lol darn it... I just came back to delete my post and hope nobody read it but you allready did

Ok new lesson learned dont give up and allways take a break when you think your at your wits end.

After my outburst above I decided to give up for awhile. Watched a lil tv and took a nice shower. Then decided to give it another shot. Well Im happy with the result.. Still have to do a few tweaks here or there but I think itll be good enough. The only thing its missing now is a pivot point where the cylinder attaches to the rest of the gun... dont really think its needed tho so think Ill continue on. It did add alot more faces its now just over 2000... So that kinda sucks
Heres a few pics...




Edit: was able to knock it down too 1918 faces.... A lil better then 2000+ might be able to get it down a lil more ... Biggest problem I have working with quads is I allways forget that I dont have to stick to quads. Esspecially when planning to import to med which is going to tri everything anyways

Edit2: Make that 1820 faces now im getting happy again Still think theres some areas which can be optimized... Still gotta redo some of the uv map because of new faces but gunna wait till I get the rest hammered out first.

One more screen shot this time in med... With generic texture still.

not bad

I'd cut a little more away from the bottem of the tube where the pin is ( make it flush with the where the gun is split open for the cylinder)

for the hindge area ( bottem) I would build into the base of the main gun part a half cylinder face, then the bottem of the hindged part cut it off and replace it with a full cylinder of the same size

Thanks alot for the ideas... Tried to do like you suggested... Dont think it came out quite right but still think its an improvement at least now the cylinder doesnt appear to just open magically


Also got rid of the bottom of where the pin sets as you suggested.. Deffinately looks better in that area I think





Heres some better pics in flat mode allows you to see the model a lil better anyways.

I think its just about there, model wise. 2 spots I think yet...



the first is mabey thin the half cylinder in the front a bit
also mabey on the pivoting arm a little bit of bevel along the top edge bottem cylinder ( line it up with that notch so you no longer have a notch)


the other part is back near the grip those polys seem to stick out wrong

Not quite sure I get what you mean on the first thing.

Ill have to look into them polys on the back. I noticed them earlier but they didnt look too bad in gourad shading so I was being lazy

Well I decided to have a lil fun and added a lil more detail to the gun... Part of me likes it another part doesnt.. So figured id get someone elses opinion... It added back all the polys i managed to skim 1854 again... but just got bored and decided to see what it would look like.

the model is nice but i think it would look better if it weren't fully smooth shaded.



you could try to download one of the recent blender cvs builds (search their forum). there is a new smoothing modifier which allows to set individual edges smooth/hard.

this gives you much more control over smoothing than the old blender method of setting faces smooth/solid. it also should automatically work together with my exporter but i haven't tested it yet.

<edit>

for example download it here:
http://www.blender.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7450&start=0

the modifier is named edgesplit now. just use the "from flag" option and edges can be set hard with [ctrl-e]->[mark sharp] then.

</edit>

thanks Ill have too look into that. Med supports flat edges now? I was looking into that the other day. I agree that certain parts do look better flat shaded opposed to smooth.

I acctually set it up like that a few times in blender but just ended up setting the whole mesh to smooth before exporting because I thought med didnt support flat shaded surfaces. So thats really good news to hear

If for some reason it wont work with your exporter tho is there a way I can set them in med?

med has smoothing groups? where?

cheers

Same thing I was thinking... I know when I add a primitve I have a choice between soft and hard but thats as far as I seen it go...

Anyways done a little reworking of the mesh tryed to smooth out them odd polygons at the back near the handle... Also tried what I think grimber was suggesting If it is Id hve to say you were right... Anyways heres a shot.

I donno, but I think you just about got it construction wise, now to spend as much effort on the texture

time to dig up your paint program and start learning those dodge and burn tools