#Boolean problem
8 messages in this thread
I've run into a problem trying to 'carve' letters out of a box. I've
lofted a series of characters that are 'beveled' (not using the bevel tool)
into a trianglular cross section. I've tried lofting each character separatly
and together, making the lofts more and less complex, and tessilating the box
to varying degrees. What I keep getting is parts of the letters (triangular
sections of course) just not cut out, and occasional triangular faces of the
box looseing their mapping (I'm not sure whether re-applying the map corrects
this or not).
Any suggestions?
C.
Corey,
I don't know what you mean by "the box" you are tesselating. I've created tons
of "beveled" text characters using the outline function in the 2D editor and
then lofting the outlines. If you'll explain further, I'm sure I can help you
out. Which way did you come in? Yuk, yuk :).
BP
>I've run into a problem trying to 'carve' letters out of a box. I've lofted a
series of characters that are 'beveled' (not using the bevel tool) into a
trianglular cross section.<
Are you trying to use that for a boolean?
OK, lets try again. I created a series of characters, they have a roughly
triangular cross section. They are fine. I created a simple box in 3d editor.
I tried to use the boolean subtract function to 'carve' the letters out of the
box-object. I got the results I mentioned in the first message. No errors,
but failed results.
Mostly I'm curious about how to do this, since I went about it a different way
and got the result I wanted (by lofting the box with the charcters) but I
would like to know what I did wrong.
Try this. Create a triangle around the characters in 2d shaper, and assign
both the triangle and characters. Suck that into lofter and loft away. You
may have to build a "backplate", but this should be easier than booleans!
LM
Instead of a standard box, try using a grid box with several segments, and see
if that doesn't improve things.
– Jack
>>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
Indeed, it's hard to offer any specific help without further detail, but I can
say this much: Don't expect booleans to always work in 3DS. Often, not matter
what you do to the mesh, they will not succeed.
You're at least on the right track by making lofts more and less complex and
trying varying desgrees of tesselation. You should also try moving the meshes
around by slight degress, using modify/edge/divide on long, narrow faces that
intersect verticies on the other mesh, and using "optimize" IPAS if you have
it.
Good luck. Perhaps there are others who can give you more specific tricks with
more specific info from you. But, as I said,often booleans just won't work
without a small miracle.