Thicken (shell) accurately?

[Duron]

I dont know how to use "Set Volume". I just use FFD 2x2x2 very often.

It would be great if someone explain how to use Set volume.

[EquiNOX]

You know... I am not really understanding what you are aiming for whatever you try to do most of case, it would never give u perfect result with tools you try to use, sometime you'd have to do it manually.... However I may have solution for you....

You could either:

Clone the geometry (at backward) then select the duplicated geometry. Under selection, select polygon and highlight entire polyface. Hit on Inset button and choose amount you wanted. it will create "outline boarder" select them, and delete it. Then, you will have minus ratio geometry from the original. you could attach the original together and bridge them if necessary

-OR-

You could clone (at forward), then select the duplicated geometry. Under selection select polygon and highlight the entire poly face. Hit Outline button and it will create plus ratio geometry from the original. You could attach them together and bridge them if necessary.

Isn't that what you are looking for...Hope that help.

[Pan3sar]

Set Volume allows you to move, scale and rotate the effective area of deformation. Also you might be able to use certain vertices only by selecting the verts you want to deform in the edit poly modifier, hit the drop down pick your fdd of choice, and hopefully it will only affect the selected verts. I could be wrong there, in which case use what I said first.

[Playdo]

@ Equinox: Both of those methods still need to be scaled inwards/outwards before bridging. It's the scaling that hasn't given me the results I'm after. I don't think it's possible without manually repositioning certain verts after. It's just a bit of a pain if I spend a while getting nice curves on a high poly shape, only to have to do it again for the outer layer.

@Pan3sar: You just described what Lattice does. Set Volume is suppose to allow you to move individual verts to create a custom-shaped lattice. I couldn't get it to work and after reading certain threads elsewhere, I don't think the tool's ever worked like it's documented in Max Help.

@Duron: You said "Remodel surface and get this correct" - do you have any tips for this?

[Skrips]

Playdo, I know what your frustrations are. I come from a technical engineering background and it was painful for me when I realized that most polygon modeling softwares are simply NOT meant for acuracy, per se. They are generally meant for free-frorm modeling, and artistic expression with an angle on simplicity or organic form.

Now, regarding your problem, Max does not, to the best of my knowledge, have what you are looking for. To be clear, you are wanting to add thikness to a a polygon object, with uniform x-y-z scaling, so the end resut will have prefectly squared edges as you would have if you were working with sheetmetal. Am I right? If I am, then you simply wont find it, especially when working with complex shapes.

The one solution I have found is simply apprach 3D modeling from a completely different perspective: I am now learning Alias Design, simply because NURBS and Class-A surfacing ARE meant to be technically perfect, which is what I was striving for all along but could not achieve using a polygon modeling tool.

Hope I shed some light on the problem for you, and im sorry to disappoint, but the solution you want doesnt exist.

[ravenzep]

Poly modelling is perfectly fine for visualisation purposes. When well modelled, of course.
Actually when u render nurbs, you get them tesselated into polys anyway, so the POLY issue will always be part of the equation.


Regards

[Skrips]

Poly modelling is perfectly fine for visualisation purposes. When well modelled, of course.
Actually when u render nurbs, you get them tesselated into polys anyway, so the POLY issue will always be part of the equation.


Regards

Well, yes, of course they are tesselated :P
I simply was trying to say that, in-so-far as precision is concerned, NURBS offers a much more in depth control over how the surfaces actually come out.