topic Re: Help trying to merge/join spheres in 3ds Max Modeling Forum

Help trying to merge/join spheres

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 09:23:36 GMT

I am creating a model of a spaceship made up largely of intersecting spheres. To keep the model all as quads, I opted to create cube primitives, then apply the opensubdiv modifier with a couple of iterations, followed by the spherify modifier. I have blocked out the model nicely enough, but now I am trying to merge all of the separate spheres into a single mesh object.
I have tried using the proboolean > union operand but the intersection keeps coming out very wobbly (see attached pictures)

. I know a lot of manual clean up is needed after a boolean operation, but before I spend ages doing it that way I thought it best to check if I am approaching this task the right way.
Does anyone have any better ideas on how to accomplish this?

Thanks, Tom

Re: Help trying to merge/join spheres

PROH — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 16:04:24 GMT

Hi. If you're modeling the outside of the spaceship only, then you could simply attach the spheres - maybe after deleting some of the unnecessary faces/polygons.

If you need to model the inside as well, and therefore needs to use the Boolean tools, then you should definately use a denser mesh (2x at least) to get a smooth transition between the spheres.

Hope it helps

Re: Help trying to merge/join spheres

oliver — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 17:03:57 GMT

I would start with spheres instead of cubes - this way i get a corresponding edgeflow --> picture 1. Instead of using Boolean i would then simply cut away the overlapping polygons and attach the the two spheres. It's also possible to a certain extent to slide polygons on the object's surface (Face Constraint + Soft Selection) --> picture 2.

Picture 1: left: spheres ; right: cubes with spherify-modifier

Picture 2: Sphere's left side treated with Soft Selection & Face Constraint (polygons rotated around parent's coordinate system)

Re: Help trying to merge/join spheres

Anonymous — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 17:29:26 GMT

Thankyou for the advice, I will take both of these responses into account when I have another go at modelling it!