welding adds edges

dot_batdot_bat Posts: 373
edited December 2012 in Carrara Discussion

i have created a cylinder. scaled 4 edge loops from the top, weld and i get new edges as indicated in green and some edges on top loop are unselected and some have disappeared. I havent added any geometry. What gives? Thanx in advance

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Post edited by dot_bat on

Comments

  • GarstorGarstor Posts: 1,411
    edited December 1969

    Can you explain everything you did. I see 20 edges around the rim on the left and only 16 edges on the right. I don't think edges were added here.

  • dot_batdot_bat Posts: 373
    edited December 1969

    Thanx, what i did was just create a cylinder in the VM, selected 3 faces down all around and scaled with scale tool. thats right i lost some edges after welding and it created edges. see green on right. what am i doing wrong

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001
    edited December 1969

    dot_bat said:
    Thanx, what i did was just create a cylinder in the VM, selected 3 faces down all around and scaled with scale tool. thats right i lost some edges after welding and it created edges. see green on right. what am i doing wrong

    If you had 20 edges around the top, to start with and 16 when you were done...that's where the 'extras' on the rest of the item came from...those 4 'missing' edges from around the top.

    I'm not quite sure what you are doing wrong, but it looks like you aren't scaling things evenly. If you were, then it wouldn't collapse the edges and all the vertices would still be equidistant. When you weld (in most modellers) it collapses two 'close' vertices into one...and there's usually a preset distance for this, but it doesn't really matter. If you scale something, unevenly, then some vertices will be closer than others and may then fall within the distance of what is counted as 'weldable vertices'.

    You are going to need to find a way to scale what you want so it scales evenly...

    Here's how I would build it in Blender, to give you some idea of what I'm talking about (making sure you keep the edge count the same).

    I'd start with a circle and extrude it up several times for the 'body' of the item. The, for the 'neck', with the edge loop still selected, I'd scale it down, before the next extrusion. Then I'd extrude up a couple of more times. Then I'd close off the top and bottom (a couple of different ways to do that). But the key is, making sure that when you scale, for the neck, you do so evenly.

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  • DBuchterDBuchter Posts: 70
    edited December 2012

    dot_bat said:
    i have created a cylinder. scaled 4 edge loops from the top, weld and i get new edges as indicated in green and some edges on top loop are unselected and some have disappeared. I havent added any geometry. What gives? Thanx in advance

    Welding merges points, as I'm sure you know, and the function has multiple options. It the image attached, I have selected four points and have chosen to "Weld Selected Verticies" which takes all the selected points, finds their center-point and merges them into one point at that centerpoint.

    It sort of looks like you tried to select the entire model and weld it? Not going to get great results with that.

    Perhaps you are trying to decimate, tesselate, subdivide or triangulate your model? In the modeler view, you will find those functions under the "Model" menu.

    [EDIT]: You will notice that in my example I have created four non-planar polygons - you alway want to fix that.

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    Post edited by DBuchter on
  • dot_batdot_bat Posts: 373
    edited December 1969

    I will try the extrude as you have done and redo the cylinder [pretty sure i scaled evenly but i'll try again]. thanx for replies back later with results

  • dot_batdot_bat Posts: 373
    edited December 1969

    mjc1016 said:
    dot_bat said:
    Thanx, what i did was just create a cylinder in the VM, selected 3 faces down all around and scaled with scale tool. thats right i lost some edges after welding and it created edges. see green on right. what am i doing wrong

    If you had 20 edges around the top, to start with and 16 when you were done...that's where the 'extras' on the rest of the item came from...those 4 'missing' edges from around the top.

    I'm not quite sure what you are doing wrong, but it looks like you aren't scaling things evenly. If you were, then it wouldn't collapse the edges and all the vertices would still be equidistant. When you weld (in most modellers) it collapses two 'close' vertices into one...and there's usually a preset distance for this, but it doesn't really matter. If you scale something, unevenly, then some vertices will be closer than others and may then fall within the distance of what is counted as 'weldable vertices'.

    You are going to need to find a way to scale what you want so it scales evenly...

    Here's how I would build it in Blender, to give you some idea of what I'm talking about (making sure you keep the edge count the same).

    I'd start with a circle and extrude it up several times for the 'body' of the item. The, for the 'neck', with the edge loop still selected, I'd scale it down, before the next extrusion. Then I'd extrude up a couple of more times. Then I'd close off the top and bottom (a couple of different ways to do that). But the key is, making sure that when you scale, for the neck, you do so evenly.

    yes i selected the whole model and welded. i wanted to merge any duplicate vertices, no good?

  • JoeMamma2000JoeMamma2000 Posts: 2,615
    edited December 2012

    dot_bat said:
    yes i selected the whole model and welded. i wanted to merge any duplicate vertices, no good?

    It's fine to select the entire model and weld, as long as:

    1. You have a really good reason to do it (ie, you suspect there really are unnecessary duplicate vertices), and

    2. You have the tolerance set correctly

    Based on what you said you did, and based on normal modelling practices, you shouldn't need to do any welding to remove dups when you're building a new model. Maybe if you import a trashy model, or for some other reason, but normally it shouldn't be needed.

    Doing any modelling operation that isn't needed is just asking for trouble. If you really suspect duplicates, then make certain you have the correct tolerance setting. Otherwise you'll weld points that you don't want to weld.

    Unfortunately, Carrara is really, really bad in providing tools and information to repair bad/duplicate/whatever points and polygons, so there's a bit of guesswork in mesh repair. OTOH, some apps actually TELL you when you have duplicate points. What a concept, huh? :)

    Post edited by JoeMamma2000 on
  • DBuchterDBuchter Posts: 70
    edited December 1969

    I pretty much agree with JoeMama (not necessarily yo mama). As he said, if your goal is to make sure there are no duplicate points, you can use weld with the thresholds , but this seems extremely uncommon unless, like JoeMama said, you imported some trashed model. If you created it yourself, I can't really imagine much of a reason for this.

    So after you manipulated the four "edge loops" what made you think that points were duplicated to prompt you to use the Weld tool? They should have been fine.

  • dot_batdot_bat Posts: 373
    edited December 1969

    After scaling i had no more continuous edge loops, welding fixed them in other models. all i did was scale 4 rows of edges. if after welding it didnt add any vertices the model should have remained the same, no?

  • RoguePilotRoguePilot Posts: 239
    edited December 2012

    Simply scaling will not add any more geometry or break anything. I don't know why you are saying it is breaking your edge loops. If you mean that the edge selection stops at the angle caused by the scaling, then that's normal and is adjustable in the options.

    I think you're also mis-understanding what weld does.

    Welding removes verteces by combining the selection into one. Some modellers default to welding within a distance tolerance, or have a separate function for cleaning up duplicates and auto welding them.

    In Carrara that is all under one function as you have discovered. By choosing 'weld all selected' the 'middle point' between all points will be calculated and all the points will be combined into that. You could collapse the entire model into one point.

    For cleaning up a model you must select the tolerance option based on the closest valid distance between verteces on your model, although this still respects the vertex selection so you can target it more accurately.

    Edit: Sorry, I forgot that Carrara does have a 'remove duplicate points' and 'merge coplanar faces' option under the model menu. I knew I'd used it in some apps, couldn't remember which ones.

    Post edited by RoguePilot on
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