank you very much again for your detailed answers, I love reading Your answers and they are very helpful to me, thank you! If I ever become a shoe creator in sl, you both will be receiving all the shoes I do! 😊 🙃

@Kyrah Abattoir , When you mean low poly modelling, do you mean it before that I applied the subdivision? Or do you consider to be low poly even after that I applied the modifier and came to 2.2k tris? Because I was trying to do those reductions (well, in theory as the model I posted was like a sandbox for learning and not the final) where may be on the nose i needed some loops to give the "perfect" shape that I want but it is totally unnecessary to go all the way backwards, so by doing this, I thought that I could remove many more faces on my subdivided model (subdivided with value 1). Is that still unnecessary in this case? Then looking at the proposition of @Aquila Kytori , I realise that I made the reduction in a very complicated way when I could do it in a simpler way, well this is the proof that I did not follow any tutorials for that and I messed it big time! 😅😅

That cloth looks fantastic and yes, the triangles doesn't seem to create any problems! Awesome job!

@Aquila Kytori , 

Perfect, so I can continue on my old model to try to fix it! Well, as I was explaining on the paragraph above, I was using this "excuse" to try to learn topology techniques, rerouting, reductions..etc. As I was explaining above again, I was thinking of creating those reductions close to the front part to on the sides to avoid many edge loops going all around and to try to decrease loop cuts and this way, to decrease the numbers of tris even further, would you say that it is not necessary? 🤔

When I look at your 4 to 1 reduction, I can see that I have overly complicated it! LOL, as I said, I was not following the tutorial and I was trying to imagine and find. I was thinking that it would be lovely if there was a game for smartphones or tablets where it would give you such situations and you try to reduce loops or reroute them, and when you aree stuck, it gives hints, it would be a fun way to learn when you aren't in front of your computer!  

So now that I have deleted too many, edge loops, to read them, what would be the best way? Here's what I mean:

- If I add a new edge loop to this final model, it will add a new loop but the vertexes will follow the flat shape. So I have to move all the vertexes one by one as a simple scale would not really work. May be apply some relax with Looptools add on after I move them all to keep them smooth. 

- I could go back to my earlier model before the subdivision was applied, reapply it, remodel the sole and heel and insole again and then reduce less loops. 

or is there an other way that I don't know for those situations? Which one is the ideal workflow?

Also I would like to say that I have that shading issue close to the piping on the front even before removing the edge loops. But it is something I am unable to fix, so I think that it is because of that volume requirement, I mean, the pipe part going downwards and then going a bit upwards towards forward. 

PS: This month I have some serious RL issues (nothing related to health) , so that is why my progress is slow, so if i reply late, it is the reason but i will go till the end, till it is good and nice!

Edited March 4, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello! 

So today I took my old model before the subdivision applied, added some more loop cuts and then applied the subdivision. I did not delete any loop cuts for now, and tried to fix thee shading issue by moving with proportional move, by smoothing..etc and tried to achieve this, is it better in your opinion? I have also added screenshots with the old pipe so you can see the difference and I have also added a view where you see the height with the toes. There you can see why I am trying to go down towards the opening part.

I can see some imperfection on the toe end towards the lower part where the sole will start, not a very perfectly round shape, but after all it is a shoe, soft leather..etc so some imperfections on the form makes it look a bit more realistic may be? (Am I trying too hard to find an excuse to avoid fixing it? 😜)

[Kyrah Abattoir]

7 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

When you mean low poly modelling, do you mean it before that I applied the subdivision? Or do you consider to be low poly even after that I applied the modifier and came to 2.2k tris? Because I was trying to do those reductions

My bad i must have missed it, but in my text I did say, "all quads" only matter for subdivision, but I was under the impression that this was your low-poly.

By "low-poly" I always refer to the "to be uploaded in SL" model.

[Aquila Kytori]

5 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

I have also added a view where you see the height with the toes. There you can see why I am trying to go down towards the opening part.

I didn't have much of a problem with the this part of the model, perhaps because my front edge of the opening appears to be higher up towards the base of the toes than your seems to be?

5 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

and tried to fix thee shading issue by moving with proportional move, by smoothing..etc

In such a model there is always alot of tweaking to be done. Its just the nature of the beast.

 

 

5 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

(Am I trying too hard to find an excuse to avoid fixing it?

Yes !

I can't think of a good reason why you don't start again. After all isn't that what this thread is all about ?

For your two threads I have made 3 different models, My original, the one in the image above. A second one where I made a copy of each step so that I could later take screenshots showing my workflow (but decided it wasn't necessary any more). And a third where I only did the outer shell but following your edge flow to check it out.( images for my post this morning).

If you were in my class I would insist that you model both edge flows.  😄

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2021 by Aquila Kytori

[Butler Offcourse]

@Kyrah Abattoir and @Aquila Kytori , thank you very much again for the replies. 

