High Poly Rook Help

[Gordon]

I thought that modeling the rook would be very straight forward. However, I ran in to some problems when trying to narrow the gaps on top.

I started with my 8 segment model and tried to extrude, slide, delete, fill, scale, add edge loops etc., etc.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the extruded parts closer together wtihout messing up the geometry…

Suddenly I remembered, Aha! I can use the boolean modifier, same as I did with the bishop!

But then I got these very sharp edges that didn’t look very realistic. And if I applied the boolean modifiers in an attempt to bevel the edges afterwards, I got horrible geometry that I didn’t really know how to fix. Turning off auto smooth and adjusting didn’t work. Only adding 5 or 6 subdivisions did, but that seemed a bit excessive for such simple shapes.

Finally, I went back to a file containing the old base with the original 32 edge loops. This allowed me to extrude the top in a neat way. But the gaps were still not as narrow as I wanted them to be, and well, I have 24 extra edge loops now.

So I’m wondering. Is there a way for me to create gaps, such as with the boolean modifier, but with edges that I can bevel or smooth out afterwards without using 5 or 6 subdivisions with the subdivision modifier? It feels like there is some simple way of doing this that I am overlooking.

Can I do it with my 8 segment model without adding additional edge loops? How would you do it?

I hope you understand what I mean. I feel ridiculous, having struggled with this all day when it is supposed to be one of the easier pieces…

[FedPete]

Sometimes, what you want can’t be done with the tools or procedures learned. More experience is needed. Also approaching the problem in a difficult way, like wanting this and wanting that …

In Blender there is no good or wrong, only the end results count. But what are these end results?
If you need evenly spaced gaps and your learned solution is to add more edge loops, why not?
Only the rule you decide for yourself to have fewer vertices and edges to get a low poly object?

If the tower only needs 8 segments vertically. But the top notches 24. Then you can create two objects. The bottom part and the upper part with gaps. And with more knowledge, you can even merge them together. But that isn’t the goal of this chess challenge.

That you are struggling with this concept is very recognizable. I myself had these thoughts in the beginning. And while it is nice to have a low poly object of 100 faces. But an object of 300 faces (your tower) is still low poly.

You have shown already many solutions to this problem. Using the Boolean AND BEVEL modifier and or increasing a bit more vertices will get the job done.

[Gordon]

Yes, you’re right. I need more experience. I want to make it so perfect and realistic already. But I need to stick to the challenges. It is so easy to get carried away, and then you want something, and spend too much time trying to make it “just right”.

It’s exactly as you say, I have the mindset that low poly needs to be as few vertices and edges as possible. For some reason I’m thinking that I have failed if I add more segments, and that there is a better “right” way of doing it. But yeah, there are many ways of doing things in Blender of course, and maybe there is no best way.

I tried adding a seperate cylinder with more segments on top, and bridge edge loops. That resulted in a very weird edge loop. I put it flat on top without looping, but still wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to be.

Too picky! Ahh, tomorrow I’ll speed things up and focus on continuing learning instead.

Thank you for your comment. I needed a reality check.

[FedPete]

Just info to help you in your quest. Efficiency lies in the fact to try to use quads, faces with four vertices. Because then adding loops is easy to add more mesh details when you need it. You will learn, understand this with more experience and next lessons.

Conversion sheet I use to keep clean mesh. But don’t think at first too much about it. It will come to you!

[Gordon]

Oh I love that conversion sheet, I will save it. I really want to learn how to keep my mesh clean.

I started googling conversions in blender already, but I’ll leave my Rook as it is for now and continue with the next lectures.

I value your feeback a lot! Thank you.

[FedPete]

There are other sheets on the web. Mostly used to convert a high poly (sculpted) model, back to low poly. There are automated tools for this process called retopology. Bt some people like to do it hand and use this to make smooth and optimized meshes. See Grant’s Orc character build process.

[Gordon]

Retopology and Grant’s Orc character build process. Got it! Will definetly look into that in my spare time.