Spud's quick and easy and slightly cheating window modeling guide

[spudmonkey]

I'm a cheater.

Yep, you heard it here first.

Why?

I love shortcutting things to make them look better than they are.

Why?

I have a low poly modeling background in more recent times and I hate poly wastage.

Any number of times I see a model where people are never going to get close enough to it to see the level of detail that is applied to certain areas. Windows is the classic...

Why?

You see something that has a load of faces, chamfers, insets and so on that really aren't required unless (and it's a BIG unless) you are going to be rendering the window close up at a high resolution.

If you are going to use a closeup you are often better modeling that part on its own in high detail to save yourself some CPU cycles. Also, when you are rendering from afar you want to trim the poly count where the mesh density is high but not really affecting how that part looks from a distance.

So, cheating is the way to go then...

You could texture the windows, but that seems to be against current fashion, and in fairness a modeled object will often look better than an bump mapped version at mid range.

So, you want to do this quickly then and not add huge amounts of detail.

Booleans are probably out because you spend a lot of time welding verts, turning edges and generally cleaning up the aftermath.

So, here's how to cheat, whilst still getting a good effect. This technique can be applied to curved surfaces, but I have shown it on a flat surface for simplicity. You can also do many, many windows at the same time and they will always all be flush with the face(s) that the window is on/in

Impressed?

These steps show how to make two windows and are written up as they were done. Total time to model was about 30 seconds

Step 1.

Create a cube with a couple of segments to it



Step 2.

Convert the cube to an editable poly and select two edges, one for each window



Step 3.

Extrude the edges using a depth of 0 and a width that meets your requirements



Step 4.

In the Editable Poly roll-out, hold control and click the polygon sub-modifier



This will select the faces as per this image



Step 5.

Extrude the faces to the required height or depth



Job, as they say, is a good un. Or done if you prefer.

"Now then!" I hear you cry. "I'm doing a Trek ship and want rounded windows"

Well now, what a fussy swine, eh?

I said the windows were simple, but now you want to add complexity.

I don't know...

Oh, ok then...

Repeat steps 1 to 3 above.

Because I didn't want too much complexity for this, I welded the top and bottom verts. You don't have to do this, but it creates a cleaner mesh.

It's entirely up to you.

Step 4.

Select the corner verts of the window and chamfer them to the required size



Step 5.

Select edge mode again and use the control+polygon sub-modifier trick again



Step 6.

Extrude the selected faces



Ok, slightly smoother corners.

If you want something even smoother then you can weld some of the spare verts (or not as the case might be. It's up to you) and chamfer each pair of corner verts to create 4 verts per corner.

And again to create 8 verts per corner.

It's up to you.

Hope you find this useful

[VALKYRIE013]

Thanks spud.. informative.. windows and paneling have always been my weak point.. i'll put your advice to the test soon.. thanks again

[spudmonkey]

Glad it's helpful! Bear in mind that it's a basic approach and may require some playing with. I tend to model fairly cleanly so I always aim to have strips of edges that are the right size for the windows before I even get to modeling the windows. If your base mesh doesn't have convenient strips then you could either look at remodeling (which takes time but is good practice), or you can use the cut tools (cut, slice plane, quick slice) to define the edges when and where you need them

[NightShadow]

This is definitely a useful and effective technique. And it works well. Yes, it can be a bit time-consuming when you get into the process of rounding off the corners, but it pays off well in the end. The hard part, though, is deciding if you want to model simple/basic interiors for those windows or if you simply wanna add texture maps and pray that no one gets close enough to tell the difference.

Nice tute, Spud.

[The B5 Fan]

This is insultingly simple.

Insulting because I didn't think of it.

[spudmonkey]

Tee hee

[DerekDRP]

That would save a lot on shapemerging and mesh error's