Path tilt causes "ugly" mesh deformation.

Hi

I’m having a small problem with a mesh extruded along the path. The array and path modifier together work great, no problems here. But when I start tilting the path vertices, to create some banking in the corners, there is a small problem. The mesh begins to “break” in the middle part of the corner, it creates sharp angles there. I have attached the screenshots, with the lines stressed in yellow.

The question is how to avoid that. The mesh itself is quite dense, the track is 30m wide, and it’s all constructed from 1mx1m segments, so there is enough geometry in there to be smooth.

I would rather prefer to avoid manually fixing it. Some procedural solution is needed here. And I hope that there is a way to fix that, with a track of this width and banked that much…

Any ideas anyone? :rolleyes:

Attachments



First Guess:
Do you have an edge-split modifier on that object? If so, try turning it off.

Second Guess:
Press Z and look at the wireframe, is anything getting pinched (too close or overlapping)?

If neither of those, could you upload your blend file
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/
and then link the result here?

Hi

Thx for getting interesed, here is the blend file: http://www.pasteall.org/blend/27898

I did check both of the areas you mentioned, and these are not the case.

My guess is that this is how Blender does it, and I need to think of some kind of workaround this issue probably…

Bezier Curves can have cusps (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusp_(singularity)), that seems to be what’s causing your trouble.

The easiest solution to the problem that I can think of is: Simply use a NURBS Curve (Or Path, they’re both the same thing) instead. I briefly tested a NURBS path on your model and it worked smoothly.

(There might be a way to make Bezier Curves twist without cusping that I don’t know of yet, I still have a lot to learn about blender myself)

Beautiful!! Thank you! :slight_smile:

So simple… but sometimes you just won’t think of something by yourself no matter what :wink: