SDS seems like a piece of shit to me . In theory , it's brilliant of
course , but so was RPL . SDS seems like the RPL of the modeling world .
Once again I have to become a technical wizard be-fore I can create ...
anything ! No ! & No ! & fuckin' NO !
I'm sick of it ! I just want to create ! I do not want to have my
brain conformed to the RS way , or the Maya way , or the SDS way ...
Hi Garry,
For once I don't agree with you! I find SDS great fun to work with and very
intuitive, contrary to scripting. For a snake with a head I'd choose SDS
instead of nurbs any time. BTW: does a snake actually have a tail and if
so, where does it start? ;)
I made some snake-like creatures for a game and for my logo (see
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ath8n0r/ ). All done in SDS, no problems. The most
difficult part was the texturing. Just give me a shout and I'll send you a
version without claws and ears.
I don't see a problem with the SDS cylinder approach, repeatedly (10-20x)
extruding/scaling the end plane.
To get rid of the tail artifacts (or at least make them invisible): zoom in
closely, extrude the tiny end plane once more, shrink and move it a bit to
make a round tip. Maybe there still are some 'artifacts' but who cares if
they are invisible.
My 2 cts:
- Practice. Especially practice the most common actions like extruding.
Become familiar with the handles and their modifiers.
- Avoid sharp edges etc in organic modeling, these tend to introduce
artifacts if you're not careful.
- Don't forget the Edge Loop tool (combined with CTRL and/or shift it's
great!). The button is usually off-screen (please fix that!).
- It helps if rotating, panning and scaling the view while modeling has
become second nature.
- switch to polygonal once in a while.
One of the more difficult things to keep in mind is object topology. One
missing or flipped plane can ruin a whole object.
Good luck & don't give up too quickly,
Mark H
