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View Full Version : how to cut a curved line into a mesh?


shiver
08-03-2003, 05:20 PM
can someone tell me the best way to cut a curved
line into a plane which has been converted
to an editable mesh?
I tried just drawing a curved spline but had
trouble merging it into the surface of the plane.
I wasn't too sure how to do it so I attached it
and then use boolean -unify but ended up just
adding the verts from the spline to the plane.
I can go to sub object -poly and cut straight
lines but cutting curved lines doesn't seem
possible this way.

Schwinnz
08-03-2003, 06:17 PM
Try cutting it in Editable Poly mode instead of Editable Mesh mode. I think this should work.

shiver
08-03-2003, 07:08 PM
I give it a try. ;)

shiver
08-03-2003, 07:38 PM
it doesn't seem to work that way either.

Jenn
08-03-2003, 07:57 PM
Try extruding the spline first, then use boolean.

shiver
08-03-2003, 08:18 PM
just out of curiousity, why do think extruding
the spline will help?
I'm thinking maybe I should convert to nurbs
because the verts are different from those
in an editable mesh and will allow for curved
segments.
I'm trying to make a game level and the part I'm working on is the ground plane. I have an
airstrip which is just a couple of columns
of polys but I want to make one end be rounded
as an area where a plane would taxi to in order
to turn around.

Jenn
08-03-2003, 08:25 PM
Why are you modeling that? I may have misunderstood your description but the way I read it that sounds like something you would texture instead of model.

I know from past experience that by extruding a closed spline and then using boolean on a flat plane creates a kind of cut out...like a cardboard cut out or paper dolls. I believe that the key to why this works is that the object is now wider than the flat plane so exact placement isn't necessary. You may, however, need to clean up the mesh after the boolean operation.

shiver
08-03-2003, 09:03 PM
that makes sense.
some games give players the tools needed to
build their own characters, vehicles and game
levels. In this case 3dsm is required, and if you have that,then you just install special plugin's
and you're ready to start building. So that's what I'm doing.
I'm building a game level to share w/ others that
like to play this particular game.
The game developers use 3dsm as well for this
game.
Well, after thinking about it for a while,
I decided to sub divide the polys into much
smaller polys and selected a "U" formation
from them to try and give the illusion of the
end of the runway being somewhat rounded.
I got the idea after thinking about how a curve
is done w/ polys to create a sphere.
THe edges of a poly are always straight lines.
They don't support curves. But, like w/ a sphere,
you can give the illusion of an object having curves by increasing the number of sides it has.
So that's what I tried to do. It doesn't look
as nice as an actual curved line but it will
suit the purpose well enough.

Thanks to you both for helping me. ;)