hello. i am new to blender and am trying to model a photo that is slightly bent in 3D space.
my current process is to make a plane, subdivide about 4 times, then bend the plane to my liking using the proportional edit setting and smooth falloff. then, I select all and hit set smooth. so far so good.
now, i extrude the plane a very small amount in order to simulate the photo paper thickness.
my problem is that, after extrusion, the face of the paper begins to “round off” as it nears the edges, in an attempt to keep everything smooth. i can turn smoothing off, but then the face of the paper looks boxy due to the rectangular subdivisions.
basically i want to keep the face of the paper a smooth plane, but have hard edges where the extrusion is concerned.
Welcome to the world of sub-division surfaces. They are extremely useful but have “gotchas” that need to be addressed to work in the way you want it to. Sub-division surfaces create great smooth contours and shapes but don’t accommodate sharp edges without adding a little geometry where the edge needs to be sharpened. Where ever you want a sharper edge, add an extra row of polygons on the front and back of the edge on all four edges and both sides, extremely close to the edge, the closer the sharper. Yes this does increase the geometry a bit, but it will hold the shape where you want a sharper edge or transition. Take a look a “sub-division” modeling tuts online for more examples. Eventually it comes more naturally.
Paul
thanks. i tried using subsurfaces, but couldnt get the model to do what i wanted.
then i tried selecting just the edges of the model (i.e., the thickness of the paper), set the bevel to 0, and suddenly it worked just like i wanted - the surface of the paper is now totally smooth, and the edges are sharp without any gradual rolloff.
now i just have to figure out how to get the photo onto the curved surface of the plane.