combining 2 half spheres to look like one

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

I'm quite new to Maya, so perhpas there is an obvious solution. What I'm trying to do Is this:

I have a slightly deforemed sphere, which I want to open like 2 sliding doors. If I use a polygon sphere, and make 2 half spheres out of it, then smooth it - they do not align to look like one sphere. What would be a solution for this?

If I use an insert edge loop tool it creates a rib on the surface of the sphere and it doesn't look smooth.

Thank you for help in advance.

[damaggio]

Post a snapshot jpg of what u r trying to do..... That will help

[Anonymous]

here is a screen shot. On the left original geometry. On the right is the what I'm trying to achieve. Basically it's like 2 circularly sliding doors, which open the inside of the original geometry. In the middile is what I get If I use a polygon, split it in 2 and use a insert edge loop tool to avoid smoothing at the point of contact, but it's not working so well.

[damaggio]

see if this helps you......once you are done with one half duplicate and mirror to the other side, then set the pivot in the right spot

for each door so they can rotate open.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for you help, but this is not what I meant.

It's not only a matter of matching them up as 2 halfs. I have to smooth the geometry otherwise I see faces of the sphere. When I smooth the 2 pieces they deform. And those two parts together do not look like a whole object, I still see the point of connection. I'd like to make an animation to make those sort of doorts open up, and before the 2 halfs seperate I want it to look like a completely smooth object.

I hope I make myself clear 🙂 It's not so easy to explain

[damaggio]

If you place the edge loops the surface will hold its shape, they would not deform if done right...that's a very easy geometry and you wouldn't see much of the seam between the two spheres....I don't know what else to say, it should work nicely.

[Anonymous]

here is what i get

[damaggio]

Actually Prok I was not able to improve it either, I tried a higher subdivision on the sphere 40x40 and either in poly mode and subD the problem remains, I triead with a mia shader here.

Seem like a surface like that will always display that ugly light transition, no matter what the normal values are .

Maybe with the texturing and bump map this thing will not be that much visible.....Unless someone on the forum chimes in with a better solution...

[_sebastian_f]

main problem here are the normals which get slightly different angles when you separate the 2 halfes and for this you see the seem in the shading.
what i would do is:
keep it as one object, merge the vertecis along the seem, smooth to desired level, soften your edges, LOCK NORMALS, seperate again in two, don´t touch the normals anymore and don´t smooth the object again. should be seemless now.

[damaggio]

Thanks Sebastian, looked like a good solution but it did not work on my test, I locked the egg shape sphere at 30,then tried with soften edges "which is a lot higher"...then low at 15 and locked the normals...then ,separated the haves and they both turned black at the bottom because of the locked normals , deleted history, it renders just like the viewport , bottom all black....don't know why but it kinda worked on both separated haves on the top part of geo.

Have you actually tried that and succeeded?

[damaggio]

I did another test and i think it works, I did not use the Mesh>separate extracted faces....I copy the sphere with the normals locked then deleted the right  on one and the left on the other...than it worked.

[_sebastian_f]

hi damaggio,

interesting find! in my test i honestly just selected the center edge > detach components and than did a separate. which worked. when i just select half of the faces and extract them it screws up the normals again. i´m about to call that a bug.

so either detach the edge and separate or like you did duplicate and delete half of each mesh.

[damaggio]

Great Sebastian, will save this to remind myself in the future.

[Anonymous]

Great!!!! Thanks guys. So the solution is: create a sphere, dublicate. Lock normals on both, then delete opposite halfs on each.

[Anonymous]

The prolem I'm ning into now is that the edge of the sphere is also smoothed. But I want the edge to be sharp.

So Waht I do it this I create a sphere, I extrude faces to give it thickness, then I bring the insert edge loop on at the middle meridian of the sphere on it's surface and I immideately get the same problem as before even before splitting the sphere. The normals are locked as well. How do I go about this?

[_sebastian_f]

will be more or less the same as described before. create your half-sphere, smooth it, add thickness, lock normals, duplicate, delete half of each duplicate, on the new open boarder fill holes, done.

[Anonymous]

to make edge sharp i need to bring in edge loops, which the same problem. How can I make an edge sharp and keep the surface seemlessly smooth?

[_sebastian_f]

do it in the correct order. smooth before you separate in the two halfes.

[Anonymous]

Hi, I'm having a similar issue smoothly placing 2 separate meshes together.

One solution that may be of use to you is:

1) duplicate your sphere so you have 2.

2) use edit mesh > assign invisible faces to hide half of each of your spheres

3) now, in effect you have 2 halves but they share exactly the same geometry and should smooth perfectly

The lock-normals technique should also work but it's fiddly to do.