There are a number of techniques that 3D model designers use in order to create the best designs. If you are aspiring to become a 3D model designer, you should be aware of all the different techniques so that you can easily juggle between them and offer the best to all your clients.

Here are some of the most popular techniques used:

Box modeling

Box Modeling is a fairly simple technique and is mostly used by designers who want to create hard-surface objects like buildings. The design starts with a simple object like a cube and you go on to include other simple poly shapes to complete the design. It allows you to control all the edges and faces of the shapes.

In this technique, you will usually create objects that have four sides. These objects are called quads. Generally, box modeling is used together with another technique called subdivision surface which allows you to include geometry in-between vertices and edges of your object.

Polygon modeling

Polygon modeling is quite similar to box modeling. The tools used in both the techniques are also the same but they are used in a more detailed way in this case. The only difference between the two is that here, we start with a simple shape that doesn’t have any depth to it or with a single vertex.

With polygon modeling, we create hard-surface designs but the shape of these designs are more organic than the ones in the previous technique. One can create the complex 3d design models on the fly using online 3d modeling softwares and can get your dream model designed.

Nurbs and curve modeling

The nurbs and curves technique is entirely different from the other two that we discussed. In this technique, we create smooth curved surfaces and also bridges between several curved surfaces. This technique is mostly used for the technical aspect of 3D modeling by engineers instead of creating artistic designs.

We can add geometry between a net of curves that form an edge to a shape and use it to create objects. With the help of curves, we can easily scale our model up or down to enable printing.

Digital 3D sculpting

This technique is used mostly by designers who want to create artistic designs instead of strictly technical ones. Just like box modeling, sculpting also uses edges, faces, and vertices. In sculpting, instead of manipulating the design by selecting, we use brushes whose settings we can alter in order to reshape.

It helps in creating intricate details which is not possible when we use box modeling. Sculpting can be done on the default mesh itself, by reshaping geometry with brushes, or we could divide the mesh into several parts as you proceed with the design.

Photogrammetry

This technique is much more complex than the ones we’ve already discussed. In photogrammetry, we will take pictures of an object from as many angles as possible. When taking pictures, it’s important that we do so under even lighting exposure. These pictures are then fed to a program that will generate a 3D representation of the object you have taken pictures of.

You will have to spend a lot of time doing cleanup work because a lot of unwanted objects will also be captured in the pictures. This Is a fairly recent development but it serves a number of purposes and thus, is becoming quite popular.

Boolean modeling

Boolean modeling is often used along with the box modeling technique. In this technique, we begin the process by tweaking an existing model in order to get a new shape. The existing simple models are created with the help of box modeling.

We use Boolean operations like difference, union, and intersect to combine different shapes together. As the name suggests, the union operator merges two objects and the difference operator reduces volume by cutting down the object.

Wrapping up!

Besides knowing about the various techniques in detail, you should also have access to a 3D modeling software that will allow you to use all of them easily and create the designs you wish to. SelfCAD is the best software in this respect.

It has a vast array of tools that you can use in order to create objects following the above techniques. Besides that, it also has a number of other benefits which make it a perfect, all-in-one software for 3D modelers.