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TrueBlue
03-25-2006, 02:15 AM
Hey all,

I'm making a nutcracker in Lightwave 8, i'm new to this application and so far i'm finding it quite frustrating :).

I started out using bezier curves to outline (in the top view) one of the two handle pieces of the nutcracker. My first problem is that the bezier conveniently decided to plot its points all over the place on the horizontal axis - when you look at the outline from the side views, they should be flat and planar on the horizontal axis but some of the points are raised up and down here and there for no reason. See attachments.

There's too many points for me to be bothered to go around and try and flatten, knowing that i can't even get them all 100% flat. By flat i mean all the points planar/flat on the horizontal/ground axis.

Is there a function or anything to help me get these points all flat? Basically i need all the points to be flat so i can make a clean extrude so i can actually start modelling this thing.
WillCameron
03-25-2006, 03:29 AM
select one point, open the INFO pannel, copy the Y Axis location down. Select all points you want flatened, press v, paste the number in there, hit enter. all points will snap to that
y location.

alternately, select all the points, push H for STRETCH, hold the CTRL key down and move your mouse straight back. that will stretch all the points together until they are all on the same plane. do this in a side viewport, with the Action Center set to Selection.


- Will.
TrueBlue
03-25-2006, 04:27 AM
Excellent! Thank you so much Will.

I've attached a pic of the finish result, i'm much happier now :). Although in the perspective view look at the polygon i've selected, it's darker than the rest... what does this mean?
SNoWs
03-25-2006, 05:37 AM
it's most likely an OGL render error, nothing to worry about.

I'm glad that Will's answer helped you, learning a new 3d app can get frustraiting but don't let it get to you, just do a search here; chances are that somebody else went thorugh the same thing before, if not, just post a thread with the question just like you did here.

Now a piece of advice, that's alot of vertices to make that shape! next time use your spline in the background as a template and make the shape out of a plane or box, you will get better results, a nicer, cleaner mesh that would be easy to edit if needed. You could then convert it to subdiv to get some nice bevels on the edges to catch specular hilights or just simply bevel the polys to get that micro bevel.

later
-å
TrueBlue
03-25-2006, 10:05 AM
This is just crazy. I have no idea how to go about modelling this anymore. The very first thing i tried was starting with a sphere, but adjusting all the control points is just crazy. Now i'm making polygon in a triangular fashion, see attachment.

Those dark grey polygons definately mean something bad, they don't have the normal pointer sticking out of them and basically all of my normals stuffed up when i extruded.

I'm now start a new method by making a box, subdividing areas and stretching them out to fit the profile.

Any suggestions would be handy :).
SNoWs
03-26-2006, 01:45 PM
is there a reason to model this with triangles? try to stick to quads.

This shape imo is a candidate for subd's. If you need the final mesh as polys (tris or quads) just freeze your subd mesh after you are done modeling.

edit
I made this in a minute to quickly demostrate what I mean.
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03-26-2006, 01:45 PM
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