Cap or not to cap, that is the question

[matt_jukes77]

Hello all, Happy Saturday,

Like my first post, I'm not looking for a solution, but more guidance on how I may be best suited to fulfil my desired objective.

Below you will see a brief overview of my project. Left to Right > Outer Car Door Panel > Inner Door Body > Window Cut-Out

Scene Overview

The Outer Door piece is an Edit Poly with OpenSubDiv modifier and another Edit Poly on top so I can extrude the panel a small amount. 

I'm sure you can work out how these three pieces come together to make the whole, but before I attempt my method, I need to "fill" or cap the inside of the Outer Door i.e. cap the edges created by the extruded panels.

Extrude Panels

The problem I have of course is that the Outer Door is a complex poly, with numerous segments. Just capping it doesn't work (I appreciate that Capping may not be the right course here hence my question) 

Hopefully, I've not been overly confusing, but if you have any ideas I would be happy to give them a try.

Thanks in advance,
Matt

[RobH2]

I'm assuming you are wanting to make a proper quad poly and as you know a cap just won't produce that. There is a 3rd party capping tool I've used for years for things like this. It's called Quad Cap Pro by Marius Silaghi. It's inexpensive and makes great caps from a Poly Border. You could also use the new...

[matt_jukes77]

Hi @RobH2,

Thank you very much for your recommendation, that is a great looking plugin, I'll take note for future.

However, in this case I don't believe it was the solution I was looking for. And this purely comes down to my inexperience of some of the more popular but lesser known (to me) modifiers. Shell.

The Cap modifier is tricky because the window opening in my Outer Door extends further than the extrusion of the outer edge of the actual door, i.e. it's not aligned on the same plane. 

What I envisioned was to make the poly then add thickness to it and create a quad poly of Xmm thickness throughout. I now see that Cap wouldn't do this, it would simply look to close gaps/holes by the quickest route, as the crow flies essentially, with no contours being maintained.

While looking at the plugin you suggested I saw another post on a Google search and while reading the responses I saw/tried/discovered my solution; Shell Modifier.

Now, with a Shell Modifier on top of the OpenSubDiv, instead of an Edit Poly with an Extrude, I get the desired result.

I really appreciate you taking the time to suggest a solution, and you indirectly helped me solve my problem. So, thank you.

Matt

[RobH2]

I'm glad it led you to a solution. Sometimes the path to one is convoluted and one thing leads to another which leads to something useful. It's difficult to know exactly what someone is after in a post without a bit of back-and-forth. With a few more details and some evaluation, you can generally find a good solution or workflow. 

Shell is very useful and that one is part of Max by default. I'm glad you found it. I've used it a lot. The thing about Max is it's very deep. I've been using it for over 25-years and there are modifiers I'm still discovering.