What in Tarnashun?

Support Modeling
1

Hi folks…

sorry for my newbie questions…but I’m trying to make some simple rings. I’ve imported a jpeg of a logo and traced over it with circles (to get the size). Then I extruded up. And then merged the top verts together to center. Tried to subdivide and subsurf…and got junk!!!

I also tried removing outside normals…like I saw in a vid tut…but …still junk! I’ve had this other times too, when trying to extrude and close verts etc…nothing ever turns our smoove!!

Help please? :confused:

Attachments

Rings.jpg1024×608 79.2 KB

2

I realized just now, that I can probably do this easier with a cylinder. But as for the other question (why the faces don’t look smooth) I wouldn’t mind help please?

3

Use Ctrl + N to recalculate normals to the outside.

4

hmmm…the image in my original post was already after Ctrl+N…

strange, but I bet you anything I’m doing something wrong. (while Blender rolls it’s eyes)

5

Couple things to try:
Select all vertices in Edit mode, do W->remove doubles.
Turn on Autosmooth in the F9->Mesh panel.

6

:rolleyes: You’re probably right. I tried the method you outlined just now and it turned out fine.

So: use a tube, not a cylinder (except for the one on the inside.) Extrude the tube and select region, then escape so nothing moves. While the extruded region is still selected, scale inward on the x axis (s, x) then scale inward on the y axis (s, y). Keep your eye on the window header while scaling so you can see how much you scaled in x so you can match it in y (keeps the circle circular.) You can match your logo rings by scaling just the inside or just the outside faces. This may cause the tops of your rings to be at odd slopes, so to fix this, select the vertices that are sloped, then scale them to zero along the z axis (s, z, 0).

BTW, subdividing is not needed, just set smooth on the outside faces, and use subsurf. To get a sharp edge at the top and bottom, add a loop of edges with the loop cut tool (Control r) and move the new loop very close to the top.

In making a model to show you what I’m talking about, I ran into an interesting anomaly:



The model on the left has wonky normals, neither flipping normals nor recalculating normals outside fixed it. In fact, calculating normals OUTSIDE wound up with most of the normals pointing INSIDE. The model on the right, however, is fine, and everything words as advertised. The difference is the model on the left started life as a tube with 17 vertices, the model on the right had 18. I suspect Blender is having some kind of difficulty with odd numbers here.

The work-around, obviously, is: don’t do that. Use even numbers for your tubes, circles and cylinders.

7

Unbelievable guys…Thanks so much for helping me out. That mini tute is hugely helpful too…I’ll try all these when I get home (I’m at work now ). And keep you posted on the details.

Love it!!!

8

:confused::confused::mad::mad::mad::mad:

It’s just not working for me! Whenever I smooth and use catmull-clark…then that’s where I get the problems! But if I don’t smooth, I get choppiness!

Here’s the blend file if anyone can take a quick peek…

please?

9

Good that you posted the .blend…
A quick look showed the following problems:

  1. double vertices - get rid of them with “Remove Doubles”
  2. unclean mesh - get rid of the triangles.
  3. some strange behaviour of the creases…did you actually screw around with edge creases or was it merely a mistake? I had to manually set them to -1 to correct that (with Shift+E).

Nothing big overall, let us know if you need further help. I’ll also keep the .blend, just in case…

10

OK: this is a fix for the inside c shape, which you seem to be having the most trouble with

Doubled edges.jpg511×513 36.4 KB


Look closely, I’ve selected 8 vertices, but only one edge lit up. There are doubled vertices here, probably caused by extruding twice, but only moving the second set of vertices.
Doubled Ckeaned up Corner.jpg511×513 31 KB


I’ve removed the doubles, and cleaned up the corner. Got rid of extra vertexes, edges, etc. Notice the end face is NOT a triangle, but actually has four sides. The faint grey line is the subsurf shape, not very square corners yet. We have to add some more geometry near the corner to give Catmull-Clark something to turn around.
Doubled Loop Cut one.jpg511×513 28.3 KB


Here is the first edge loop, made with the Loop Cut tool (Ctrl r). You’ll have to clean up both ends of this mesh before Loop Cut will work without complaining.
Doubled Loop Cut two.jpg511×513 30 KB


The second loop cut.
Doubled Loop Cut three.jpg511×513 32.3 KB


And the third. The closer these cuts are to the original edge, the sharper the edge will be.
Doubled Set Smooth.jpg511×513 40.2 KB


If you use set smooth, limit the smoothing to the faces on the sides. Otherwise you might get some bulging on the top surface.

11

wow! That’s amazing…thank you so much for going through all that effort to help me out.

I really appreciate it! I’ll start from scratch again and do it the way you described.

Have a great day!!

cheers
rich

12

scale inward on the x axis (s, x) then scale inward on the y axis (s, y). Keep your eye on the window header while scaling so you can see how much you scaled in x so you can match it in y (keeps the circle circular.)

Orinoco: (and anyone else who cares) For future reference - no need to scale X then carefully scale Y to match.

S, Shift-Z tells Blender Scale>Ignore Z axis
So you scale X and Y together, leaving Z unchanged.

13

Wow! It almost looks like I might know what I’m doing now! Of course, all because of the wonderful help here.

Here’s the latest attempt. Looking pretty good in fact. Now I’m just having trouble closing faces in the little electric bolt part…I tried make face, and fill etc…but they’re not closing for me…

could you take a look perhaps and (after rolling your eyes at how easy the solution is) give me a hint on the solution?

www.digitalsoundmagic.com/blender

thanks all!!

cheers
rich

PS: I’m using the latest build as of this morning.