Poke holes in a shell

Support Modeling
#1

I have a model of a thing, it’s “egg shaped” and it’s a “solid” (no interior) and all I have is a bunch of vertexes describing the outer shell. It’s not two-sided. There is no interior. When I need to do is end up with a shell (sphere) that has a thickness, and one that I can poke circular holes through. Let’s say my pre-existing shell has a bunch of hexagons on it… (or even triangles). The holes I want to punch through the solid are per-hexagon. That is, I want to select the vertices making up a single hexagon, then “punch a hole through the shell” in that shape. I’m having a doozy of a time trying to figure out how to take the original mesh and make a two-sided shell with a given thickness, and then how to punch the holes through the shell. Any advice?

This is what I’m talking about, but it has no thickness:

blender problem
blender problem1261×930 88.4 KB

#2

if you have a hexa sphere

then just remove one hex face and use the solidify modifier

happy bl

#3

I have a hexasphere to start off with, and I want it to end up looking like square spokes are connected all over the place going from one hexagon spot to another. would removing the hexagon face and using the solidify, properly skip the hole I just made and make a “shell”?

#4

The solidify modifier merely adds thickness to your mesh. It doesn’t fill holes.

#5

Yes, I’m curious, though, I need the “added solidarity” to be simply to thicken the model. No in between meshes, just a given thickness, with square butted edged going from the inner to the outer layer. Will “solidify” do that?

Onto a slightly different question: Supposing I have a shell-ed sphere… made of hexagons (or triangles). Is there a way to draw a circle on the plane of one of the triangles or hexagon? I need to punch out circles too. Let’s suppose “solidify” wasn’t an option and I already had a solid shell model, and I need to punch random holes through the shell…
Question A: How do I draw a series of vertexes on an already existing plane
Question B: Given a set of vertexes on a plane on the face of what I want to punch out, what do I do to those vertexes to punch out a hole? I was thinking I could convert the given vertexes to a new object, extrude it in front of and in back of the hole, the Boolean subtract it. There is probably something easier, and even if I did it the way I’m guessing, I don’t know how. How do I take a bunch of vertexes and make them into a new object?. Plus, how do I extrude it along the major face’s normal?

#6

circular hole

select face then go to view and select align top

then add a circle and put it in front of the face and use the knife project to make a hole
then remove edges inside the hole

happy bl

#7

Hate to sound like a dunce, but
a. how do I align the camera to the active FACE? Object, yeah. When I select align view to selected, when in edit mode, it zooms in on the selected hexagon, but the out normal isn’t facing the camera. Too bad for me?
b. How do I create a small circle about the size of the hexagon which is now facing me? If I select “add circle” from the menu, it creates a gigantic one, far away from my model, and not oriented the right direction. Is there no way in Blender to create a circle from a point source, and allow me to expand it outward, whilst keeping all the points on a given plane/face? Too much to ask?

#8

A demo on how to do what (I think) you’d like to do:

Answers to questions above:
(a) View -> Align View -> Align View to Active -> Top (default shortcut in ‘Blender’ keymap is shift + numpad 7)
(b) As in the video, instead of adding new circle, subdivide and inset a face or faces (or inset and then subdivide, depending on what you want). Keep in mind the modal hotkeys of the Inset tool (shown in the top left of viewport when the tool is active): you might want to inset Individual. When subdividing, the number of subdivisions will determine how smooth your circles would be. Enable the LoopTools add-on. Right click, Loop Tools -> Circle.

1 Like
#9

Holy poop!!!
Thanks!