Unconstrained Bevels?

#1

Hey guys,

So for the first time in a while I find myself doing logo work, and so am finally getting around to using the new caps and bevels introduced in R21. They are very nice functionally, but there seems to be a missing key feature, unless I have just failed to stumble upon it.

The legacy caps and bevels for Extrudes had the option to ‘constrain’ the bevel so that the overall footprint would not change as you applied bevels (or fillets as they were called then). Sometimes a nice result from a stacked sort of logo could be achieved by leaving constrained unchecked to get a sort of extended beveled backplate feel.

The system introduced in R21 seems to be stuck in this ‘constrain’ mode, and is robust enough to give you all sorts of options without collisions and such and that’s all very nice, but what do I do if I want those fat unconstrained bevels? The Bevel Outside option seems like it would do it, but no… the effect is very different. Extended Shape still retains the constrained nature of the new tool, and I am left wondering if that functionality was simply removed entirely, and if so, why? If I bring in an older file with extrudes, it still has that option until I click the Migrate button, so I know the underlying functionality still exists.

Right now, I feel I only have 2 options. 1, do pieces of the logo that need that sort of treatment in R20 and bring them over (which with 120+ logos to do can and will get tedious fast), OR, the only other thing I can think to do is to use Create Outlines to extend the spline out and use the newer extrudes, but I feel like I will hit some walls pretty fast with more complex shapes present in some logos.

So, am I missing something? If the function has been deprecated has someone filled the void with a plugin in the last couple of years?

Thanks in advance
- WIllie

#2

Can you present an image of the desired effect ?
I too had to maipulate an extrude on a complex spline and was quite confident that “limit” whould not create overblown geometry. Maybe I am mistaken thinking that whould not happen on previous releases.

#3

Hi Demis,

I was prepared to do exactly that at the end of my shift in a couple of hours. However, I did also present this issue to Maxon Support and just received a reply that my issue may well be related to a bug involving the ‘Bevel Outside’ function, and it is being addressed for R23 SP1.

Beyond giving me peace of mind that I am neither crazy nor dealing with an odd deprecation, it still leaves me in a lurch with so many logos to process. But, at least there is hope on the horizon.

Thanks so much for your response, I do truly appreciate it. I will try to remember to update this thread once SP-1 hits and I see if it does in fact fix the issue,

Cheers

  • Willie
#4

Following up as promised… The SP1 update released today did indeed resolve the issue I was having.

Yay!