Working around Booleans

Working around Booleans

I have a long history using Bryce, which has a great boolean engine, but no modelling worth mentioning otherwise, so I'm just learning the ins and outs of polygon sculpting. So I have a few questions.

First, I know about making a shape editable, deleting polygons and using various tools to extend or weld polygons back together into a solid shape.

Is there a way to take polygons from one shape object and insert them into a different editable polygon shape object? Pasting seems to create a new shape, leaving no way to weld points between the two shapes.

Second, the first shape below is pretty easy to build using booleans, but putting several layers of booleans introduces artifacts (missing polygons in renders). It's the interior space I'm interested in.

I know I can build the roughs for the 'wings' of the structure bisecting a sphere or capsule and extending 'hallways' using the 'cover' tool. But how would I go about smoothly welding the ends of the hallways to the central capsule? (the bottom of the capsule's dome is slightly higher than the top of the hallways.)

I welcome any hints or suggestions.

Thanks!

MonkeyT said:

Is there a way to take polygons from one shape object and insert them into a different editable polygon shape object? Pasting seems to create a new shape, leaving no way to weld points between the two shapes.

Click to expand...

Not sure if I catch you here. Copy&Pasting into editable meshes is working.

MonkeyT said:

Second, the first shape below is pretty easy to build using booleans, but putting several layers of booleans introduces artifacts (missing polygons in renders). It's the interior space I'm interested in.

Click to expand...

You don´t need several layers when using modifiers along volumes. See image:

Cheers
Frank

frank beckmann said:

Not sure if I catch you here. Copy&Pasting into editable meshes is working.

Click to expand...

Yep. It is working. Somehow I was getting steps tangled with the weld process I ultimately wanted to use and was screwing up the works.

frank beckmann said:

You don´t need several layers when using modifiers along volumes.

Click to expand...

In this particular case, yes, each of those models could be simplified enough to require only a single boolean process. But add a third sub-pattern or get more complex in so many possible ways, and suddenly things which would be easy as booleans appear really difficult as polygon edits.

I suppose I could build a more difficult boolean example and ask again - but basically the characteristic of this process that I'm worried about is how to create a crisp, curved edge at the intersection of two arbitrarily aligned curved surfaces ( say, a small cylinder intersecting a large torus at a weird angle). As an exterior shape, you just position them correctly and render with a compatible texture, but being interested in the interior of the shape, I need a well-defined intersection. Booleans are the simplest way to get that, but to do it with polygons (as I currently understand them) I need lots of polygons to keep the surfaces smooth and it still gets chewed up along the edge I manually edit together.

Editing that intersection by hand while keeping both curved surfaces smooth and untwisted appears, at first glance, to be intense and scary. I'm trying to find the easiest way to keep both the smooth surfaces and the crisp intersections, and booleans don't appear to be the method to rely if there is another option.

BTW, thanks for your assistance!