so i've been messing around with the idea to model my ‘character’ in metaballs..
it came to me the other day when i thought of how people in the history of art used circles, ellipsoids, and spheres to draw and sculpt things. (i.e. traditional 2d animators makes their characters based off them, michelangelo as well as others use to use them to construct the muscles of a body, sculpturs use them as a unit of measure for a rough model)
so basically i am using metaballs with different shapes, sizes, and weights to get my rough model. then i use a convertmeta sop to convert it to poly's at a low level of detail. i then use the poly's to get more rough detail in. i subdivide a little bit. add detail with the new create subd's. repeat if necessary. and finally subdivide again for a finished smooth model. it seems so far to be a very fast way of working and i kind of like it. the only thing it really is good for though is more organic stuff. i.e. you couldn't model a bridge very well this way.
so yea, no one around here has ever heard of modeling this way so before i get into it too much, i figured i'd ask around and see if anyone has attempted this method before and would like to share their dislikes/likes and benefits/drawbacks to it.
so far i have only encountered something that maybe someone has a solution too (but i think it's just the way it is): so, i have my metaball network merged and converted, edited, subdivided, edited, and subdivided. if i go back to one of my original metaballs and just rotate it in the slightest, my point numbers go crazy. i actually completely expected this to happen but was wondering if anyone knew a work around.
hopefully this inspires someone else to try the method if they had not heard of it before either. but im hoping to find people that have as well. and also a work around to the point numbers would be sweeeet.
so yea, thanks for listening to the long post everyone
dave q