Alex W Smith

Might as well start this out on the right foot. This is an M9 Beretta handgun that I have been working on for a while. The original intention was to work on modeling handgun grips, but sort of spiraled out of control, and ended up being the model you see here. As you can see, the model is not sub-d(ed) yet as I like to define the entire form before fulling around with sub-d supporting edges and other stuff like that.

If you look at the grip pads, you can see squares instead of circles. This is a neat trick I use that makes for a much cleaner base model.

Imagine you are modeling something in sub-d, and you want to add a round hole in it. The normal instinct would be to create a cylinder the same width, delete the polygons at the ends, and on the sides of the box, and then add lines to the box and reconnect the edges, like so – (LEFT) To the right is the sub-d version with supporting edges. The hole is nice and clean, and the edges are good. However, this leaves you with a bunch of extra edges on the sides of the model that could potentially be a problem, and the actual polycount is higher than it needs to be.

To fix this, you simply use a box inside the box, and connect the edges like so. (LEFT) Sub-d version with supporting edges on right. As you can see, it’s fewer polygons, a simple side, and just the same level of smoothness (just bump sub-d divisions up a notch).

Anyway, that’s just a little drive-by tutorial I wanted to share. I’ll try to add more stuff on a steady basis.