(Mods, please feel free to move this if you think it’s in the wrong section)
I am building a scene and there are a lot of bevels to get rid of the old “hard edge” issue. It lead me to thinking if there is a performance / memory difference between “hard bevelling” the actual geometry, or using multiple bevel modifiers with vertex groups / edge weights.
Has anyone any information on this? Obviously using modifers means the bevels are dynamic and so there is flexibility to modify geometry easier. As to UV’s, I’m not sure how the modifier actually handles that.
With having a lrge number of items, I’m just wondering which is most efficient, or is there no measurable variation in terms of rendering / processing etc?
I am usually in favor of non destructive solutions. But in this case I think you might want to explore not using Bevel or the Bevel Modifier. Edge smoothing is not handled as well using Bevel as it is using other methods. I am not at the computer now. But I could put together a few examples of techniques later.
I look forward to it. I am talking hard edged modelling here, (buildings, street furniture etc…) and so just assumed you either used the modifier or bevel tool. Always open to new ideas to put in the old noggin.
The code is the same for the bevel tool and the bevel modifier.
The modifier method will introduce a performance penalty for viewing end editing the model, because the code reruns fairly often, and each time it has to convert a derived mesh into bmesh, which is not super cheap. Plus you are talking about a stack of bevel modifiers, each of which has to do that.
But unless your mesh object is quite large and the number of beveled edges is also quite large, I bet you won’t notice the difference, so you shouldn’t worry about it until you feel viewport performance is laggy and you want to try to do something about it.
If you are talking about a rendering performance difference – I don’t know for sure. I suspect there is also a performance difference there too if animating, but maybe the final mesh is calculated only once and cached.
It was a bit of a rush writing that on the train. But essentially what I am trying to say is if even if you have several segments on the Bevel it will still calculate smoothing to the next far away edge. And you could also try that along with auto smooth.
But I find that it is better to just work out adding geometry by hand.
Bevel modifier doesn’t have a limit set by default which isn’t helpful. Bevel tool gets its limit from the selection but adding bevel modifier in the stack means first beveling everything. Angle limit would be a better default, like it is with auto smooth and edge split, because
it generates less geometry in the viewport
it usually needs to be limited with something when it goes in the stack with other modifiers
if the geometry has high angle edges that needs beveling, angle limit would affect those anyway
Yeah, I use auto-smoothing a LOT, it was the thing I didn’t know in Blender when first moving from LW and missed it terribly, (not knowing it actually existed ). I think it’s one of those features so often overlooked.
Running win8.1 Blender 279.1 - Is anyone experiencing this? I add a new cube, Tab in to edit, select edge, Ctrl+B, works fine. Back out of edit. Back into edit, select new edge, Ctrl+B and it freaks out or it doesn’t work at all. I have to restart blender between each bevel.
). I think it’s one of those features so often overlooked.