@Kyrah Abattoir then you were definitely right because this is the model that was supposed to be uploaded to SL as the full version, so then this is the low poly that you have meant.  I am saying supposed to because I will follow the advice of Aquila Kytori and I will remodel it! 

@Aquila Kytori , you are definitely right, I will remodel it then!  I have been facing the typical syptom of an "artist" , feeling that your work is very precious instead of redoing it, trying to fix it always and ending up with a mediocre stuff. And in the beginning it is always better to redo from scratch as it forces you to draw or model in this case, more, and learn faster.  I would also like to add that I appreciate the time you put into modelling the shoe three times to teach me, thank you! 🙏😊

May I please ask what shoe you have been trying it on? I have no idea if it is the Ebody foot which is a bit more oddly shaped, or if it is me. But most probably it is me. I will try to model it better this time and I will follow your workflow instead of my previous one to see if i will manage better. 😊

You said that in such model there is always a lot to tweak, and when I look at your model and mine, I can definitely agree on that. What would be the steps you would follow to improve it? I mean, instead of taking your time to share screenshots as I don't want to give you much disturbance, could you type briefly the steps to follow such as "I would apply smooth, position the cv's evenly by hand or by using this command , that..etc.  I am not trying to save the model as I will be remodelling it, but I would love to learn how an expert modeller is improving the model once satisfied with it. Most probably, you never end up with such model that you will need to improve this way, but I was still curious if there were techniques that I could practice and learn. 😊

Modelling the two edge flows.. it is interesting and I agree, I have to do it! I will try even tho I am a bit lost about that, I mean the edge floow, loop rerouting is still a bit blurry for me, I still did not master it well enough but I will be trying that and I will share the results here! 😊

I really appreciate the time that both of you are putting to my threads to help me, really, thank you so much! 🙏🙏 I promise that you will both be proud of me once I am "graduated"! 😛😊

EDIT 1: To experiment, I decided to use an other technique that I had seen, by creating vertexes, extruding them and then making faces between them, I thought that this way I could control the edge flow. Well, I could do it with a thin plane too, but I wanted to experiment with this technique too.  

EDIT 2:

So I have been doing with the technic above. At first I extruded vertices and with them I did the top opening carefully. Then just beneath them, I did an equal number of vertices to create a face, as if I have been drawing the edge loop. Once done, then I extruded, scaled, moved..etc how I felt looked better. I repeated this till I had the final outer body. I decided that I will use this as the inner sole, so when I use the solidify, I will be using it towards exterior. I guess that this edge flow is similar to your example. It looks much cleaner! Though when I want to fit them better on the toes, I realise that the crease is unavoidable as it is the shape of the foot. But, even if I do it, the shading is MUCH better than before. Here's how it looks now without crease.

WITHOUT THE SUBDIVISION:

 

 

AND THIS IS HOW IT WOULD LOOK WITH THE SUBDIVISION ( Value : 1 ) :

 

 

AND HERE IS THE TOE PART:

Edited March 5, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello, here's the result with this edge flow. The topology is MUCH better than my old model, but still, I have to decrease loopcuts..etc, as I am around 3.5 tris and I don't even have a correct insole as I just did F command after selecting the whole edge 😂 Here's the current progress:

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Butler Offcourse]

Sorry for posting it in several different posts but unfortunately the image file size limit is preventing me to add new screenshots. So I was playing around with my model thinking on how to improve the model..etc, I was looking at the sole, here it is:

Have I messed it up big time? What I did was, I made a face with the F button inside of each 4 vertexes. The problem is that when I was doing the exterior, I was putting the vertexes where I was more satisfied with the volume and after applying the subdivision..etc, I realize that my vertexes are not aligned perfectly on the left and the right side, so the faces between them does not have flat edges. Even though the sole won't be very visible, just to understand it better, is it a problem? would you leave it like this? or how could you fix it?

The weird shadow that you see in the lower 1/3 of the sole is the heel, so it is not a normal or shading problem.

EDIT 2: 

Then I started to wonder, how would I model the shoe if I wanted the nose part separate, cut flat in Y to separate material may be. Since in my model, the topology is all round and round, I could not just separate it with a loop cut or a segment. I did not want to use boolean or else I could shape a plane with the same curvy surface of the shoe, perpendicular to shoe, add solidify and use boolean to mark the model and separate it in the UV islands. So I decided to retry modelling, to practice, and I modelled the toe end from a plane in a very low poly mode and then added a subdivision value 1 to see the result. On top you can see it without subdivision and beneath with the subdivision applied. I also tried to model from a plane the round method to achieve a similar result to my actual model that today I did by extruding vertexes. Actually I found it fun to model fastly low poly and see the magic done by subdivision, pretty neat!  Here's the example:

This time when I did the fast low poly nose, I did not care about using a triangle and as a result, it turned into a quad with the subdivision so it fixed it for me

Edited March 5, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Aquila Kytori]

15 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

EDIT 1: To experiment, I decided to use an other technique that I had seen, by creating vertexes, extruding them and then making faces between them, I thought that this way I could control the edge flow.

I had assumed that you were doing this way from the very beginning.  Have you been using box modeling instead?

That then reminded me of Gaia Clary's Shoe Quest tutorials. Its both text and videos. If you haven't seen these before they are well worth watching. I always use vertex modeling, just because thats the way I learnt to mesh model but I find something very elegant in the box modeling method.

https://blog.machinimatrix.org/shoe-quest/

 

Your shoe is looking very "clean" now.

You just need to reduce the poly count a little by deleting some edge loops :

In some instances you may find it helpful to edge slide neighbouring loops before deleting so you don't loose the shape.

 

15 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

You said that in such model there is always a lot to tweak, and when I look at your model and mine, I can definitely agree on that. What would be the steps you would follow to improve it?

Tweaking is just taking the time to get every vertex to what you believe is the correct position. In this case often using Proportional editing, Edge and vertex sliding, and just generally pushing and pulling at individual vertices as you go along.

The following is my modelling workflow from start to finish. This time by simplifying it a little, the tri count is down to 1300. Again I would suggest watching Gaia's tutorial (link above) where she gets her shoe down to less than 1000 !

 

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

Sorry for posting it in several different posts but unfortunately the image file size limit is preventing me to add new screenshots

I use  https://compresspng.com/  to compress images before adding them here.

5 hours ago, Butler Offcourse said:

Have I messed it up big time? What I did was, I made a face with the F button inside of each 4 vertexes. The problem is that when I was doing the exterior, I was putting the vertexes where I was more satisfied with the volume and after applying the subdivision..etc, I realize that my vertexes are not aligned perfectly on the left and the right side, so the faces between them does not have flat edges. Even though the sole won't be very visible, just to understand it better, is it a problem? would you leave it like this? or how could you fix it?

Not really a problem. But ...............

Before optimizing, you could delete the sole, insole faces. Then in side view, Wireframe mode, use Edge Slide ( G G ) to align edges on a posing sides.

After Deleting some of these vertical edges for optimization go back and fill in the sole and insole again.

Its a never ending process isn't it.   😄

 

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by Aquila Kytori

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello @Aquila Kytori , wow an other fantastic posts with a very detailed info on the processes! Thank you so much! 🙂🙏

My process on the first model that we have been talking about till yesterday was I realize box modelling. Box modelling and Vertex modelling were two terms that I had heard but I did not know what really was vertex modelling, I had seen this technic in a car modelling tutorial without knowing it’s name! 😂

Both techniques, in my opinion, I like them according to different cases. I love box modelling because I find it easier to block in shapes quickly and get the proportions right and I find that I am doing it faster. On the other hand, I found that I was able to do a cleaner model with the vertex technique, because it is more similar to the modelling type that I am used, for my RL work, nurbs modelling. But then this is the dangerous part for me. Since in nurbs modelling, we have perfectly smooth curves to model first the edges with CV points of bezier curves (would be the vertexes of Blender) I tend to add many vertex points while creating the edges. 😂 So I tried to find a compromise and force my eye and brain to avoid adding too many vertexes.

My workflow on this last model was similar to yours with a slight difference. What I did was:

- I first made the main edge ring like you.

- Then again, with vertexes, I did the second edge ring (the one beneath it) , instead of extruding it, and I did it all the way around and between them, I created faces with F button selecting 4 edges. 

- Then I extruded in Z towards down and edged edge loops to get the form of the bottom.

- Then all the rest I did the same as you have explained.

- I just did not really delete the edge loops yet, but I will delete the ones that you have adviced. I have already deleted some time to time to see, but did not really show you yet as i was not satisfied 😂  Actually I had deleted the ones that you had advised, so I am happy because it means that I am getting to learn it  

- I also realised that one of the reasons why I have the front part sinked in ( remember my previous problem? ) is the pipe. Because on the front part, it sits lower so when I snap the edge of the shoe, it goes lower (steps 17-19 in your diagram), but then I am trying to fix it by playing with the edge loop and came to the result that you saw on my previous screenshots.

 

Oh, I had been using the G+G on my previous shoe modelling, but I never understood what it does. Is it moving the vertexes on normals? ( edit: now  understood, it is sliding, it is lovely! thank you! as using the shortcuts rather than left menu is always faster) Is it sliding the vertexes on their axes? I do use a lot edge slide, vertex slide, ...etc and I like them a lot. I have also modified the shoe on the pictures I posted yesterday with Proportional editing because after “finishing” it with the subdivisions and making it a full model, I realized that I did not like the height of the shoe and proportions, so I hided all the lower vertexes keeping only the one third vertexes above and with proportional move, I gave a slight curve towards backwards with a very big brush, then with vertex slide, edge slide, deleting edge loops and adding new ones, I tried to fix/correct it as the proportional editing brought certain of my edge loops very close and this was the result on my post yesterday. 😊

I will check the tutorial that you have sent, thank you! And yes! The more I dive in, the deeper I realized that it is!  

