Go Back   AC3D Forums > Resources > AC3D Tutorials and How-To's
Register FAQ Members List Calendar Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 14th February 2013, 12:37 AM   #1
blackjak
Member
Advanced member
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 32
Default Boolean knife and cutaway

Why does this function add so many verts and surfs? All I want is to cut a square.

Is there any way to lessen this?

blackjak is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14th February 2013, 02:54 AM   #2
Mossie
Senior Member
Professional user
 
Mossie's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 369
Default Re: Boolean knife and cutaway

I've never found a way to reduce this result. Sometimes it takes so long to adjust the result it would be easier to create the shapes a different way.
__________________
Regards, Gerry "Mossie" Mos
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
WW1 Aircraft Library
http://ww1-aircraft.info/

Mossie 3D CAD, "Prompt and Precise"
http://mossie3dcad.com/
Mossie is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14th February 2013, 01:23 PM   #3
Stiglr
Senior Member
Professional user
 
Stiglr's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 604
Default Re: Boolean knife and cutaway

Mossie speaks the truth: booleans are almost never worth it. You'll spend more time cleaning up the mess you create with that so-called "instant operation" than if you did it "manually".

Find an imaginative way to produce the same result, while maintaining a tidy model.

Here's one example... When building aircraft wings, I almost always have to cut out irregularly shaped wheelbay openings. Here's one area where, *if* it would really work, it'd be ideal to do a boolean cut.

But, the way I approach it is:

1) The wheel well. I'll create a disc which has the same number of sides as the wheel I'll later put inside the well. I'll place it below the wing geometry and go to wireframe mode. Then, working in the "bottom" view, I'll use the disc as a visual tracing guide, and use the knife tool and adding new vertices to cut surfaces and arrange vertexes in the same places along the wing as where my tracing guide (and aircraft 3-view) suggests. And as I'm doing this, I can identify areas to combine or split to create the neatest solution for the shapes that I can. When I'm finished, I'll have the wheel well, the bay doors and any other cuts in the wing neatly outlined, so they're easy to intrude into the wing (to create the wells) and to separate and thicken the doors (that will later be attached to the landing gear stalks themselves).

This might take a good 15 mins or half an hour... but contrast that to the HOURS I've spent trying to clean up the mess caused by a single boolean cut of the same complexity... and even then, wasn't 100% sure I'd fixed all the problems (which would crop up much later, when trying to optimize a model for import into a game engine).
__________________
Flight Sim Project Contributor

My Gaming Rig:
i5 2500K Quad-Core CPU at 3.3GHz
MSI P67A-C43 mobo
4GB of PC12800 DDR3 memory
Windows 7
1GB Galaxy GeForce GTX550 Ti video card GeForce 270.61 drivers (4/2011)
Cougar joystick/throttle combo
CH Pedals
Stiglr is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15th February 2013, 01:43 AM   #4
blackjak
Member
Advanced member
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 32
Default Re: Boolean knife and cutaway

Thanks, I wish it was more efficient than that because it could be a really nice tool.
blackjak is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:28 AM.


AC3D Forum
(C) Inivis Limited 2020