polygons: mergeing multiple models.

[b.Schulz]

Did you select both pieces of geometry and do a "combine" then merge your verts? Did you check for hard edges??

[Konstruct]

yes, I combined them- then merged the verts. how do I check for hard edges??

[b.Schulz]

select geometry, go into display - custom poly display option box. and turn on, show hard edges (or show edges, etc. play with those options). Hit apply. That should tell you if you have any hard edges on the model. Also did you check the normals and things like that?

[Konstruct]

awsome,- didn`t know about that options box, I`m really new to maya (3months)
so its revealed that those are not only hard edges, BUT they are also border edges.

k so how do I fix that?- (sorry, I know I`m becoming a pain) how do I turn them into normal edges,

cause all I can seem to do is make them either hard or soft in the normals menu.
also I`m not at all familiar with normals. Ive never seen normals before. I`m guessing that there the lines that seem to be sticking out of all of my screwed up faces.
anyhoo if you could be SOOO kind, maybe just a brief explanation as to what they do would kick ass. afterwords I`ll read up on em to get finer detailed info. Its just nice to know what I`m reading about so I know what to expect.

BTW, you avatar rules.- I need to get me one of those.

[b.Schulz]

Normals in general I'd say would be to think about them as faces right? So when you turn on your normals...the actual faces of the polygon will have a line either sticking out of them or pointing inwards towards the inside. You want all your faces to be facing the same direction, so sometimes you need to flip a normal...etc etc. I'm kinda new to them as well...but that's my general take on them.

Here's how you fix that problem your having. Select all the verts that you snaped together. Then go - edit polygons - merge verts (in the option box it should be like .001 or something just in case). This should then update on your model that those edges look like the rest of the model. Lemme know if this makes no sense and I'll try to explain it better. Gotta go eat!! :D

[Konstruct]

ok so I think I`m getting closer to defining my problem- Ive fixed everything and all is peachy except the eyebrows.
thier geometry is made up completely of the wrong type of edge.

I`m finding that there are 3 types of edges,
-hard
-soft
-borders
borders seem to be created when a face is deleted. the borders then define the hole that had been created.
my problem is that there is a face inside the borders,- which doesn`t make sense due to what I said above, the borders should be defining a hole, but there is no hole.
basically I need to figure out how to convert the borders, into hard/soft edges.

Ive found that deleting the polygon and appending the hole seems to do the trick, but in the case of the eyebrows, almost the entire geometry is made up of borders. so I`d have to delete the whole thing- which would suck. any ideas?

I really appreciate the help

[b.Schulz]

Can you post a pic or something. I have no idea what you talking about :) I'm still new to poly's myself but I can try and help. Or you can send me the file and I can check it out real quick.

[Maya Ayanami]

is you problem when you try smoothing all of the border edges(the edges with nothing but space on one side and is only touching one face) stay sharp or whatenver you call it.

well if it is then go into the smooth node on you eyebrows or whatever shape you want and turn the "keep border" off. it is easier to find this setting while in the channel box(the lite version of the atribute editor).
and that will make your borders smooth.

and I didn't really get if your first problem was soloved but allways allways whenevever you merge verts allways make sure that they acually merge or else it can get frustrating because you think you did it and you think something else is whack(i say this from personal experience).

hope this helps.

[Konstruct]

ok so its like this:
the red are the borders marked in red are the ones I want to keep.
the borders marked in green are the ones that I want to turn in to hard edges,-
the edges circled in blue are hard edges.- there what I want the edges marked in green to become.

http://sydemedia.com/eyebrows.jpg

[playmesumch00ns]

If you've got border edges on the interior of a mesh then you haven't merged your verts right. Did the merge tool actually work? Border edges are those edges that have only one face attached. They can be a nightmare when poly modelling, so I usually turn the border edge display width right up. If you're merging vertices...

ALWAYS select only 2 vertices, then in the channel editor, under the object name click the "CVs (click to show)" text, you should see the positions of 2 vertices listed here.

Now open up the merge vertices options box and set the distance to something like one (because they'll hardly ever be exactly on top of one another). Click "Apply". There should now be only one vertex displayed in the channel box.

Repeat ad infinitum...

Personally I prefer to use the merge edge tool for sewing meshes together, although if you're modelling chunks of poly's then the merge vertices tool is the only sensible option.

If you're having trouble with your normals, make sure you always click anti-clockwise to create your faces. The direction you click defines the way your normals point - anti-clockwise for out, clockwise for in.

[Konstruct]

yeah see this is where my problem lies. I have a hand full of evil interor edges,- but all of the interior verts are merged, _(I checked each one twice using the method you described which was awesome)
But I still have interior edges. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[augustus]

Try this: Select all edges, and use merge multiple edges command.

[Konstruct]

naw nothing seems to help- oh well, I just decided to delete each face one by one and repair them with the append polly tool. that did the trick but it was a pain in my ass.

anyhoo I wanna thank everyone for thier help, and if anyone needs anything just hollar.

I`m out-

[SpaceFork]

When you take the "chunk" from the sperate model, try freezing transformations on that chunk before you combine and merge verts. I was running into the same sort of problem on a project of mine, but this seemed to keep me from having those internal border edge problems all together.

[b.Schulz]

schweet ...glad you fixed it.

[maular]

I'm sure you've already sorted your problems, but for anyone else who has the same problem (like I just did), make sure your normals are facing the same way. Because the viewport will show faces as two sided, if you haven't got the normals showing (Display, Custom Polygon Display) then it can be easy to miss.

With opposite normals you can have two faces sharing a common border edge. Flip the normals on one and it goes away.

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