Best way to apply hard-edge modeling techniques to bezier curve shapes? Cleanly?

I’m bringing my old Cartograpers’ Guild compass rose project from Max to Blender, and I’m pretty excited so far. I’m a little curious though about a possible better way to extrude the trim pieces. In Max, I applied a bevel modifier to the curves and it triangulated the shape and extruded it and beveled it up to 3 levels. The faces it triangulated weren’t great but they were solid. Not what I’d call hard-edge modeling though.

In Blender if I convert the curves to meshes, I get a crap ton of edges, and can then select the inner and outer (there’s a hole in the middle) edge loops and bridge them…I get horrible triangulation…

Is there a better way to extrude these shapes cleanly and well triangulated so i can get better hard-edges?


Here’s what they look like in Max when they’re beveled. https://fantaseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2000x1200_GuildRose_pub.jpg

If you want to reduce the amount of edges in your converted curves go to the properties of the curve and change preview from a default of 12 to 6 or lower before converting the curves to mesh.

Probably best to use F for face command rather than bridge to avoid all the triangulation associated with a confused bridge tool.


Could keep them as curves.

Ja12, I haven’t had much luck with those settings in the past but form this it’s probably much better suited… Did you model the whole thing just to demo that?

Yup. I edited the curves in Blender but could also make the shapes in a vector graphics program either by editing splines, or tracing a raster image

Blender doesn’t have a good nurbs toolset, it’s mainly a polygonal modeling program, but curves are handy helpers

Awesome stuff thanks!

Also don’t forget you can turn on wires on your curve objects, and you’ll see the geometry that converting to mesh will create. Makes it easier to figure out appropriate U and bevel resolution settings.

Good point. It’s a nice option to have adjustable resolution when using curves, but also have to use it to get more sensible density, especially before converting to mesh.

You can enable and adjust those for multiple objects by selecting the objects, and then alt+click options and value fields. Right clicking on the option and choose copy to selected would also work. Alt+dragging a value field would change the value relative to the starting value.