Back to Cheetah3D and bezels

Back to Cheetah3D and bezels

Hello all and happy new year.

After a long absence, I'm back trying to learn some Cheetah basics. And yet, I'm unable to do good bezels. For example, say I have this cube embeded on another large cube, as shown below. I removed a part using the Ring Cut tool, and used the Bridge tool, so I now have this slant edge (selected in red, below). But I want to have a ROUND bezel. Using the Catmull-Clark subdivide mess all the cube. How can I have a nice round border, without messing up the rest of the cube ?

bezel.jpg
 
Hi Kali and Happy New Year back....!

I'm new to Cheetah, and, although I'm sure there is a way to modify what you have, I've recently been working with the spline and extrude tools--so I'm going to answer along those lines.....

Objects>Creator>Extrude
Objects>Spline>Rect

In the Browser pane, drop the Rectangle onto the Extrude object, and adjust the Z direction in the Properties pane to get the thickness. There is a "bevel" property and the default is "none". Change this to "round (convex)" and then adjust the radius until it's right. This puts a radius on both faces, though, so make the object editable and delete the radius facets around the bottom. (You may have to decrease the "clip near" value of the camera to get close enough to select and delete the small bits). Use "Optimize" to get rid of any stray points and "Fill Hole" to put a face on the bottom, if that's necessary....
 
Eric,

thanks for the trick. It's a nice alternative. But it's not enough. Suppose you need to do a cube with rounded edges on all sides (like a dice), your trick doesn't work. Also, suppose the scene is done, except that the cubes (already defined) needs to be rounded on some edges (like on the picture above), then what could we do ?
 
Kali said:
Eric,

thanks for the trick. It's a nice alternative.

Your welcome.

But it's not enough. Suppose you need to do a cube with rounded edges on all sides (like a dice), your trick doesn't work. Also, suppose the scene is done, except that the cubes (already defined) needs to be rounded on some edges (like on the picture above), then what could we do ?

You might start by reading Help>Cheetah 3D Help and practicing with some of the tools, to get familiar with them? :wink:

In your case....

Delete the upper face and the diagonals to the corners. Use Tools>Polygon>Fill holes to remake the upper surface. Switch to polygon mode, select the new surface and Transform to raise it up to where the original surface was.

Selection>Convert Section to>Edges, then use Tools>Polygon>Inner Extrude. Enter the amount of offset in the Tool panel, click on the selected edges and two new offsets have been made, one on the top and one on the faces.

Select these new offsets *and* the diagonals. *Deselect* the four upper edges that you want to round over. Go to Selection>Set Crease (the new edges will now be blue) and then Selection>Select None. Switch to Polygon mode and select the four outer polygons on the upper surface and the four upper polygons on the perimetr surfaces.

Then use Tools>Polygon>Catmull_Clark subdivide. Do it again, if you want. The Set Crease will hold the edges straight while the rest of the edges softens.

You want to radius the corners, like a die? That's your homework--I'll give you an hour. :wink:
 
Okay, it worked. But this is highly non-trivial and--in my humble opinion--unatural for a simple thing like a cube bezel. There should be an easier way to do this.

Anyway, thanks a lot, Eric, I appreciate your help. I didn't knew this Crease thing.
 
Hi Kali.
Can´t figure out your needs. I´m a bit afraid you start to model without any plan or even a rough sketch. Don´t know wether that´s a nice approach to begin a new project. :?

With kindest regards and a happy new year.

Frank 8)
 

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Frank !

That's the kind of bezels I'm talking about ! How did you made them ?

The kind of stuff I'm interested to do in Cheetah are abstracts artworks, sculptures, with lots of improvisations. I can't make a plan, except a rough one. I want to model sculptures along my inspiration of the moment.

EDIT : Okay, I just found the way to get your result. It's nice. It may be the trick I was looking for. Thanks again ! :)
 
You might also fool around with the the subdivide modifier? It seems to produce a different mesh...
 

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Eric,

this gives a mesh with tons of polygons. It's not good. We'll need to erase all those superfluous polygons and patch the holes after that.
 
