Alrightee, I am coming from a background of a lot of 3D programs but the one I am most used to is Maya. Anyway, I am going to ask my question with an explanation of what I could do in Maya in order that someone might be able to help me figure out how to do it in Blender. Imagine that I had a mesh object of half of a face and I mirrored it so that both halves were now one object. I could select all of the vertices from both halves that were overlapping down the middle line and select merge (and set tolerances) in order to weld everthing together. In fact I could select the entire mesh if I wished and select merge (at whatever tolerances I needed) and have it clean up the entire mesh by welding all the vertices that fell within those tolerances. So far in blender it seems as though I have to know where overlapping vertices are and then weld them instance by instance. That just doesn’t seem right and surely I am missing something. Also, in Maya I could go to the custom polygon display and turn the border edges to display so that if there was anywhere in my mesh that was not welded together it would show as a bold edge. Using that tool I could spot areas that were not seamed together and start welding vertices. Does Blender have anything like that?
you need select all > F9 > Remove Doubles. merge limit can be set. can also be accessed thru W key.
edges of selected objects can be displayed in 3d view with F7 > Draw Extra > wire
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Wow! Thanks Steeve, I really appreciate that. I don’t know why when I tried remove doubles on my test cube through the edge specials (W key) it didn’t work, but it did when I used the button method. Thanks for the tip on the draw extra options also. Since you have been so helpful I can’t help but think you might be able to answer this mystery for me as well.
Is there anyway to delete an edge without deleting the face (even if the resulting face would be a legitimate quad)? From everything I have tried it doesn’t seem possible.
Thanks again.
Actually, I am a bit confused. Isn’t the F7 -> Draw -> Draw Extra -> Wire option just a way to view an object in shaded wireframe mode? I don’t see how the disconnected border edges show up in a special way. Even if the “border edges” just showed up as regular edges that would be helpful so long as the edges didn’t show on everything else. I just need a good way to visually see what is not connected (welded or merged together).
No I don’t belive Blender has the “bold edge” option that you are talking about in Maya . But since you now know how to increase the merge tolerance with the remove doubles function, you might consider changing your work flow . Instead of selecting all the verts in each mirrored part, just select the edge loop that you want to weld and then increase the tolerance until you get the proper result .
Also if you didn’t know Blender has a robust mirror modifier for symmetrical modeling (F9 -> in the Modifier panel) .
And no again regarding keeping a face when you delete an edge on that face … actually I am not clear on why you would want to do this … but the closest function in Blender would be the “rip” tool (hotkey V) which will separate an edge/vertex and “open up” your mesh …
Ok, second question first, F7 > Draw Extra > Wire is different from F7 > Drawtype > Wire. The former options displays objects solid with (hidden line type) wireframe as well (a-la-sketchup). The latter is for just straight wireframe view. But, I don’t think it helps with seeing double edges.
I guess there are a few ways to check what’s connected to what. One way: select a vertex then L key will select all linked vertices.
Another way: if you select a standard vertex, the edges connected to it will be partly highlighted (first pic). If the vertex is actually a double, the non-connected edges will not be highlighted (second pic)
sorry, vertex pusher, we posted at the same time
