Honeycomb Sphere

#1

Having difficulty finding out where to find, or how to create a honeycomb sphere like this:

I realise the sphere cannot be made fully of hexagons, and will need pentagons to be complete.
I am using Maya, but any format or way I can get one of these into Maya will be fine.

Any help will be much appreciated!

  • Glenn
#2

Try the GeoSphere script

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/geospheres

#3

Here is a simple workflow that works:

  1. Create platonic solid: icosahedron
  2. Mesh: smooth
    method LINEAR
    divisionLevels 1
    divisions per face 2
    pushStrength .25
    roundness 4
  3. Select All Edges
  4. Create:sets:quick select set
  5. Select sphere again, then Mesh: smooth
    method = exponential
    division levels = 1
  6. Edit: quick select sets:set
    hit delete key to get rid of edges not part of the second smooth
  7. Select all verts and delete
    (gets rid of verts in middle of edges)
  8. Normals: harden edge

That’s it. You could in increase div per face in the first smooth if you wanted more hexagons.

The fun thing is that step 3-8 can be used to hexagonalize any mesh of triangles.

#4

And Here is script that automates the hexagonalization:

global proc hexagonalize(){

	string $sl[] = `ls -sl -dag -type mesh`;
	string $mesh;

	for( $mesh in $sl ){	
		polyTriangulate -ch 1 $mesh;
		select -r $mesh;
		PolySelectConvert 2;
		sets -n hexagonalizeEdges;
		select -r $mesh;
		polySmooth  -mth 0 -dv 1 -bnr 1 -c 1 -kb 1 -ksb 1 -khe 0 -kt 1 -kmb 1 -suv 1 -peh 0 -sl 1 -dpe 1 -ps 0.1 -ro 1 -ch 1;
		select -r hexagonalizeEdges;
		doDelete;
		select -r $mesh;
		PolySelectConvert 3;
		doDelete;	
		polySoftEdge -a 0 -ch 1 $mesh;
		delete hexagonalizeEdges;
	}

}
#5

Simple workflow?!

#6

Which part was difficult?

#7

Cool beans! Thanks a lot for that workflow, Duncan! :thumbsup:

Cheers!

#8

You can use combination of GeoSphere script and method that Duncan suggested.

With GeoSphere make TriSphere so with this you can skip first part of Duncan said with linear smoothing and give you perhaps more easier control over subdivision of a sphere…and then just fallow from 3. step.

Thanks for tip! :wink:

#9

Thanks all for the great input, It’s great having such a large community of people willing to help!

Cheers Panupat for the script, it’s a great quick and easy way to create the shapes I am after, and thank you also Duncan, which also helped greatly in going the extra step in removing the inside unwanted edges.

You’re all wonderful!

  • Glenn
#10

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