Subdivision Issues

Comments

9 comments

  • Dale

    Hi Robert - I don't fully understand what you are trying to achieve.  If your goal is to extrude the letters, why are you subdividing them?  Why not just use push / pull to extrude the letters?

    Do you have an example image or photo of the type of model you are hoping to generate?

    Artisan subdivision is intended for quads or triangles, not complex ngons like these letters.  However, you can try manually dividing using the Knife tool prior to running the subdivision tools in order to divide the letters into smaller convex ngons.  You will get more predictable results that way.

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  • Robert Scott Myers

    Well I was trying to avoid a "flat" extrusion, so that the thickness of the letters would look more "crumbly" like the overall design... almost as if each letter looked more like terrain, or at the very least somewhat lumpy. I had limited success dividing each one into segments as you suggested but overall, the shapes might just be too complex.

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  • Dale

    For what you are trying to achieve, you should be looking at the sculpt tools instead.  

    https://support.mindsightstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/16907402106515-Basic-Sculpting

    You'll want to start with a simple model for the letter (without the bumps), then use the sculpt tools to add the bumps and crumbly appearance.  Of course, it helps if the letters are highly subdivided prior to sculpting.  Again, you should try doing this by running the knife tool prior to subdividing.  This is what I mean:

    If the letters are within a group or component, make sure that you select the group / component prior to running the subdivide command (don't select individual faces).  The current version of Artisan 2 (2.1.1) has a bug if you run subdivide on selected faces inside a group / component.

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  • Robert Scott Myers

    Excellent, thank you! 

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  • Robert Scott Myers

    On to another project, still having trouble understanding the subdivision/sculpting. 

    I'm trying to create a hollow cylinder with an undulating edge:

    I'm using the Sculpt tool and holding down Shift to keep things perfectly vertical. As you can see above, this is working for the most part, but there are secondary issues, like the random straight lines and lines being pulled from below. In the above, I'm editing a component but I've also tried exploding the shape and subdividing all of the faces and am still getting imperfect results:

    I've re-watched tutorials and searched the manual again but just don't understand how to overcome these glitches.

    Thanks for any help! 

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  • Dale

    This is a very difficult mesh for sculpting.  Sculpting is for clean triangulated meshes.  I think a better workflow would be to subdivide the mesh using the 'Subdivide' feature and then use the Artisan move tool with soft selection activated to deform the top of the cylinder.

    https://support.mindsightstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/12085136343955-Artisan-Move

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  • Robert Scott Myers

    Thanks Dale.

    I actually figured out another way to make it work by exploding the shape and deleting the inner/upper/lower faces. I was then able to use the Sculpt tool on the outer face alone and it worked perfectly.

    Once I formed the proper undulations, I employed Joint Push/Pull to extrude the shape back into place!

     

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  • Dale

    OK cool!  But you could have probably used the Artisan 2 extrude tool to thicken the object instead of JPP.  Did you ever try that?

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  • Robert Scott Myers

    Ah! I could have!

    I had asked for help on the Sketchup Forum as well and someone recommended JPP.

    Will definitely try to remember Artisan 2 in the future, since everything is in one place ;)

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