I have been experiencing quite wobbly performance from the script Mesh/Scripts/Solidify Selection. I am not sure what the deal is. It works sometimes. Anybody have any pitfalls to avoid? Things I should look for?
Thanks.
Richard Culver,
Can you upload a blend that contains the mesh from your pictures? I’d like to take a look at it to be sure, but I am thinking it may be related to surface normals. Maybe check to see if they are all pointing in the right direction.
Best of Luck!
Ah… that works here. Although I am sure I have tried it before and that did not work. If I run into this again and I don’t have luck I’ll post a file. Thanks!
Richard Culver,
Just to cover all of the bases, I have had situations where ctrl n re-calculate normals outside did not work. Neither did selecting all and flipping normals. In the particular mesh I was having trouble with, some verts were pointing in, and some were pointing out, and I am guessing that due to the topology, ctrl n re-calculate normals outside, thought it was doing its job. In this case I had to manually select some of the surfaces, and flip normals.
Sometimes in a case like this you can select a single face, then press spacebar…select…similar to selection…normals.
Best of Luck!
Looks to me like this script is exactly the same as extruding all (region) and then pressing alt-s. And that way you can see the thicknesses in real time. I compared the script with that action, and the result is identical with a wonky shape base.
Thanks. Great advice. I’ll file that for future reference.
Indeed you are correct!
Thanks. Wow. I guess that explains why I thought it was based on individual normals. Because the alt s was going wonky too for the same reason because of the normals.
Major Blender breakthrough for me!
Thanks to both of you!
No, this is not the case (at least my experiences tells me so). It seems so at first and for two dimensional shapes or if you really want to work with ALL faces of the mesh it might be so, but it is not true for other cases.
Just take a standard cube, select all faces except one and compare both methods. While Extrude and Alt+S makes a pyramid-like structure, the script keeps the shape of the cube intact. It is a bad example though, I just wanted to come up with a simple one quickly…
On the cube example it seems that it does the about if not exactly same thing on the positive input but negative inputs the script maintains a cube and alt s makes the pyramid. That is a very good observation on your part. So clearly they are not exactly the same in all cases and that makes sense. I would say in general Solidify Selection does what it says. It basically thickens the structure. And Alt S works well for the type of scaling you need to create edge loop around odd 2D shapes where scale will not work. From what I have seen so far.
What?? You must have selected “individual faces” in the extrude menu. If you select “region” the cube stays intact. It is exactly the same thing.
Edit: even individual faces extrusion doesn’t produce a pyramid shape. I don’t know what you did.
I missed it the first time. But read again. He said select all but one face. In that case there is a difference. With Individual Faces each selected face would become a cube shape in that example.
Not quite. Look at the attached image, the extrude done with “solidify” holds a constant width all around. Much better for holding fine detail in subsurfed objects.
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I had not noticed that subtle difference. Depending on what you are doing it could be a factor. I can’t get alt S to work on just edges. I wonder why. Solidify Selection is such a workaround for a true inset. Is there no other way? Blender bevel is more of an edge bevel than an inset. Are there any other scripts out there? Or did I miss something?
This is what I get with just edges:
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Yes, a true inset that works on edges would be nice. Currently this workaround of combining the script with a temp face extrusion (to get the needed face normals) is the only accurate method I’m aware of.
Seems to be the case. Thanks fort the help - and the original tip from that video. 