Boolean issues

Support Modeling
#1

Hello!

My Second post, another issue!

I recently upgraded from 2.61 to 2.62 after my previous version started to give me grief

In 2.61 I learned about the Boolean Modifier, and Intersect, Union and Difference.

If I remember correctly:

Intersect is similar to joining objects, meaning that their meshes stay the same

Union removes any “inner” meshes between objects

and Difference is used to make an indentation of another object.

I only got to use Difference in 2.61, then I downloaded 2.62 and these operations seem whacked out now.

I made a ring band, and a ring top and I wanted to stick them together, removing the meshes between them, so I picked Union, and it muddled up, so I chose Difference, which did what I thought Union would…

Now I am trying to “engrave” text onto a different ring band, and I am trying it with Difference, just as I did the first time when it worked in 2.61, and it just cuts holes in the ring band mesh, and leaves the sidewalls of the text sticking up out, but you can see straight through into the inside of the ring band mesh. What am I not doing? or is there something wrong with my meshes?

I will keep struggling with it in any case, and if I have any major breakthroughs I will reply or edit this post

Thank you so much for reading! :slight_smile:

#2

A few things to note about blenders boolean is that overall it is a mess. After working with it awhile you are very likely to come across some of the most defunked meshes you will likely ever see, as unfortunately it has a tendency to wrap models around other models. However at times it does work well. In your case provided that you are using the same setup as you did in 2.61, it is likely not your fault, some “improvements” were made to Boolean in 2.62 but in all honesty, I haven’t been able to figure out what is better.

If you go to wireframe mode (zkey) when editing you will probably see triangles, That may not be a problem for you now, but wait until you do UV mapping, triangles have a nasty habit of compressing textures and making visible seams as a result, as such any boolean model that has ‘leftovers’ need to be remeshed/topode.

But Lukily there are alternatives that are capable of doing what you want. When Boolean punchouts fail you can manually put the text in by pushing verts and using the proportional editing, sculpting with the sculpt tools, or using the a displacement map (requires external 2D image editor).

#3

Thanks for the reply!

I am almost relieved to know that Blender 2.62s Boolean is messed up haha, but I hope it gets fixed in 2.63 if they make it soon. It worked so well that one time in 2.61!

I stayed up late last night/early this morning modeling away and trying to figure out that damn boolean… so I think I’ll try tackle it again in a bit when I am not dragging my tailfeathers haha. One thing I never played with that could be the problem is the normals… not that I know if that has anything to do with it hahaha, I just try random stuff until it fixes LOL!

I’ll be sure to post back

UPDATE

Alrighty, I just played with it a bit more trying random things and I got it to work!

I applied a Solidify modifier to my ring band, then tried to difference boolean my desired text, and it went wacky, so I undid it and recalculated the normals, then applied the difference boolean and it worked! YAY!, Now, to do this with my master ring bands! and hopefully this will work on my current ring for the inner inscription!

Thanks again!

Update again

Boolean is being a bag again haha, its so picky! and it doesn’t tell you why!.. I’m almost finished my ring too! :frowning: Just need that final difference boolean without blender crashing! or muddling up the meshes!

#4

It’s not quite that 2.62 is messed up, triangulation and wrapped meshes happen since Boolean was added to blender.

Another thing, it should be mentioned that a model should always be checked for doubles before doing anything with it. Doubles are places where 2 or more vertices occupie the same space. When I was new to Blender it caused me many problems. To fix/check for doubles go to edit mode, akey to select all, and press wkey/ remove doubles. This may not be your problem now but it is good practice to do this if you don’t already.

But anyways, good luck with your project, it seems you are figuring out just fine. May the Blend be with you!