A good way to model the blend

[Anonymous]

Good night Sirs and Madams,

Lately, I've created a blend between the watch case and the bracelet running into it (first 2 pictures). However, that was just a test and I didn't model to the dimensions.

Now, when I am trying to rebuild that blend using the same technique, I get a lot of trouble with my surfaces. The two things that have changed is that now the bracelet is not tangent with the watch case and it is a bit smaller. 

The question is: what would your strategy be and is my patch layout alright?

Also, how can you control the width of the blend when building it from several surfaces? When I try to do it manually, it leads to severe distortions

[Anonymous]

Another issue I face is that Freeform Blend tool (and Skin as well) flips the direction of the curve and there's no way to change it. See the attachment. Is there a way to change it? 

[San_Escobar]

Hey s13philipppisarevski

I could not clearly understand which patch do you exactly refeer about tangent align?

But looking at your pic, the 3rd one is nice and clean patch layout, it’s the way to go.

My strategy is avoid to use automatic tools, I normally work based on curve aligned, and bi-rail and/or Squares patches. To further comment about the distortion I would need to look in the file.

Also, if you use Skin, I would recommend Skin 12, which is my opinion. But again I rather stick with square. Have said that, when you get a surface end flipped, simply pull the blue arrow around so that you get it right.

Again, if you can share part of the file I could better advise.

Hope it helps, happy modelling.

Happy Christmas.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the reply Blownfish,

Sorry, for some reason my pictures are showing up in the wrong order in the first post. The last 2 pictures are of my test model, the first one is what I am making now.

About the test piece: I am worrying about the patch layout, it seems a bit dense to me on the bottom, but I can't get rid of some surfaces, because then I struggle with continuity problems.

So, watch.wire is my mock-up and watch2.wire has got the right dimensions.

[duaxiong]

I had some extra time, so I thought I'd have a quick go at this one.

First, your ring section is not centered.  The image on the left shows the mirrored surface...you can see it overlaps.

The right side of the image shows my approach.  The surfaces are not really good yet, but you can see the layout; There are just two patches for the blend area and then mirrored across.

[Anonymous]

Your solution seems nice and smooth. How did you model the red surface in the corner? And how did you align it then?

[duaxiong]

The red surface is Aligned to the ring on one end and the watch face on the other, then Trimmed leaving it triangular.  Notice it is only G1 on the edge adjacent to the watch face because your original section is circular onto a planar surface.

I only did the upper/outer side, but to do it properly, the under/inner side should also be done at the same time.