Maya 2018 - Cannot locate Soft/Harden edges tool

uberphoenix

Hello!

I am currently following a tutorial from a Patreon artist I follow. He is using a tool called Soft/Harden Edges which is under Mesh Display. I am using Maya 2018 and I can only see it as Soften Edge or Harden Edge. The Soften Edge tool seems to soften it too much more so than in the tutorial.

I know there is a similar named tool in Display > Polygon > Soft/Hard edges but it doesn't appear to do anything to my model

https://puu.sh/BaZO7/b88c39a024.png - Standard model

https://puu.sh/BaZP3/a6f63881c0.png - Soften edges turned on

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

throttlekitty

You're saying that this option is missing? You can also get there with shift+ right click on your model. If both are gone, you may need to delete your preferences file then start maya up again; but that's a last resort thing usually. The display option is just for uh, display purposes.

For soften/harden, I like to start with an angle of 32 and go from there.

SonicBlue

The Soften/Harden Edges tool, does its operation based on an angle, the default value is 30°. In your case it may be setted to a different value, or simply the polygons are at a different angle than the video you are following, hence the different results.

Select the square at the right of the operation name, or SHIFT+LMB it to open the option box, then select Edit-->Reset Settings.

You can also manually set the Hard/Soft Edges.

uberphoenix

throttlekitty said:

You're saying that this option is missing? You can also get there with shift+ right click on your model. If both are gone, you may need to delete your preferences file then start maya up again; but that's a last resort thing usually. The display option is just for uh, display purposes.

For soften/harden, I like to start with an angle of 32 and go from there.

Hi! Thanks for responding, yes I can't see that option at all. I'll try what you suggested

Alex_J

I don't believe soft/hard tool is related to any plugins, so I can't imagine why it would just be flat out disappeared, but maybe try going to windows > plugin manager and cycling all the plugins on. Sometimes stuff like unfold3d and fbx exporter will get turned off for random reasons and you have to do that. 

Also, make sure you are in the modeling settings, not rigging or animation or anything else.