Is there an alternative to using Booleans in Maya

BARDLER

Every time I use a Boolean to cut a hole in a mesh with a beveled edge it destroys my polygon mesh leaving tears at all the corners, and at two of the edges.

I searched all over the google to try to find a way to prevent tears when using Booleans but it seems impossible from what I have read. So is there is a better way to cut holes in geometry then using Booleans? Or do you know a magical way to stop Booleans from ruing my work?

gabby64

My suggestion is try not to use booleans EVER. They are just too unstable, causing weird un fixable problems down the line. There is always a way in Maya to model something without using a boolean.

Try deleting a polygon, and build a hole from that by repositioning verticies. It's slow and tedious but you will have more control over your work. Bridge and extrude tools are your best bet.

iconoplast

I'm not as familiar as I'd like to be with Maya, but I can tell you how I do it in Max as I'm fairly sure the tools are similar enough.

Make a new object with the shape you want to have as a hole. Place it on the far side of the surface you want to cut. Turn on snapping to vertex (iirc you do this with the v key in Maya). Cut new lines on your mesh (I think you use split polygon for this) -- having vertex snapping on will place your cuts on the points of the guide mesh.

This still requires some cleanup when you're done, but it's a lot less than booleans tend to give you. I am assuming that snapping to vertex will do so for all objects and not just your active one as it does in Max, but I've never done it myself in Maya so no promises...

Mark Dygert

Yea not in front of Maya right now to try this out but its similar to iconoplast's idea.

Place the verts of the cutting object on the surface of the main mesh, remove the polys in both and bridge or create new polys that respect the hole.

rooster

I don't really agree with never using booleans, sometimes they can be handy

first thing to check bardler, have you deleted the history on both objects you want to use?

actually, the FIRST first thing, is: are you using closed meshes for your boolean objects?

LMP

A senior modeler at massive black told me that booleans are hold overs from the old days before they had better methods of modeling. He Never uses booleans anymore (he used to, when we didn't know better), he uses a guide mesh and snaps verts when he wants to make a hole.

bugo

booleans work, here's 2 tips for it:

1 - delete your history.
2 - Makes sure that inbetween the meshes you have one edge at least where it's going to unify or etc.
2 - have one of the meshes filling the whole thing, this way it wont disappear. What I mean is, have at least one of the meshes to NOT be opened where its going to boolean.