45 degree edge workflow?

Support Modeling
#1

Hi guys,

I’ve been using blender for several years now, but as always there’s something that you miss. I’m modelling some coving and skirting boards for an arch vizs project and I’d like to know if anyone knows of a way to align an edge to 45 degrees, or something specific that I can type in.

Just to make it clear, I’m creating a nice profile of some coving/skirting board and I want to be able to go around a corner, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to rotate the edge without the width getting squished – i.e. select verts, hit axis then type 45 degrees etc. There must be a way to somehow shear the edge without the scaling of the thickness/depth.

Another example would be a shapely picture frame.

One method I considered was to create a path and then have the profile travel along it, but I want sharp corners obviously.

Normally I’d align them by hand using a plane as a guide rotated at 45 degrees – not ideal, I hate modelling inaccurately.

Any ideas would be welcome!

Cheers, Jay. :wink:

#2

just use the knife tool, and use the grid as your visual reference. since the grid is made of squares, and a diagonal between opposing corners of a square is 45 degrees.

#3

It’s not accurate enough modron, I really need a way to specify an exact angle - The Knife tool in 2.61 (what I’m using) doesn’t work that well anymore from what I can see. 45 degrees is good for some situations, but what about bay windows where the angle is different? There must be a method, at least there should be :wink:

Any other ideas?

#4

Hi all,

Blender does have the shear command which will do I think what you need. Though by default it does horizontal shear. But if you hold down the middle mouse button it will do vertical shear (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S)

(I only know this because I found out by accident when browsing Blender source code, as far as I can tell there is no other indication that shear can do this). Also please be aware it seems to really give Blender belly ache when using it (see crash Blender).

#5

The ‘best’ way is really apllication specific, straight lines, curves etc
Without knowing the specifics the inset-extrude addon may be of some use with the inset and extude set to same value
Depending on your topology, edge loop cut with edge length display / delete edge loop / edge bridge is possible

#6

Hi AIBlender,

Yeah after another search, I found the Shear tool (Spacebar search). Not sure how the numbers work, but by selecting the verts on the edge and using Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S you can type in a number after, “1”, makes a 45 degree angle. You can also more the mouse to move the angle. Very good, and I’ve never seem that one documented. Yay! :wink:

Just wanted to add that ass you go around snaking the extrude around and ‘Sheering’ the edges you might find that it all of a sudden stops, something to do with the axis direction, to change axis from “X” to “Y”, press the middle mouse button. Just done the whole room with the profile, took 2 minutes.

Another tip, if you find that the angle changes too slowly when you move the mouse, zoom out!

#7

When you feel like loving numbers more than freehand idea, Shrinkwrap and one helper plane allows for typing in exact numbers.
Then this is a matter of setting angle, shrinkwrapping, duplicating some and Ctrl-Z couple of times to set all back for a next angled piece.

Happy blending!

sawtable.png984×510 102 KB

#8

Lol, shear is faster anyways…

#9

Hi All,

Just an update. The bug which caused Blender to crash when doing vertical sheer (ie sheer then clicking middle mouse button) has been fixed. So svn builds after 44889 are rock solid with it :slight_smile:

#10

Used it for a few hours on the normal release of 2.61, but didn’t have any issues with it so far. I wish I’d have known about it a long time ago, a real time saver but very necassary!

#11

Thank you so much, that command is going to save me a lot of time! :slight_smile:

Up until today, in situations like Jay-artists described I’ve been putting the 3d cursor at the right position, rotated 45 degrees and then scaled by an approximation of the square root of two. I wish I had known about this some years earlier.

#12

Great!

I was looking exactly for this. I’m modelling a doorframe and I had the same problem.
Thanks for the help.

#13

Isn’t this a transform orientation issue?
Add a plane. Rotate it to the angle desired. Under Transform Orientation choose Local and click the plus. Name it “Boogity”!

Then use Boogity to work at that angle.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: I’m sorry. I reread the question and realized you are talking about something different. But I’m not going to change my answer, because I like custom Transform Orientations named “Boogity”. :smiley: