A few years ago (when Blender wasn’t really known yet and I accidently visited the Blender.nl website) I’ve been playing a lot with Blender, stepped over to 3DS MAX, and now I’m back with Blender again because 3DS MAX doesn’t really work on Linux (which I don’t mind, Blender is also very good).
However, since I’m only doing box modelling, I’m wondering if there’s some way to get sharp edges (aka creases) on a subdivision surface in Blender (latest version).
In MAX I could just assign some smoothing groups to the model, but unfortunately that doesn’t work in Blender.
Does anyone how I can get this functionality with Blender?
AFAIK blender doesn’t actually offer this, but you can use Wings 3d which does this (and is also free) then export to blender. Not exactly the easiest way, but it’s a solution…
I seem to recall you can apply subsurf smoothing to just the vertices or groups that you want, leaving creases and sharp edges for the rest of the object.
The way to do it is have a pair of edges close together where you’d normally have one, so creating a running bevel. This is actually generally good practise for modelling anyway since it would otherwise give the effect of a bevel, which when sufficiently subtle produces a nice highlight on the edge. It also means you have lots of polygons near the areas of rapid change on your mesh, where they should be.
As someone mentioned, Wings3D is worth a look anyway, if only for making the process of creating that bevel easier. Unless you’re doing low poly work the hard edge stuff isn’t that necessary.
Of course you can make the creases even sharper, yust move the vertices closer to eachother. The sharpest you can get is when the three vertices that make the crease are exactly on the same location.
You can also make the two parts of that mesh unconnected. In other words, make the bottom half and the top half part of the same mesh, but have them be unconnected pieces within that mesh. Then, just move the top bit down until it crosses the the surface of the other piece and voila! You have a true hard-edged crease.
