maya modelling problem with extrution

[AndreNL]

Hi there,

Well I am really new to maya so learning maya.com is the place to be :D
I am modelling a creature, but I first made the head. Than I extruded the last edges to continue with the body, but I am getting this really werid image when I smooth the mesh to check it out.

well the extrution worked, but all the vertexes where loose so I merged them all together (only the extruded part) But when I smooth the mesh to check it out I am getting this really weird looking well vold if you like. I attached some pictures. Does somebody knows what it is..??


http://members.home.nl/a.ferwerda/low1.jpg
not smoothed yet everything appears to be fine.


http://members.home.nl/a.ferwerda/hi1.jpg
and there is te weird looking stuff.

http://members.home.nl/a.ferwerda/hi2.jpg

another picture.

thnx,

Andre

[floze]

Maybe try turning off the 'Keep Hard Edges' option in your smooth node. If this helps but you get unwanted results, smooth the creased edges by selecting them and going to 'edit polygons>normals>soften/harden||angle = 180'
And maybe you could post a shaded pic of the unsmoothened mesh without the wires on it. Cant see if there are hard edges on it. Hope that helps.:)

[DramaticDigital]

I don't think this has anything to do with hard edges, thats just a display thing. When you're in the face selection mask, make sure there aren't any 2 point polys in there.
To make the faces stay together when extruding go to polygons>tool options>keep faces together

[floze]

Maybe I wasnt precise enough. Here's a pic to illustrate my point showing the options of the polysmooth node.
By the way: whats a 2 point poly? The definition of a 'poly'-gon doesnt permit any surfaces having less then 3 points. A 'face' with 2 points would be a line. This is what maya says if you tried to make a 2 point poly: '// Error: Cannot validate : face must be at least a triangle. //'
Nonetheless I do agree with you, DramaticDigital, that the topology might be messed up.

[shiroii]

Check if you've got double faces. Maybe you pressed extrude face twice and there are 2 faces on top of eachother, I've had that sometimes.

Check the normals. The normals might be flipped. I had this when I made this character. I made the face, but everything was a sepereate surface. I had the same problem you had, it looked like she was wearing a mask.Because the surfaces were different, the normals were different and the smoothed version got screwed. Check out the normals and reverse them if necesarry.

[DramaticDigital]

Yaarrr! you got me there mate! I've know about that setting but have never used it. I'm still doubting its the problem in this case but would be something to check. ;)

[shiroii]

Now I'm curious in what it was :p
Quick post the ultimate solution AndreNL! :D

[DramaticDigital]

I'm actually thinking it's the "keep hard edges" thingy in the smooth node because its hard down the centerline. What was the problem Andre? Did it have anything to do with "lines" in your mesh? :D