Hello,

i have a little problem with rounding edges. if you create a poly cube and you want to give it rounded edges with different radii (radiusses?), what is the best way to do it? Bevel doesn't really work well, but maybe im doing something wrong. And i don't wanna fiddle with edges to manually build a bevel, cause i want to have the radii to have exact values. I am used to a solid modelling program (solid works) in which it is incredibly easy to round of objects, so there surely must be an easy way to do this kinda stuff in maya too right? is there maybe a tutorial at simply maya that deals with rounding of edges for polys (and nurbs)?thanks in advance.

tiz

What kind of problems are you having with Bevel?

Darkon

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Red bellows of flame have blackened my stones
Convulsing my frame and cracking my bones
Hell's dragons of steel who roar in their chains
Crawl into my caves to suck out my veins.....

-The Mountain P.F.M.

say, you have a polygone cube. you want to round the sides with a bevel with an offset 0.1 and the top with an offset 0.05.
the first step looks like this: a normal polygon cube with some edges rounded.

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first question: why does the rendered image of the cube looks like this? what do i have to do to make the rounded edges appear nice and smooth? (I already set the anit-aliasing to production).

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then when i want to bevel the top (with a different radius! else i could bevel all the edges at the same time!). it then looks like this: not very clean.

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if you take away these edges (at the red arrow), you seem to get a clean bevel, but rendered it look weird where the 2 bevels meet. there is also a difference in color at the border of a bevel and a side. if a raise the number of segments of my bevels, i still get these problems.
i know how to manually move and scale edges and stuff to get a clean bevel, but then the bevel would not have a precise radius. i also was told in another post that i should get a plug-in for making bevels. at that time, i couldnt find the plug-in or it wasnt working or something. and i think it hard to believe maya isnt capable of making clean poly-bevels with different radii.

thanks in advance.

tiz.

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and the rendered cube:

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oh yeah, beveling an edge as pointed out in the pic below also gives poor results.

that were all my questions. thanks guys.

tiz.

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Surely someone around here knows how to do clean bevels ....... right?

tiz

i know of a way that isnt beveling but it works for me. Just pump up the subdivisions and smooth it

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An idea is delicate.
It can be killed by a sneer or yawn,
It can be stabbed to death by a joke
Or worried to death by a frown
On the right persons brow.
-Charles Browers

Nny, good tip, but it works as long as you want the same bevel on all edges.
Well, i found a way to get clean poly-bevels in Maya, which works for me. I didnt know about soften/harden normals, but fiddling around with that option is good to get rid of those weird "seams" i got on my surfaces. Also, on the corners of a cube, problems can be solved with merge vertices. It takes some time, but not as much as manually modelling bevels. besides, with the bevel tool, you can specify an exact radius.
Oh yeah, i also tried the bevel tool from byron (www.byronimo.de). This plug-in makes clean chamfers. To make real rounded edges with this tool, you have to make multiple chamfers. This tool is free. theres also some sort of package with chamfer/bevel/split poly etc on offer on that website. Haven't tried that, coz it's not free. cheap me. But i saw on another site some movies which show those tools in action and it all really works pretty well. So if your looking for good poly-bevel tools, byron might have the solution for you.
Still i guess when it comes to modelling objects with a lot of bevels, i guess i rather model in SolidWorks, then afterward import it into maya. It then needs some cleaning up (cause SolidWorks is a Solid modelling program instead of a surface modelling one) but for the most time it works well for me.

tiz