What do you do if you need good looking and different bevel levels within one object?
extruded plane with pre-made bevels?
subsurf + edge weights?
thnx for feedback
I’m sure many people will answer with “Use the Bevel Center script” (go into edge-select mode, then mesh -> scripts -> Bevel Center 2). And I suggest that, too, it does not work as good as you’d hope but it’s still pretty much the most convenient way to add bevel to edges within your object without affecting the rest of it. You can obviously adjust the egdes after using the script if you’re not satisfied with the results.
Or model them manually, if you have the possibility to do so. That means, extrude the face and resize it, constrained to specific axes, if necessary, to make a smooth edge (don’t forget to use Auto smooth, which helps to get a better look, too).
Subsrufing is not my preferred method since it needs a lot of unecessary processing power and is not very efficient because of that. Also, it is not that easy to keep sharp edges sharp after applying subsurf, so I generally stay away from it, if I’d just use it for beveling.
No subsurfing. Maybe for pros this is trivial, but I had some fun trying to figure it out.
the first one is easy: get a plane, subdivide once. Erase a ‘corner’ vertex. Snap the cursor to the center. Select an edge and, in side view, apply ‘Spin’ transform with standard settings. Select all, remove doubles, and you have the right shape to extrude.
this lead me to the second one; its only a 3D extension, but now you can combine two bevels:
Get a cube. Apply standard bevel tool (here, with 3 recursions). Subdivide once. Delete a whole ‘quadrant’. Select all the relevant edges (see image 3) dont forget to snap the cursor to the center and again, in side view, Spin, select all, remove doubles.
So, now I think the 3D idea can be applied also for the first one if you dont want to extrude later.
