Understanding hard-surface modeling

In this section, we will define hard-surface modeling by discussing some of its attributes and differentiating it from organic modeling.

Hard-surface modeling is a 3D modeling technique used to create machines, vehicles, weapons, and any non-living objects with hard and static surfaces. Most man-made objects in our everyday surroundings would be categorized as hard-surface objects. A typical computer is an example of a hard-surface object. It is made of hard and artificial materials; it cannot be bent or folded like a shirt.

In Blender, hard-surface objects are typically defined by more technical features such as sharp edges, flat surfaces, and separation between loose parts. They are rigid bodies or objects that are restricted in motion to a particular mechanical movement and do not deform. This will be discussed further in the next section, Defining hard-surface objects. Things such as clothes, creatures, and natural objects are not hard-surface objects because their surfaces are usually soft and non-static.

Figure 1.1 shows an electric guitar model, an example of a typical hard-surface object:

Figure 1.1 – Typical hard-surface model

The electric guitar has flat surfaces, lots of sharp edges, and separate parts. As with almost any complex model, some parts consist of some organic modeling features, but it is generally a hard-surface model.

Understanding organic modeling

Organic modeling is the opposite of hard-surface modeling, and it deals with things such as plants, animals, characters, and generally other living things, but also things such as clothes, statues, and car bodies. I know what you’re thinking – those last two don’t seem to fit in there at all.

Categorizing clothes as organic modeling makes some sense since they are soft and foldable, but cars and statues sounds silly. The reason these are in the same category is not because of the nature of the objects, but because of how they appear in a 3D modeling program. Figure 1.2 shows an example of a typical organic model:

Figure 1.2 – “Suzanne,” a typical organic model

The monkey in Figure 1.2, commonly referred to as Suzanne, has a different surface from the electric guitar. It appears much more intricate and there aren’t any sharp edges or flat surfaces. Instead, the entire object is covered with a grid of polygons. To fully understand the difference between organic and hard-surface modeling, we must get a little more technical.

Some artists will argue that if a model is animated, it is organic and not hard-surface. A tank is a great example of a typical hard-surface model with a static surface, but it can still become partially organic. Do you remember that scene from The Hulk, where the Hulk bends the barrel of a tank backward and points it at the driver’s head, as shown here?

Figure 1.3 – A hard-surface object becomes organic

According to some artists, this type of animation will turn the hard-surface barrel of the tank into an organic model. This is because making an animation like that requires a model to have some features that are typical of organic modeling.

Understanding this argument can be a little difficult, so let’s take a close look at a simple example to help us understand why a bending animation requires a model to become partially organic. Let’s imagine an aluminum panel in two variations, as shown here:

Figure 1.4 – Hard versus organic surface

In the first variation, it is completely straight and flat, like a typical hard-surface object. In the second variation, we dropped a heavy metal ball on it and bent the surface. To achieve this look, we need to subdivide the surface into many small faces, each of which is slightly angled. This creates a lattice-like pattern on the surface, which is typical of organic objects. Now, even though the metal surface is still hard to touch, it can be described as having an organic surface.

The conclusion, then, is that the most important aspect that makes the distinction between organic and hard-surface modeling is the geometry of the objects’ surface. Hard-surface objects generally have sharp and straight edges, flat faces, and static surfaces, while organic models generally have bumpy, deformed, bent, or irregular shapes and surfaces.

Before we start creating some basic hard-surface objects, let me explain why it is important to distinguish between the two modeling styles in the first place and why we aren’t just jumping straight into a modeling project. The main reason is that they use completely different modeling techniques and workflows.

This is something that needs to be considered because we cannot start a complex modeling project without doing some planning and preparation. How we begin our modeling process depends heavily on the style of modeling, so it’s important to decide which style we are going to use beforehand.

Blender offers many different modeling tools, but some simply aren’t suited for hard-surface modeling, while others aren’t suitable for organic modeling. Again, this will be clearer when we start introducing some practical examples, but for now, it’s important to understand that we’re making this distinction because it will allow us to develop a workflow more easily.

In this section, we quickly reviewed the theory of hard-surface modeling and how it differs from organic modeling. We established that hard-surface modeling is mainly defined by the characteristics of an object’s surfaces and its geometry. In the next section, we will determine what exactly all those characteristics look like on a 3D object in Blender.