Hi Kali.
Nice to hear you found a solution, but to
the duties toward the public I need to say, you
have to choose the edges, like shown in the
example and use the
catmull-clark-subdivide-command instead the
Subdivision-modifier. But of course there is no
way out later on, except you´ll safe your project
before "Clark" is coming. Or you step back by
control-z. By the way; how many stepbacks are
possible? 16 times?

With kindest regards and a happy new year.

Frank 8)

PS.: Can I see some of your improvisations? Or let me hear, if more help is wanted. :wink:
 

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Good ! Here's the exact trick I needed. Thanks to you guys ! :)

cube.jpg


1- Make a cube and simplify its geometry by double-clicking its object icon in the object browser.

2- Use the Ring Cut tool to define the borders around the cube edges. (This part should be simplified in some way, because it's a bit long in the process, just to make bezels. Any idea ?).

3- Go to the Edge Mode, and make all the new lines set as Crease.

4- Return to Polygon mode, select all the edges you want to smooth. It should be the parts inside the Creased lines. Then use the Catmull-Clark operation once or twice. Voila !


Too bad there isn't a single click option in Cheetah to make this kind of bezel on the basic shapes (cube, cylinder...). IMHO, this should be hardwired in Cheetah as an option associated with the basic objects. In my view, bezels are very basic and important things in 3D modeling.

By the way, how are you placing a picture in your posts ? There's a frame around all of your pictures.
 
Kali said:
Good ! Here's the exact trick I needed. Thanks to you guys ! :)
Nice, Kali--that looks good! Thanks to you and Frank! I still like the subdivision modifier (at least for small objects) because you can see results without changing the basic geometry. It's useful to help learn, I think, and you don't have to have as many polygons as I had, either...
By the way, how are you placing a picture in your posts ? There's a frame around all of your pictures.
I used Choose File, Preview, Submit...
Frank said:
By the way; how many stepbacks are
possible? 16 times?
There seem to be 16 undos, but I read in another post that will be increasing?

Cheers...
 
So, here is one last but not least low polycount solution for the
stingy fellows of us. I ended up with a record smasher of a 352 polygon
cube.

With kindest regards and a happy new year.

Frank 8)
 

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Hi,
that is a great thread about all the various ways to create a bevel. :D

And Kali adding edge bevels to the primitives is still on my todo list. I just didn't find the time to add them yet since some other features had a higher priority. I will add them probably in a v3.x update.

By,
Martin
 
low poly, different meshflow

hi,
this is my first contribute...
only to find a different mesh solution. :)

342 poly.

(use the same way of frank bridging, but start with a different corner)
 

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Ups... I forgot to write the process!

1- create a box and make it editable
2- right click on the view and Selection>Select all
3- Tools>Polygon>Inner Extrude (uncheck the "preserve group" in the tool panel) drag the mouse until about the distance in status bar is 0.020
4- deselect all and choose Tools>Polygon>Ring Cut (see the images 1,2,3)
5- add to the cube Object>Modifier>Subdivision
6- make again the cube editable
7- with selection loop delete all the faces necessary (see image 4) to make the correct bridging (like frank), all the time necessary.


keebOo.
 

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Ok. Here´s my last word: 150 polys,152 vertices and very smooth, as you can see. Ringcut, Clarke & bridgetool were used.

With kindest regards
Frank 8)
 

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:D
uhauhauha. :)

My post was only to find a different mesh flow, to *dedicate* more mesh to the border and less to the cube....
it wasn't a contest to show u that i could make better.. :)

But I really appreciate your improvement, to the last mesh
nice, good work.

:)


best,
keebOo.

P.S. Your mesh It's a good flow also because u can cut also the mesh before the face (with only three lines for each edge, and not five like in the last image) and have a smooth shape with a tot of 55 polygons... very useful in a big project with many object.
 
Hi,
wow I think we now have all possibilities together to create a beveld cube. There is only one missing. A Javascript which creates a beveled cube automatically. :wink:

By,
Martin
 
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