How do you create mathematical models?

See attached for the finished version of this starball, in Blender. I just continued on from the point you left off, Unkerjay. Notice I placed the subd surface modifier below the cast modifier. This helps round out the pentagonal faces, because it provides some geometry edges on those faces. If you don't give the pentagons some resolution before the Cast, it will not round out the flat surfaces of the pentagons.

Thanx for the help and the input, luxxeon.

I"m working on my own finish of the linked starball.

I'll post mine when I'm done.

P.S. I like Blender. I recommend Blender.
Because I think there's room for improvement
isn't a contradiction of that.

Using or being able to afford something "better"
wouldn't change anything.

Just give me something else to complain about.

It's the problem of ALL softawre.

Having said that, on balance SOME software is
better. And depending on the use, SOME software
is better for SOME things than other software is.

If I had first come across blender, I don't know, maybe
10 years ago, my learning curve (or my frustration) would
be further along.

There's something to be said about the entry point as well.

It's the reason 1.0 software is seldom recommended as it's
more accurately considered "final beta".

BAZINGA!

Hopefully cooler heads can prevail here, and we can all just focus on making models. Ramboblender, please do not leave, as your involvement has been critical in spreading some very useful and intelligent solutions to the creation of these models in Blender, and your input in the discussion is always highly valued.

At any rate, here's a sneak preview render of the next tutorial I'm working on. I'm not sure what to call this design, or what mathematical family it would be from, but I found it quite pleasing to look at, and fairly simple to create. It may appear complex, but the steps involved here are very easy to implement in both 3dsmax, and Blender just the same. I also exported the model as STL, and input it to Netfabb just to test the integrity of the mesh, and it passed all inspections for 3d printing there, with no obvious issues. So ultimately, i feel this one is a good candidate for printing as well. I should have the tutorial available on my Youtube channel before the weekend.

It's OK Luxxeon, I was out of debating.

Back to modeling .
Spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to approach the shape, got it down to ~5 minutes.
Still not 100% sure if it's the right model, there is some squeezing at the poles but I didn't bother with that.
Waiting to see the 3dsmax tutorial to see if I'm in the right track.



C'mon Luxxeon it's thursday already

Wow. Looks like you nailed it again, Rambo! Very impressive. I may have to work on making these things more complex I think. ;-) 5 minutes sounds about right for this model, so you're probably doing the same, or very similar, steps. The video tutorial will be much longer, because I'll have to do explanations, and narrative which slows down the workflow, obviously.

I should have the 3dsmax version up tonight. Great work!

Don't know what to say.
You build the model from outside, I on the other hand try to build it from inside.
Here is my way, this time I added the squeeze at the poles to make it look somewhat like yours.

I'm speechless .

Ps: My model was not the same as yours, I was missing one step.

Wow! I wasn't expecting that technique. Very interesting.

Here's the link to the video, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, and are wondering what Ramboblender and I are talking about..

3d Tutorial | Cubic Gyroid Abstract | 3dsmax

This is a companion video to my recent 3dsmax tutorial, in which we translate the process of modeling a Cubic Gyroid Abstract to Blender 2.75, for 3d printing or digital design. No plugins or addons are necessary. I have the Dynamic Spacebar, Pie Menus, and Iconsev addons enabled for this demonstration, but they are not required to follow along.

Model A Cubic Gyroid Abstract In Blender 2.75

Also, if anyone here is using Wings3D as a modeling package for 3d printing; my friend, Micheus Vieira, has translated the original 3dsmax tutorial to the Wings3D software platform. You can find the Wings3D version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7fGuLPOPgY

If anyone has any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me, or post here.

I hope everyone didn't abandon this thread all the sudden. Maybe everyone is just lurking? At any rate, I just wanted to also post the new, updated version of Micheus' Wings3D remake of my Cubic Gyroid tutorial. He revised the one posted above, to incorporate a better workflow.

Wings3D: Cubic Gyroid Abstract (3dsmax) [Updated]


Hope anyone using Wings3d will find his tutorial conversion useful. I think he did a great job.

I saw this made out of paper and I had to do it.




Added PolySphere cut with a celtic pattern.
Blender and Gimp.

That looks very interesting, Ramboblender! It reminds me somewhat of a Seifert Surface.

Rambo, that Celtic sphere is also very interesting. I didn't see that the first time you posted. I'd be interested to see what technique you employed to achieve that pattern. Well done!

Btw. Just yesterday I came across your DeviantArt page. You seem to be the master of this staff and you asking me how I achieved that , I'm Honoured.
Wish I had the passion or the talent to do what you do.

It's all about UV mapping.
For this case just a seamless texture mapped to a rounded cube.
Subdivide heavily / Spherify and bake the texture to Vertex colour.
Select faces by vertex colour (help from a script) delete the rest.
Laplacian smooth, Solidify.
In this case you can't have bevelled corners only sharp ones.

Same method as the post above.


And That's All She Wrote.

Aha! I see now! The reason I asked is because I'm very conditioned to creating these kind of spherical tessellations in 3dsmax from certain specific techniques like stacking surface modifiers and playing with the re-meshing parameters, or algorithms in Maxscript. I wasn't sure how you went about it in Blender. I thought maybe there were some modifiers or re-meshing Python tools I wasn't familiar with. That's a clever, yet relatively simple procedure.

Here's a preview I just rendered of a new mathematical model I came up with. I'm calling it an Octostar for now, as it begins with a 8-point tetrahedra compound primitive.







I'll post a tutorial on how to achieve this for 3d print, using standard polygonal modeling techniques, on my Youtube channel soon.

Hi, everyone. Here's the tutorial for the object I posted above in this thread. This is the 3dsmax version of the tutorial, which can be used for 3D printing. The object should easily accept a wall thickness to reduce render costs.

Octo-Star Math Sculpture Tutorial | 3dsmax

If you have any questions regarding the creation of this mathematical sculpture, please let me know. I will also create a Blender version of this procedure soon. Thanks.

This is a Blender companion video to my previous tutorial, in which we will model this complex mathematical sculpture for use as a digital render asset, or for 3d printing. The techniques used here are directly translated to Blender from the techniques I developed in 3dsmax, and we will be taking full advantage of a NEW modifier introduced in the Blender 2.75a release, called "Corrective Smooth". You will need the 2.75a release to follow along, and please be sure you have all the Extra Objects addons enabled in your Preferences. I will be using the Pie Menus, Dynamic Spacebar Menu, and Iconsev addons in this tutorial as well, but those are not necessary to complete this project.

Model A Octo-Star Math Sculpture In Blender 2.75a

Thanks, all.

resolved