CompuServe Messages

>>gouging out letters… PMJI, Corey, but you are probably not doing anything "wrong". It is very difficult to do what you describe if you have a lot of characters. I have had some success using a grid, as Jack describes – I used something like a 10×6 grid to create a routed sign. If a grid is not possible, some manual tesselation with Edge/Divide and Edge/Turn will make a surface that will usually work. Make sure both boolean objects have topological integrety. Also, create the characters with the lowest acceptable segmentation. (I nearly always set shape-steps to 0 and use Segment/Refine to segment curves only where absolutely necessary.) Among the problems, however, are a trememdous boolean time (about 15 minutes for one attempt), billions of faces, and a near-certain need for a lot of manual cleanup and smoothing work. I think the lofting method is a much better way to do this – create a "squished" shape for the bottom of the V for each character and loft the whole mess. This is a lot more work for a U-shaped bottom for each letter, but it is still possible. BTW, one thing I might suggest to enhance this method is to manually place some vertices around the perimeter of the box with Segment/Refine to help keep the lofter from making too many long, skinny faces from the letters to the corners of the box. JKJ