Beveling mini-tutorial for L13

Artwork Finished Projects
1

I was asked to write this short explanation, it’s not a piece of art and so it probably shouldn’t be in this part of the forum, but I was asked here.

Never mind about that cube in the last two pictures, they don’t belong there and I just failed to remove them.

Additionally the beveling is not done very exact here, but it really doesn’t have to be to show what I mean.

When beveling a cube, I would usually click on subdivide a few times or, if I’m a bit more motivated to get less polygones follow these few steps.

Adding plane and extruding the sides for nice subsurf beveling
http://robert.g3th.net/tutorial/small/one.jpg

Then doing the same in the 3rd dimension
http://robert.g3th.net/tutorial/small/two.jpg

However, this really is a pain and with the knife tool it is a lot easier to do this after all the modeling is done.

http://robert.g3th.net/tutorial/small/three.jpg

So, for knife beveling, just create the object you desire, here once again a cube. (I already subsurfed it, so don’t wonder about it being a sphere)

Then, press k for the knife menu and click on “Knife (Exact)”.

http://robert.g3th.net/tutorial/small/four.jpg

Draw a line over the faces you want to cut, then click.

http://robert.g3th.net/tutorial/small/five.jpg

All selected edges will be cut where the line crosses them.

http://robert.g3th.net/tutorial/small/six.jpg
Rinse. Repeat.
http://robert.g3th.net/tutorial/small/seven.jpg

Finally rotate your viewport and add the last cuts. The beveling is done, and looks essentially just like the beveling done with extrusion.

2

Thanks for this guide, I can probably learn something from it. I will read it later though, haven’t got much time now.

3

wow, I’m already making really good use of the knife tool, but never thought of using it for making bevels like that!
Thanks!

Yes, I am n00b and silly and whatnot :smiley:

4

Thank you for nice tutorial! It’s useful! :smiley:

5

Or if you just want to keep it as a mesh, rather than using subsurf (increased polycount…), then you can select the ‘inside’ parts, and scale them up. keep in mind, with this technique, you don’t need to make cuts in all axes of the cube. Also, for simple objects like a cube, it’s easier to use loop subdivide, but the knife is useful for tricker, angular cuts. This example’s pretty rough, and perhaps could be optimised even more, but you get the idea:

http://reblended.com/www/broken/etc/bevel_01.png

http://reblended.com/www/broken/etc/bevel_02.png

http://reblended.com/www/broken/etc/bevel_03.png

6

for ‘fake’ bevels you don’t even need to scale anything; just set smooth on the material and it will catch the light just like a real bevel does…

7

hey… I do my bevelling exactly like method here… could be ofcourse, that there are not many methods… but still… :slight_smile: it’s funny to see, almost like my objects there.

now with the new editing tools, I dont use knife, I use the loopcut. I think it’s faster. just hit ctrl-R, then LMB, then grab and when middlemouse I lock the grabbing to axis and move it to correct place where the bevelling works like I want.

oh, and sorry, I couldn’t get my eyes of that ignore-me-sphere!

.b

8

there is a faster way to make a beveled cube:

add a metaball:
http://users.pandora.be/tuinbels/images/beveledcube1.jpg

scale it down until it looks like a beveled cube
http://users.pandora.be/tuinbels/images/beveledcube2.jpg

and convert it to a mesh with ALT-C, and you get a nice beveled cube:
http://users.pandora.be/tuinbels/images/beveledcube3.jpg

:smiley: :smiley:

hope this helps,

Wim

9

sweet, but how do you bevel complex meshes??

10

Piece by piece… as you build it from primitives.

11

maybe this really is misunderstandable … the tutorial is not about beveling cubes, because that is probably the most useless thing … ever.

It’s just about this nice knifetool in general and of course it only gets interesting when beveling more complicated things.

This is simply about making modeling easier, and not about the nicest way to bevel a cube.

12

Wait! Can’t you bevel meshes by selecting all verts, extruding, and fattening along the normals?

13

how would you do that?

14

For my bevelling, for just a straihgt cube, I just extrude each face one at a time and then press the BEUTY button and then the smooth button. Works great everytime.

In Wings you can, but not in Blender. Not yet anyway. :wink:

BgDM

15

Or for people who are lazy coughmecough…just use a low bias spot light :stuck_out_tongue: hehe

btw, tx for offering this tut, I didn’t really thought about using the kinfe tool for modelling, I’ll give it a try at more complex object soon! :smiley:

16

But…YOU CAN FATTEN ALONG THE NORMALS!
ALT-S!!! :x :-?

17

DOH! I forgot about ALT+S! One of those tools that I rarely use.

Thanks for the reminder lemmy!

BgDM