hard edges on smooth

[ACFred]

Do the smoothing in component mode.

Just select the faces you want smooth and leave the chest plate deselected.

[Razvan]

You can use Subdiv Surfaces->Full Crease Edge/Vertex and Partial Crease Edge/Vertex to get sharp edges.

[GrafOrlok]

I take it you are using poly's, not SubDivs, right.

Pick the edges where you want the sharp edge, chose the option box for Soften/harden and push All Hard and apply.

Now the normals of the picked edges are sharp.

[playmesumch00ns]

A better way to do it is to add extra edges around the edge you want to be hard, using the slice polygon tool. Then when you smooth, the edges will be smoothed, but will still remain sharp. The more eextra edges you add, and the closer together they are, the sharper your smoothed edge will be!

[dmcgrath]

If it is a hard plastic piece and isnt going to deform, I really recommend that you make it seperately. It will be easier in the long run during animation. Even if you are making an entierly polygonal character, you dont need to make it out of one mesh. But I would also suggest you take playmesumch00ns advice on the modeling technique. You will still want the chest plate to look smooth, but have hard edges. For this to work properly, you will have to put two or three extra edges stacked closely together to get the result that you want.

happy modeling!!!:hmm:

[GrafOrlok]

I agree too. That way you'll have a much more realistic touch to it.

[Snakeman]

well i have another quick question do triangles really matter when you are polygonal modelling.....when you smooth it, it just corrects them anyway....well i know a lot of triangles is bad what about just a few?

[playmesumch00ns]

PolySmooth won't always correct them and neither will qudrangulate, even if they're perfectly co-planar.

Triangles are bad because maya doesn't like to render them at all, she feels much happier with quads. If not really had any trouble with them myself (not been using maya that long) but other have.

best to fix them: it's good practice anyway. Of course there are some places where you can't avoid it and that's fine, just not too manY!

[-wT-]

Maya's renderer doesn't like triangles?!?
But... it tesselates everything to triangles, doesn't it?
Hmmm...

Well, anyways, I've tried to avoid triangles as much as I can, but I've just realized that it's not that important. Some places just need to have triangles. Just have a look at any of Bay Raitt's or Martin Krol's (Can't think of any more superhuman modelers right now ;)) models, you will find triangles in every model.

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