Hi all,
I’m trying to model this kind of button in Blender …
The way I thought I could achieve this button was by using an UVsphere, only keep the left side of it and use a bigger UVspere to cut (boolean) out one part, then duplicate and mirror. The result is the following, and even after removing doubles and calculating normals I have strange results I don’t seem to be able to resolve.
What am I doing wrong ?
Thanks in advance,
Hans
Hmm, it seemed to come out OK for a boolean in blender - usually they come out even worse than that - usually one tries to find a different way to do it.
In any case - try turning on “Auto Smooth” in editbuttons (F9) - that should turn off smoothing on the corners, which seems to be causing the problem.
Hi phlip,
Thanks again for the reply. In my case I hadn’t auto smooth on. It’s really sad that boolean operations don’t work that well in Blender, I hope this will be enhenced in the next release. I’m trying other solutions, but don’t seem to be able to do what I was looking for. If only I could find the reason of those strange looking edges, maybe I could correct them by hand ?
thanks,
Hans
Actually, it seems that after I do a boolean operation, it get’s worse after I remove doubles, now that’s odd … ? Anyone ?
thanks,
Hans
Well if you ask me? There’s nothing like a bit of standard model making for simple forms. All this scripting gets me dizzy sometimes. Cut a Shpere > Shift-D the part you like. Rotate it / scale it / extrude it / join it. Much more fun 
hI patdog?
Thanks, but I think I may need to learn standard modeling a bit more then 
I tried several things tonight without too much luck, I’ll try again tomorrow.
thanks,
Hans
Hi Hans, if you go into Wire frame/Edit mode, you will see that the boolean has added triangles across the edge of your curves. If you have the patience of monks, you will be able to change that by hand, but chances are the curve might get disrupted too. The ideal is rather to create curves and circles that are made up of rectangles. To illustrate this a small example…
Add a simple plane. You’re automatically in Edit mode with the 4 vertices selected. Press Wkey, and click subdivide. Do this twice. Deselect all. Click Select [Between View and Mesh] and choose ‘Non- Manifold’ - this selects the outer edge of your plane. Under Mesh Tools [F9] click ‘To Sphere’, and accept the default of 100%. Your square plane is now made a circular plane.
[To illustrate the point further] Select all vertice and go into side view. Move them all up 1 big block [10 small units]. You will see the little purple core has remained at the original centre. With all still selected, click the ‘To Sphere’ again. Now you’ve got a half sphere made up of rectangles. You might have to click ‘Set smooth’ and do a Sub-surf of 2 for more pleasant results.
Hope that’s a start…
Hi Patdog,
Many many thanks for your help. I’m going to try your suggestion today and let you know what I can come up with once finished. I didn’t try this yet, but then I still have a bunch of things to learn in Blender 
thanks,
Hans
Hi Patdog,
Just a little question, I just tried to do your suggestion, and I’m indeed coming up with a sphere, but it’s not a real half sphere, more a one third, is this ok ?
thanks,
Hans
Ok, I think I obtained something close to a half sphere now if I repeat the last step but with all vertice selected and putting it down again to the purlple core > to sphere at 100%, here’s the result :
I now am going to try to model it …
Hans
It’s not really simple, I guess I really have to do some more tutorials before working on this button, but I achieved another button, maybe with a bit of patience I can make it closer to the one I tried to model.
Here’s the .blend file in case anyone wants to comment on my mistakes http://www.musicworks.fr/buttontest.blend
Hans
Hans! looking good. depends on what you want to do with your model. If it’s just for a picture you can break rules = crash meshes and join. If it’s for animation = watch the vertex count. I pressume it’s a model. Hit Kkey ‘Face loop cut’ [in Edit mode, while all is selected] and click select on the face you want to sharpen. Move closer to the edge and click again. Makes a world of difference in Sub-surf. Keep going = it’s fun
Hi Patdog, thanks for the additional comments and help
My intention is to be able to make nice interfaces for audio plugins and tools with Blender. So far I made most of my designs with Photoshop (ex’s. http://www.musicworks.fr/graphics.htm), but this takes way too long and doesn’t always look real, so my intention is to use Blender to make nice interfaces. I’m trying to build up a list of knob and button models like this one to be used in my interfaces later.
The knob should be able to turn around 360°. Tomorrow I’m going to try to sharpen it up a little, but finally I’m actually happy with the result as this new button looks funky :^) (here’s a new test render I posted in another topic 
)
Thanks a lot for your patience and help Patdog, if I can make it closer to the initial button I wanted to model I’ll post it here.
Just another small question, during the modeling, I found myself to adjust the rounding of the knob base, as it wasn’t always a circle due to all the moving of the vertices. So I used an aditional circle to adjust the little errors. I’m not sure if this is the way to go, but with subsurf on, this was the only way to keep a nice round circle on the base ?
best,
Hans
Hi Hans, one funky button indeed! Made one too, just for practice. After creating the round disc, I Shift-D and moved it up. The lower circle is for reference primarily. The shape of the button handle I modelled in top view, by deleting vertices and moving others around. I find it handy to move vertices in mirrored pairs, and by scaling them where possible. When I was happy with the shape, I hit ‘To Sphere’. In top view I scaled it up, and it matched the circle exactly. Side view, extruded down. Then side view S-Z zero to line up the base verts. Handle complete. Merged it then to base disc, and fatted it up. Looked a lot stricter, but less funky than yours
Hi Patdog,
wow, sounds like a good way to model. Unfortunately I’m not yet that used to model, so I’m testing out several ways, this is good becuase I learn a lot from it. The to sphere suggestion is indeed very usefull.
I didn’t use yet the mirror modeling of vertice pairs, that’s a good hint, right now I just cut one half and duplicate a mirror from that side, which also works, but takes a little more time.
Up to some modeling now.
Thanks again, bye,
Hans