Why do 3d Apps have problems with pushing/pulling vertices?

Justo

So this is a quirk of some 3d apps that I never got around to resolving, or rather, I'm doing wrong and I never learned the right way of doing this. 


Sometimes when a shape has some odd angles, any Max function that requires the pushing or pulling of vertices along normals gets bad, because I'm assuming the app is trying to average the normal directions along corners but can't do it correctly for unknown reasons. Or maybe it is, but to my simple human eyeball it looks ugly (and for normal maps too). Sometimes, this is resolved by resetting Xform values. Sometimes, this issue doesn't occur at all. 

Why does this happen exactly? How can I fix these kinds of issues, without having to manually adjust vertices after the pushing? 

Obscura

"Push" or inflate works by multiplying the vertex  coordinate by a number, and by the avegare vertex normal direction. So basically the vertices will go based on the normals. Depending on the shape, and topology, this can cause it to go to a direction that is not exactly what you wanted.

Justo

Thanks for clearing that up Obscura. For simple cases like construction lines, that need to go around objects, but the object itself is a bit complex and the pushing/pulling is not working correctly, what would you do? I can't imagine results like the two right ones on the image above read alright in normal maps; or even more so if you're relying on face weighted normals that will be foreground elements. 

Obscura

In worst case, you can move back those bad verts to a good position. But there must be some other ways. Like you can try the loops tools. It has a function to straighten or relax edges. There is the make planar button as well, but I'm not sure if you can use that on edges.

Obscura

I tried these 2 things and actually they didn't work