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# 1 21-11-2009 , 02:05 PM
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Thin wall between extrudes

Hello. I trying to learn a bit about Maya and I just can not figure out how to make part of a model recess lower than the rest of the model. I try to do it with extrude and extrude two sections down and I always get some thin walls between.

I have included a image with the remaining walls market out in blue (they are not blue in Maya, did that in photoshop).

Why do theese walls appear? Can I do something to not get walls like this? I have tried keep surfaces together and about every option in the extrude tool.


Or perhaps there is a better way to chip of a small cube at the edge of a larger cube?

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# 2 21-11-2009 , 02:36 PM
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make sure u have the "keep faces together" option checked under "edit Mesh" and u should be set.


Last edited by urutum; 21-11-2009 at 02:39 PM.
# 3 21-11-2009 , 02:40 PM
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Thank you for you effort, but I must have checked and unchecked the "keep faces together" box a bunch of times by now urutum... It just doesn't do much for me...

# 4 21-11-2009 , 02:46 PM
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Before u extrude. make sure your vertices are merged. u want to make sure your geometry is solid before u extrude to avoid unwanted results. Always have "keep faces together" checked when extruding... Im prety sure that maybe ur vertices are separated which u can go and merge them then grab your faces or edges and extrude them with keep faces together checked. Patience is the key my friend.

# 5 21-11-2009 , 03:07 PM
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Originally posted by urutum
Before u extrude. make sure your vertices are merged. u want to make sure your geometry is solid before u extrude to avoid unwanted results. Always have "keep faces together" checked when extruding... Im prety sure that maybe ur vertices are separated which u can go and merge them then grab your faces or edges and extrude them with keep faces together checked. Patience is the key my friend.

Will look into merging vertices, but since I am working from a simple cube with a few divisions it seem funky that it should be unmerged from the start....

Ok, I have CRTL, INS, DEL.... no Patience key yet, but I will keep looking for that patience-key user added image

# 6 21-11-2009 , 11:23 PM
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Thats strange, it looks a lot like the keep-faces-together option.
You are sure it doesn't work?
You are extruding and then choosing "keep faces together" in the attributes editor, correct?

Should work... no Idea besides that.


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# 7 22-11-2009 , 07:20 AM
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Originally posted by Joopson
Thats strange, it looks a lot like the keep-faces-together option.
You are sure it doesn't work?
You are extruding and then choosing "keep faces together" in the attributes editor, correct?

Should work... no Idea besides that.

Tried it, a funny thing is that there is also a "keep faces together" option in the top of the mesh menu. And that option does not seem connected with the attribute for the extrude i the attribute editor.

I hope I can get it to work. I solved it on my test model by deleting the faces and manually making surfaces between the edges, but that seems like a messy method for just lowering part of the model.

# 8 22-11-2009 , 07:31 AM
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Ok, now I decided to reinstall Maya again completely and I got a slightly different result, maybe this is how it should be?

As you see in my picture this time the thin walls are not between the faces but it is still there between the recessed faces and the edge of the polygon cube.

Is there any way to get rid of this wall also or does that face have to be manually deleted and rebuilt from edges?

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# 9 22-11-2009 , 10:33 AM
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it's probably better to have selected the other faces on the top of that cube you have and extrude those up for that particular thing you're doing

less fiddling around after the extrusion




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# 10 22-11-2009 , 10:39 AM
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Originally posted by Chirone
it's probably better to have selected the other faces on the top of that cube you have and extrude those up for that particular thing you're doing

less fiddling around after the extrusion

Ok, it seems like extrude doesn't work good in negative. Well, yes in a cube like scenario like this one raising the rest is clever. But I only used the cube as an example to figure out why I could not do it in a boat model I am trying to do. Right now I am considering to do using a boolean and excavate a cube from the whole instead. Is that a standard approach?

# 11 22-11-2009 , 01:24 PM
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booleans are never the standard approach... anyway this is a funny thread. Why don't you scale in the faces a little before you extrude down.

# 12 22-11-2009 , 02:24 PM
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Scale in the faces? Not exactly sure how you mean, can you post an image?

# 13 22-11-2009 , 08:14 PM
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The extra inner face is a result of not having "keep faces together" checked on indeed. The faces at the side had nothing to do with the extrude so they'll still be sitting there. In this case, instead of extruding inwards and then have to end up deleting and cleaning up faces, I think it would be best to invert your selection and extrude those up.


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# 14 22-11-2009 , 09:18 PM
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Originally posted by GecT
The extra inner face is a result of not having "keep faces together" checked on indeed. The faces at the side had nothing to do with the extrude so they'll still be sitting there. In this case, instead of extruding inwards and then have to end up deleting and cleaning up faces, I think it would be best to invert your selection and extrude those up.

Perfect solution!

# 15 22-11-2009 , 09:52 PM
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Originally posted by urutum
Perfect solution!

It works for this cube, but it will not work on a model of a say a boat, then you will have to raise teh rest of the boat with rail, deck, steering, seats and the whole lot...

Anyway since there was no way to make this work I did a complete rebuild of the model using curves and lofts and ditched the whole poly extrude idea for now.

Thanks for your help guys.

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