What's So Hard about It?
Hard-surface modeling is a modeling technique used to model cars, armor, machines, and generally non-living objects that have smooth, static surfaces. This technique is greatly used in sci-fi and shooter video games because it’s ideal to make weapons, robots, armor, machines, and structures.
There’s some debate about what constitutes hard-surface modeling and what doesn’t. At the moment, there’s not a strict definition of what makes a model a “hard surface” and it tends to be up to each person’s own definition. But essentially, with hard-surface modeling, you want a smooth, geometric mesh with fewer small details than what’s needed for organic elements like animals.
A good distinction is that hard-surface modeling tends to apply to rigid bodies, meaning bodies that don’t deform (unlike organic bodies that are designed to move and flow). However, if you were modeling a car, the wheels would also be considered hard-surface modeling, even though they’re rubber and thus do deform. That’s because they still have a smooth surface when it comes to it being modeled.
Render-wise, hard-surface models tend to have contrasting, clean colors, with minimalist settings. But there’s no real reason for this; that’s more up to the preference of the artist.
In this article, we’ll take you through eight different tutorials about hard-surface modeling and how it works in Blender, starting from the basics right up to some complex project walkthroughs.
Considerations
In putting together this list, we’ve considered some key factors to cover all bases:
- Variety of content: Since the purpose is not to cover the same thing over and over, but rather to give you enough of a comprehensive guide that you’re able to start your own hard-surface modeling journey, we’ve chosen tutorials and guides that focus on different aspects of hard-surface modeling, covering everything from the processes of modeling and rendering to tips and general explanations of how it works.
- Difference in depth: We’ve included sources that offer general explanations about the concept, tutorials on useful tools that don’t necessarily aim at any specific model but rather a collection of things to know to get started modeling, and finally, tutorials on modeling specific objects, which are good practice exercises.
- Different lengths: If everything was three hours long it would be too tiring to follow anything, so we’ve tried to find guides of a variety of lengths, whether you’re reading or watching a video. The idea being that if you’re willing to sit down and follow a three-hour tutorial, you can find that here. But if you just want a quick, 10-minute video on how to improve certain things, that’s also available.
So now that we know what we’re in for, let’s look at some tutorials!
Hard-Surface vs. Organic Models
Pluralsight is an online teaching academy that focuses on teaching tech-related subjects. They have this very useful article comparing organic and hard-surface modeling, which are the two main modeling techniques, especially in Blender. They also explain why the definition is very loose and give many good examples that can help you better understand the distinctions.
It’s a good article to read if you’re just getting started because it will help you clear up what it is you’ll be doing. Also, it will probably give you ideas for projects you can make using this technique.
- Who made it: Plurasight
- Focus: Gives a general definition of hard-surface modeling as well as some pointers about what it entails
- Time investment: Short
- Format: Article
- Where to find it: Pluralsight
Workflow for Beginners
This a YouTube tutorial for absolute beginners in hard-surface modeling. It teaches you the usual workflow you’ll need to follow when doing hard-surface modeling. While doing this, it also teaches you how to model a sci-fi-looking machine, in real-time, without ever speeding up or skipping steps.
An additional quality that makes this tutorial attractive is that it not only teaches you how to do hard-surface modeling, but it also tells you about a few Blender add-ons that will make modeling in Blender with this technique much easier, as well as teaching you how to use them.
- Who made it: Josh Gambrell
- Focus: A deep dive into a project to explain the steps to follow, as well as introducing some add-ons and how to use them
- Time investment: Significant (4+ hours)
- Format: Video
- Where to find it: YouTube
10 Tricks
The purpose of this video, rather than teaching you how to recreate one specific model, is to give you many useful tips that will save you headaches in the long run. It teaches you how to create smooth surfaces with hard or curved edges, with a small mesh number.
A golden extra about this tutorial is not only the video itself but also the vast amount of tips shared in the comments from other users’ experiences, improving what was said by the original creator even more.
- Who made it: Daniel Grove Photo
- Focus: Offers general tips to save time and improve your work
- Time investment: Short (~20 minutes)
- Format: Video
- Where to find it: YouTube
Tips to Optimize Modeling
In this tutorial, the author takes you through the process of how to model a platform with a light source, but that’s not all. Actually, the purpose of the tutorial is to take the opportunity to give you tips, while creating a specific model, and to teach you how to do it the optimal way. The tutorial also uses an add-on called JMesh, explains how to use it, and gives some tips to get the maximum benefit out of it.
People in the comments praise this tutorial because it really takes something that seems complicated (that is, hard-surface modeling) and makes it really easy and understandable.
Basic Functions
As the title suggests, this tutorial is aimed at beginners. It explains in great detail how to use the basic functions of Blender, not only for hard surfaces but for other applications of the software. Another advantage of this tutorial is that it uses what’s called “vanilla Blender”, which means default Blender without any add-ons, which can be useful if you don’t want to have to install extra components.
In this tutorial, the creator teaches you to create a sci-fi-style wheel in great detail, with no speed-ups, while managing to keep it fairly simple and short.
- Who made it: Ponte Ryuurui
- Focus: A beginner’s tutorial to make a specific model
- Time investment: Short (~30 minutes)
- Format: Video
- Where to find it: YouTube
Tools and Tips
Michał Kalisz has a lot of professional experience as a 3D designer. He worked for PUBG, the Dying Light series, and on Cyberpunk 2077, so he’s definitely qualified to give some advice.
Some of the things he recommends throughout the article are to participate in modeling challenges to force new ideas to come out, and to practice with tools you wouldn’t normally use to keep you training. He also gives an important recommendation: Contrary to popular belief, using too many loops can be bad because, as much as they help when modeling, they cause trouble with shading in your render, and it can end up looking not as good. Michał also states that the Subdivision Surface modifier is extremely important, and you should be able to easily get the hang of it.
- Who made it: Michał Kalisz
- Focus: General tips not only focused on how to use Blender for hard-surface modeling but also how to challenge yourself to come up with new inspiration that will help you keep learning
- Time investment: Significant
- Format: Article
- Where to find it: 80 Level
Modeling a Sword
Going into more detailed guides geared towards making specific elements, this is a really cool tutorial that teaches you how to model a fantasy sword. It’s a little long, 3+ hours, but the result looks amazing, and people in the comments praise it for not editing out the instances where something went wrong and the author had to figure out how to fix it. That’s also something that’s going to happen when you work on complex projects yourself, and it’s good to learn how to work around them! It’s worth noting that this tutorial doesn’t cover rendering the model but walks you through the modeling process.
- Who made it: Stylized Station
- Focus: A deep dive into one complex project
- Time investment: Significant (~4 hours)
- Format: Video
- Where to find it: YouTube
Submarine & Underwater Look
Gesy Bekeyei is a 3D artist who works for Trace Studio and focuses on sci-fi hard-surface elements. This article is definitely more on an expert level, and it focuses not so much on modeling but rather on the rendering aspects to make your model fit into a certain ambiance and story.
It’s a little extensive because it goes into great detail about how to set up your renderings. He teaches you how to create an environment around your model in order to incorporate it into bigger projects. For example, he gives detailed instructions about where to place shadows, how to give a soot effect which is useful for motors and turbines, how to make light appear like natural underwater light, and how to add bubbles and waves to indicate movement.
- Who made it: Gesy Bekeyei
- Focus: Advanced tips geared towards detailing and rendering
- Time investment: Significant
- Format: Article
- Where to find it: 80 Level
Lead image source: Jayanam via Youtube
License: The text of "Blender Hard-Surface Modeling: 8 Best Tutorials & Guides" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.