EDIT 1: So here I was continueing this technique with the wonder on how to have a flat nose cut. So what I did was, even the left model could be cleaner, wanted to take a "bigger challenge" and took all the vertexes towards where the cut will be, and then S I pressed (scale) , Y (axis), 0 (value) and hit entered alligning them all in one line. Then I extruded that edge creating two sections giving the overall volume and then I deleted 4 internal faces to create the opening and then alligned them to create a more curvy shape. I added two loop cuts to make it even rounder even tho they ended towards the triangle and created ngons. Well I could use a knife and make the triangle smaller but sinde i did not yet applied smooth, left it like that to see how Blender will manage it. Then I set the creases, and noticed that creating a crease where I want the cut to be, created a strraight section there after the subdivision, or else, it gets blended it. So here's the result. It is not intended to be a final model, it was just an experiment and seems like working. What do you think? 😊

 

EDIT 2: And also I was wondering, if i want to add a buckle, or a leather strap..etc, how could it be done? I had no idea, so I experimented on it as well, using the left model this time. And I never realised how important creases were before subdividing other than having "just sharp edges". Here is a basic result, I aligned the two last sections flatly in Y. Then I recalculated normals, went to object mode, applied all transforms and extruded faces along normals. Then marked the edges of the "strap" with crease  on value 1, and applied the subdisivision, looks like a nice result, what do you think?

 

 

And I realised that when it is not single material and it has like separations like this, UV unwrap is much faster and easier. 😊

 

 

And this was a bit too many poly fun lol. 9300 tris.. 😂 

EDIT 3: So here's the million dollar question. If I want to make such cut on my clean model with the round edge flow, how can I do it? Here's an example that I did b using vertex extrude techniquue and face snap. Obviously I have the surfaces of the shoe beneath it as a double but the edge flow is completel different that I can not delet them perfectly. How would you do it? In this situation boolean is my best friend? Obviously if I model it the other way, it is easier, and may be more ideal, but I prefer the topology of this solution as it looks cleaner, so I was curious, if there was a way to do this with this topology? Or should I have to do it seperately like I did here and keep it like this and hide as much as unvisible face I can, not in a very elegant way (as the edges do not follow each other because of different edge flow between the general shoe and the strap/gold part) 

Edited March 7, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Butler Offcourse]

Hello again! 

So I restarted modelling it on the previous way, but this time with some Y 0 scaling to have a place to make the band. Well, the model's topology is better than the model that I had done last week but I also keep having the old shading problem on the corner.. *bangs his head to the wall* , I have no idea how to make the shoe with the band/volume integrated to it while still keeping the model/topology of the round edge flow that I had done with the examples of @Aquila Kytori Here are some screenshots, for today, I give up and go to sleep, goodnight! 

 

EDIT 1 : So this morning, I woke up, and I've made my coffee, opened blender and I was hopelessly turning around my model just to figure out what I could do to improve it. And I knew that adding one more subdivision was making it look very nice and it was fixing the shading issue. So, I decided to apply it to see what it does to improve the topology and I saw that the only that was changing was that the faces were smaller. This gave me an idea, so I undid the extra subdivision, I created a very small edge loop (actually several ones as in this topology, my age loop isn't turning all around but it goes towards the nose. Those edge loops I positioned close to the pipe, then I deleted the excess edges that I didn't want (going towards the nose part and then with knife tool I connected those edge loops, creating ngons but it seemed to have fixed my shading issue that I had on that weird angle since the beginning, then I snapped and merged vertexes, with knife added new ones and this way I removed all the ngons making the topology a bit nicer, what do you think?  The selected edge is the created edge loop.

EDGE LOOP:

TRIED TO FIX NGONS:

BEFORE THE EDGE LOOP:

AFTER THE EDGE LOOP:

Edited March 7, 2021 by Butler Offcourse

[Aquila Kytori]

Good morning   🙂

 

This is the correct topology if you are wanting a more versatile  shoe base model. You just need to  fix the shading problems

Can you share your .blend file so that I can have a play with it ?

Just copy and paste the shoe and the foot into a new clean .blend file, a file without all the materials and textures.

 

Edit:

Yes it is looking better 

Adding an edge loop around openings is often a good idea.

The edge loops where the piping joins to the shoe, have you tried Marking it Sharp ?

Edited March 7, 2021 by Aquila Kytori