What am I doing wrong? - with poly modelling

[Matt Leishman]

I teach a Maya Basics class, and I know exactly what the problem is . .

go under the polygons menu (not the edit polygons menu), down to tool options. now toggle ON "keep faces together".

that'll fix it!!

happy modelling!!

[Troy]

I thought so too - but Keep faces together was on...and the problem still occurs.

thanks anyway


?

[Matt Leishman]

wow, that usually is the culprit when weird stuff like that happens with poly modeling in Maya, hmmm . . . . . .

well, the only othe thing I can think of is that some of your faces may have their normals pointing the wrong direction, although I can't be sure that reversing the normals of those particular faces will fix all your problems.

Another general rule of thumb that I follow when modeling in Maya (modeling with polys), is that when there are issues that just don't seem to be fixing with any of the tools you are using, export that geometry out as a .dxf. then re-import that same .dxf geometry into the file, or a new file (whatever turns your crank), and just that process of doing that really helps clean up the geometry like magic!!

just a tip I guess.

[dmcgrath]

I can't really tell from your picture exactly what it is. But I would guess that you have extra faces overlapping each other, or something like extra vertices where you didn't think you did.
Usually this happens when you extrude twice without moving the first extrusion. Like sith said, the keep face together option should be on to help you. But if you are going through an extrusion process, and say you hit the G key to repeat the last command, maybe every once in a while you hit it twice by accident.
Then poly cleanup of exporting it to DXF won't help much.

To troubleshoot this problem, I have done the same thing many times as well, you need to see where it looks messed up on your smooth. Then delete the polySmoothFace command you just did, and just go through the geometry around that area. Check face counts and vert counts. Bring up the Poly Count in the Heads Up Display area. It will make it easy to see. If you think you are selecting only two faces and you see 3 in the HUD then you know where your problem spots are.

Good luck.


-dan

[Troy]

I'll have a go...


thanks alot for the help.

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