Is there away to transform to a specific shape while extruding?

Stu2Prof

Just curious if it is possible to extrude between open boundaries and have the path of polygons make the necessary adjustments to make it fit.

Bartalon

If you select a curve then select your face to extrude, it should follow the path. Add divisions to your extrusion for it to conform to the path.

Make sure in your extrude options "selected" is bubbled under the Curve Settings.

[edit]

I misunderstood what you were asking for :poly142:

If you are attempting to connect holes of different shapes, you may want to look into the Bridge tool. Both holes need to have the same number of edges on both ends or the bridge will fail.

Stu2Prof

It works! Magical! I love that I can do this. Now if only I had something to do with this new information........

LaurentiuN

Sorry for asking to your thread, but in max how can we do this ?

Bartalon

One other thing to mention, if your bridge connects diagonally or spiraled (edge loops not connecting to the other side in the expected order) you can adjust the Bridge Offset value in the Channel Box/Attribute Editor to fix it.

You can also set your Bridge options to use Smooth Path + Curve which allows you to dynamically adjust the bridge. This helps with tight bends or if you want to add some extra bends inbetween. Works with Rebuild Curve as well.

Eric Chadwick

s1dK wrote: »

Sorry for asking to your thread, but in max how can we do this ?

Loft in 3ds Max does this. Plus it will match shapes with uneven # of points. So you can Loft a triangle to a circle to a square for example. Many tools can do this.

Stu2Prof

Sadly doesnt work for more complicated curves

Bartalon

Works for me. Depends on how you're going about it.



As long as you don't delete history after bridging you should be able to rebuild your curve and adjust bridge divisions as many times as you want. In the image above I rebuilt the curve about 10 times and it never lost its path.

LaurentiuN

Thanks Eric, i forgot about loft :P

Stu2Prof

So I did some tests and it seems that after a certain angle the bridge breaks away from the curve regardless of the divisions I put on it. I notice an extra curve line within the bridge that matches the undesired shape which makes me think Maya is saying "nah, I'm just going to make up my own curve thats a lot simpler." Any ideas on how to get Maya to love me again?

Stu2Prof

Also I may just be having a problem with my curve as I did an extrude and it seems to be not adjusting the orientation of the extrude to match the curve

Bartalon

When bridging, a curve is automatically created as a child of your object; you should be manipulating that one and not some other curve you made separate from the bridge operation. It might be possible to substitute the curve it provides with a custom-made one using the Hypershade, but I've never had explore that possibility so I can't say for certain.

Also try rebuilding the curve (3 cubic) one last time after moving the curve points around, you should regain the volume of your shape.

Stu2Prof

It worked! Rebuilding the new curve was the answer. Up until now the curves had been automatically matching the reference curve I was using so I didnt even realise the purpose of the additional curve