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[rbotteon]

Sorry for re-posting. Maybe this is the right one..

Hello everybody...

I have a question about smoothing polygons.

I would like to keep certain edges hard after smoothing. Maya has an option under smoothing where you can keep hard edges, but Maya keep them exactly as they were before smoothing while I would like them hard but refined.

An example: take a polygonal sphere with 8 divisions in both directions, make all edges soft then take a circle of subseguential edges and turn them hard. At this point select the whole object and smooth it with 2 divisions or more with the option KEEP HARD EDGES on. In the result you see the hard edges but instead of a nice circle you still see an octagonal shape.

Please help me.

Thanks in advance

[Alan]

use cuts and extrudes to make the edges more defined. You dont need to do the whole make soft and make hard thing.

See pic below, same cube with a smooth on it but the last one has cuts to keep the shape

[rbotteon]

Originally posted by Pure_Morning
use cuts and extrudes to make the edges more defined. You dont need to do the whole make soft and make hard thing.

See pic below, same cube with a smooth on it but the last one has cuts to keep the shape

Do you mean make very thin polygons close to the edge I want sharp edged?
I alredy do that, and it's the thing I would like to avoid.
If not could you be more specific?

Thank you and please be patient.

R.

[Alan]

that's exactly what I mean, why do you want to avoid it? get the MJPolyTools script, makes life much easier.

Alan

[rbotteon]

Originally posted by Pure_Morning
that's exactly what I mean, why do you want to avoid it? get the MJPolyTools script, makes life much easier.

Alan

Because it's not efficient if you have a bunch of edges to keep hard and if you still need to do some tweaking.

I discovered that the kind of result I want is reachable if I extract a region of poligons who's border share the edge I want to keep hard, then combine it with the original object, merge the vertices of the edges I don't want hard and then smooth.
But It's a tedious job too. Is there anywhere a split edge command?

[Alan]

polygons >> split polygon

Seriously download the MJPolyTools script and you can do a whole bunch of cool poly stuff with it, I use all the darn time believe me!

Alan

[rbotteon]

Originally posted by Pure_Morning
polygons >> split polygon

Seriously download the MJPolyTools script and you can do a whole bunch of cool poly stuff with it, I use all the darn time believe me!

Alan

Ok, obviously I know split polygon. I was looking for a split EDGE.

Let me check MJPolyTools.

Thank you Pure_Morning

R.

[kbrown]

You can use the split polygon tool to split just one edge if you wish...

[Alan]

Ok, obviously I know split polygon. I was looking for a split EDGE

You can add a split to an edge by cutting the poly in half with split poly. Make sure you finish the edges off properly though or you will get weird smoothing problems.

Alan

[rbotteon]

This is what I mean with split edge:

[rbotteon]

With these edges split, the result after smoothing is as follows:

[Alan]

yeah but that doesnt look right, and also you will get some nasty meshes like that if you dont remerge the verts. topologically it's not right and you will run into problems. See how you have dragged those two verts down on the side, those have created non planar faces (which are bad) You can achieve that look you have on the left by using polygons >> cut faces and moving the cut near to the top of the faces.

Alan.

[rbotteon]

Originally posted by Pure_Morning
yeah but that doesnt look right, and also you will get some nasty meshes like that if you dont remerge the verts. topologically it's not right and you will run into problems.

Alan.

OK. There's no way to get the kind of result I want.

It seems that the only way is to make thin polygons close to the edges....PPRRRFFFFF...

Do you know what makes me go mad? With 3DStudio this is the easiest thing in the world. Look the following example, can someone tell me how can I get the same result with Maya?

Thank you guys..

R.