How can I create an inset bevel?

* @ Hasdrubal: Ceterum censeo...
* Oops, I am not Cato the Elder and bear no animosity towards Phoenicians from Carthage.
* My comment was not directed to you personally, nor was it aimed at any specific other contributors. It was a general reminder to keep calm and collected in slightly acerbic times.
* Apologies, if required :smile: :wink: :redface:

PS:
* As to pachyderms in Helvetia:
* Artwork by William Roger Dean
 

Attachments

  • Osibisa.jpg
    Osibisa.jpg
    37.5 KB · Views: 356
Last edited:
... but I’ve come up with something that might be promising:

Interesting approach!
Tried that within Cheetah: Reverse sequence of text spline, put it in big rectangular spline and merge to get the negative.
Still the middle has to be merged somehow.

Seems that there is no easy way (as stated by Frank).

My version of beveled thin font splines tends to produce nasty geometry overlapping with certain letters which all needs cleaning up.

But once done it looks great.

image_00023.jpg
 
Last edited:
* @ Hasdrubal: Ceterum censeo...
* Oops, I am not Cato the Elder and bear no animosity towards Phoenicians from Carthage.
* My comment was not directed to you personally, nor was it aimed at any specific other contributors. It was a general reminder to keep calm and collected in slightly acerbic times.
* Apologies, if required :smile: :wink: :redface:

PS:
* As to pachyderms in Helvetia:
* Artwork by William Roger Dean


LOVE ROGER DEAN ARTWORK aka: YES album covers, and others... MANY others!
 
Interesting approach!
Tried that within Cheetah: Reverse sequence of text spline, put it in big rectangular spline and merge to get the negative.
Still the middle has to be merged somehow.

Seems that there is no easy way (as stated by Frank).

My version of beveled thin font splines tends to produce nasty geometry overlapping with certain letters which all needs cleaning up.

But once done it looks great.

View attachment 33188

Beautiful Font and Render "MO"...!:icon_thumbup:
 
My attempt**:

With the workflow below, the block letters were easy to work with.
The curved letters (e.g. "B") take much more work. I didn't take much time to make the "B's" centerline curve very smooth.
Misoversaturated's approach gives better results for the curves.

Base model:
  1. Extrude text
  2. Make editable
  3. Delete front faces*
  4. Fill holes*
  5. Select front faces
  6. Inner extrude (reasonably close to middle point)
  7. Weld neighboring points
  8. Select center lines, and pull to front

Rounded edges:
  1. Add subdivision modifier, set to linear (3 steps in this example)
  2. Set 'Smooth" on object to 'Phong'


*This didn't work very well on compound "B". On the "B", I had to delete/fill hole in sections. Also, is there a tool that will combine selected faces?

**I'm not getting any paying work done doing these challenges :cool:
 

Attachments

  • Bevel_left.jpg
    Bevel_left.jpg
    206.8 KB · Views: 334
  • Bevel_right.jpg
    Bevel_right.jpg
    204.7 KB · Views: 331
@jdmac: Looks good!
_________

Another possibility would be engraving, doing the same as above only in the negative (flipped normals) way:

Falconpig.jpg

EDIT: Another version with a Photoshop map and displacement modifier:
It's less work and looks better, so no need for the hassle with extruded splines when engraving :wink:


Falconpig3.jpg
 
Last edited:
Another version with a Photoshop map and displacement modifier:
It's less work and looks better, so no need for the hassle with extruded splines when engraving
I was thinking earlier that font choice makes a difference in creating a clean centerline;
but it looks like the Photoshop method also makes it easier to use more complex fonts (e.g. with serifs).
 
the Photoshop method also makes it easier to use more complex fonts (e.g. with serifs).
That was the intention, to use every accessible font and extrude it to a "chiseled" shape.
The problem with using a height map in the displacement modifier is of course rasterization.
Here I needed to use a hexagonal triangeled polygon pattern and - first time ever - the smooth modifier to get rid of the jagged artifacts.

screenshot.png

Chisel.jpg

Chisel2.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Chisel-.png.zip
    1.8 KB · Views: 255
Thanks jdmac and yes, that's the thread where we explored several hexagonal ways, Franks suggestion being the fastest (six-sided disc, collapse middle, crease, stam-loop subdivision).

My chisel object is 18,000,000 polygons heavy and I tried Cheetahs new fast quadric mesh simplification tool.
Only it produces edge artifacts, but those go well with the forged-iron look.

When I tried polygon reduction in the free meshlab.app the results were much cleaner (though slower, but I'd go for quality over duration any time).

Still the file is too big, so I compressed with 7zX.app before zipping for the forum.
The Unarchiver.app also can expand this.

So there is a reliable way to do what Marc initially asked for:

- create height map (b/w 16 bit png) of a text with a chosen font (in PS: layer style "inner shine")
- create densely tesselated plane in Cheetah3D and apply displacement modifier with the height map
- select from side view all bottom points of the plane and delete (very slow!)
- apply symmetry modifier without point welding, shift for suitable gap, make editable
- fill gap with bridge tool, that will produce jagged edges, apply smooth modifier
- make editable and use simplify tool to bring poly count down (not very clean)
- or export to meshlab.app for cleaner polygon decimation.
 

Attachments

  • chisel7.jas.7z.zip
    633.8 KB · Views: 247
And here's another piece of refractive art :smile:
rendered with Luxrender bidirectional (cause Falcon currently doesn't do glass with a bit of roughness correctly).​
 

Attachments

  • chiselglass2.jpg
    chiselglass2.jpg
    145.2 KB · Views: 275
Back
Top