spheres lofting problem
 

i'm trying to build this type of geometry

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n...2Aug171605.jpg

i created two polygon spheres, combined them and picked the edges of both (picture below). am i right so far or should i create nurbs in the first place? the thing is after i try to loft the selected edges a weird thing appears, even if i change the settings in the loft option box. any help?

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n...1Aug171601.jpg

you can't loft polygonal objects LOL

alright, tell me what to do then.

it's a newbie forum,what's the laugh for? :angery:

Combine the 2 spheres into one object, then I would use the append poly tool to add the faces between them.

i followed your instructions. the thing is what to do in the point i show you in the picture. the arrows follow the big sphere geometry and not the small one. i want to achieve the first picture. are you sure it's a polygon i'm after? is there a way to smooth it as if it was a nurb? (if i ever get the append...:confused: )

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n...1Aug171917.jpg

"it's a newbie forum,what's the laugh for?"

My sincere apologies :beer:

I would start with a nurbs sphere and do an endsweep of like 270 degrees and rotate the sphere to an angle of your choosing, then convert to polygons because it's easier to edit geometry in poly mode, duplicate it and scal it down and then reverse the normal direction on the duplicated sphere(it's under normals in de polygons menu set)
what i usually do is use the append to polygon tool to connect the edges to one another.
rememver to press Y after each edge you connect otherwise it will keep going continuosly :)

i did the reverse normals stuff. it only highlighted the small sphere in brown. are you sure of that? what's that tool for, really? :beer:

and what about the append in the point i'm telling you in the picture? how can i jump from the big sphere to the small in the angle?

I don't know the technical description but in short the normal direction affects the way poly's attach and/or interact with each other.
If you attach 2 poly's with different normal directions you get something i describe as funky stuff :)

After you made sure the normals are pointing the correct way (see image)you"ll have to combine the two spheres then you can connect them by using the append to polygon tool select adjacent edges and connect them then press Y to repeat the last command and go to the next pair of edges

sifidis, this is something i've done quite a few times :p

in this situation where you have two pieces of polygons that have been combined together and you want to fill the hole and the fill hole command just doesn't do what you want it to do, you can do the append polygon way of filling in the hole

if you do, you need to add more points along that big giant edge with insert edge tool and then just snaps verts and merge them

a more detailed explanation...

it doesn't matter if you start with polygons or NURBS, but i started in polygons because you can just delete 1/4 of the sphere easy enough

1. turn off two sided lighting (in the view port panel it's Lighting > Two Sided Lighting), this will quickly let you know when your normals don't agree with each other (normals are the direction the face is facing) by showing one side black and the other in the material you've assigned
take you polygon sphere and kill the faces you don't want

2. duplicate and scale inwards or outwards. Take the inner sphere and reverse the normals (Normals > Reverse)

3. combine (Mesh > Combine)

4. select Edit Mesh > Append Polygon Tool

5. click on a vertex on one of the sphere and follow the direction of the arrows... at some point click on a vertex on the inner sphere

6. hit enter. be lazy and go Mesh > Fill Hole

and now the fun part...

either Mesh > Clean up (reset settings) and then delete all the unnessery edges along that birdged gap and turn everything along there in to quads

or

go Edit Mesh > Split Polygon Tool and connect the verticies between the inner and outer sphere to make quads

make stuff quads or it might render funny

there is no loft for poly surfaces. however, its' really easy with poly and it's own tools.
after attaching the two spheres, reverse the normal direction of the inside sphere. then select the border edge of any one sphere (i've selected inner's) and extrude it to another's direction. now select all the vertices (i've selected the edges and converted the selection to vertices- i feel really comfy with this process). now merge the vertices. now u'll have to add loops around the edges that has to be sharp - i've inserted inside the newly created polys only, just to show u. i'm attaching the visual process too, just to make it more clearer.

You could also probably just create the one sphere, delete the faces for the hold, select the border edges and extrude inwards (locally). Then, just simply add a couple loops to sharpen the edges like effacer mentioned. Of course this only makes sense if you don't need a complete solid object inside the outer sphere. Maya really needs the equiv. of Max' shell modifier or Silo's "Shell" to quickly "thicken" objects.

thanks NitroLiq!! i forgot to mention that 'hollow inside' theory! .. really if there is no camshot that shows wht is inside then we might as well not model that area- this goes for any surface-inside or outside... this is just a waste of time for the modelers as well as texture artist, riggers, lighter .... i mean all the 3D artists..... but we have to keep in mind the reflection/refraction area/surfaces too..

There's also a python script you could check out called P3D Solidify that mimics a 'shell' type of modifier.

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downlo...dify-5727.html

Here's a screencast on using it (one of his examples resembles what you're trying to do).

http://www.screencast.com/t/K2CCAbwyiUX

It's also pretty cool for simulating something like Max' inset.