modeling a soccer ball
 

hey guys, been working on a project to create a photoreal soccer ball. i found a great tute here:
http://www.panebianco3d.com/e_tut-soccerball.htm

problem is that i'm using LW 6.5 and my merge tools are different, i have automatic, fractional, and absolute whereas LW 7 (the version in the tute) has automatic and fixed. he uses fixed with a distance of 3.5mm and keep one-point polys checked, my only similar option was to use absolute with a distance of 3.5mm (no one-point poly options). when i merged the first time i only eliminated like 6 points, after the second smoothshift it eliminated none.

what that does is leave me with two-point polys the corner of each "patch", i killed them and everything seems to work fine but there are small gaps at the corner of each patch, every corner is a bit rounded (see attached example). any thoughts on how to fix this/do it differently so it works, etc.? thanks.

chris

well, i ended up adjusting the point weights at the corner of each section, not really elegant and it did seem to disturb the flow of the polys a bit but its not noticable in the render:

http://www.tangentoriented.com/misc/final_model.jpg

i now need to figure out the texturing, which will be another post :)

chris

looks good enough to kick - nice job mate

thanks kevin, i'm pretty happy with it at this point. i am having a slight rendering issue at the moment (posted in the lighting/rendering forum) but overall its in good shape :)

chris

texture
 

could you tell me the texture you use??
thanks

umm, if you give me a bit more info i can :) right now the only texture on there is a specular map, all the detail is modeled.

chris