View Single Post
Old 15th December 2008, 05:48 PM   #2
lisa
Senior Member
Professional user
 
lisa's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posts: 917
Default Re: Subdividing and Smoothing

It's probably something with your topology; I'm guessing that front face is all one poly. How you layout your surfaces and the direction they flow can radically affect how they are smoothed when subdivision is applied.

The easiest rule of thumb to make subdivisions work well is to stick to quads (four-sided polys) for all of your surfaces. It's not a requirement--other shapes can be smoothed with planning--but if you stick to quads you can be pretty brain-dead about your layout and it will still work. Remember, the way subdivision surfaces work is that the surface is split in half on each axis and averaged. Since a quad is already four-sided and will therefore split evenly, it's very hard to go wrong.

If I were going to lay out the topology for your shape, I'd do it something like this:
Attached Images
 
lisa is offline   Reply With Quote