Absoloute Beginner: Delete faces/edges obscured by others?

Hello. I hope I am posting this in the right place.

I am trying to speed up the process of creating 2D sprites by making a model and creating images of the character performing actions instead of drawing sprites by hand.

I am currently creating my very first model, and I am in the process of making his arms. At the moment I am doing this by creating sphere primitives and scaling/stretching them to create basic muscle shapes.

However this leaves many vertexes, edges and faces obscured on the inside of the arm, which I assume is not a good idea.

I have tried selecting the arm, and “removing doubles”, then I deselect it and go to select interior faces, but nothing is highlighted.

Is there a way to delete all vertexes/faces/edges that are obscured within the arm without manually going in and highlighting each one?

Please forgive my inexperience. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

dont worry, unless you are planning on using this as a game character its not a problem at all. in fact id rather keep them whole instead of deleting half of them.

if you want to be optimal, then i suggest you retopo the character when ur done.

do some reasearch on how to use B-Surface Addon (included in blender) if you do decide to do this.

Thank you for the reply.

He is the main character of a game, but the game is 2D and sprite based. Having a birds nest of edges and faces inside the model wont cause problems when I get to setting up a skeleton for animations before rendering as sprites?

https://gyazo.com/873536b8bf7207916f87d16b8ca38f0b

if this is what ur talking about then you WANT them to be overlapping. you also want a small gap in between each piece, layering them so that for instance the head is behind the body, sholders in front of the body, etc.

also be carefull with rotation and scale!

once you are done with the character, CTRL+A to apply Scale and Rotation! then set all the pivot points where they should be, which lets you set up a very simple rig just by parrenting.

if this is too difficult for you let me know and i will make a video response for you.

ohh also if you do want to have a video response, please submit some screenshots to serve as reference for me so i know what to talk about.

A model can consist of a collection of separate objects, even of different types. It can also consist of one object that has multiple unconnected parts, so if it’s a mesh type object, it may have multiple mesh parts. Third option is to have one object, with one mesh part, the geometry is all connected. Fourth option is to have any combination of those, depending on the requirements.

When you say you create sphere primitives, one would assume you’re creating new objects, so you have several objects. Adding primitives in edit mode doesn’t create objects, there aren’t any, you are editing one object and have multiple mesh parts.

Rigging can be done for any of those, but

  • separate objects can be parented to bones and there are no deformations (robot with metal parts)
  • one object with separate mesh parts, uses armature modifier and vertex weights, also often rigid
  • one object, connected geometry, vertex weights. Connected geometry gives smoother deformation on organic surfaces.

There’s a lot more to it than that. Topology, and also different rigging mechanisms like shape keys and various deform modifiers.

It all begins with basics, crawling before running
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0AfIdK08E7_PKsXOO_yuAql9b3hdcwPR

This implies you’re trying to connect the geometry. Remove doubles merges vertices within the set distance apart, by default they have to be pretty much exactly on top of each other. Interior faces is one of non-manifold mesh errors where your geometry would already be connected but in a way that makes an impossible surface https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?299535-Strange-things-when-applying-Subdivision-Surface&p=2417999&viewfull=1#post2417999

Connecting the geometry that comes from intersecting primitives and combining the objects can be done somewhat automatically (knife intersect, boolean operations) but that produces bad structure for most purposes. That’s why connecting them manually would give a structure that behaves as it should and fits the purpose. Could also build another surface on top of everything.

Use screenshots of the full interface and/or other images to explain the problem, and include an example .blend for troubleshooting and communicating back and forth.

include an example .blend for troubleshooting

Yes, that can’t be said enough. We’re talking about a complex program with many aspects to it. And objects which are virtually 3 dimensional. Text alone, unless it’s very specific, just isn’t enough to work with. Questions can sometimes require particular answers, based on what’s in a project. Rather than being of a general nature. So whether people like sharing their work or not, it does increase the chances of finding a solution quickly. :slight_smile:

Thanks for the replies and sorry for my late reply.

I should have just shown you guys what I mean by faces/edges being obscured by others. Please excuse the hilarious simplicity and sloppiness of the model haha.



His arms. You see how the stretched spheres that are supposed to represent his biceps, triceps and shoulders are just dragged into cylinders? I am afraid that the interior faces/edges will cause problems when moving the model into different positions for animations. From what I understand a model should be “hollow” based on what I have read and seen in youtube tutorials.

Is this a problem?

I have not started to create animations yet as I am still reading about using toon shading to colour the objects. This is my first experience with any kind of 3D modeling, so I am trying to take things one step at a time.

The model does not have to have a high level of detail, because it is going to be used for making low res 2D sprites.

Ok. found out the hard way. Placing a bone inside an arm made of multiple shapes like that is disastrous. The spheres making up the arm will spread apart and will not stay attached together when moving the limb, even if you manually assign everything in that arm to the bone.