Creating a CLEAN ellipse within a plane?

[Anonymous]

I have a small box-like mesh which represents a playing card.
What I'd like to do is insert an ellipse within the upper-center (green area, see image below) of the mesh, without disrupting the quads of the mesh too much.

The image above depicts how the mesh looks before attempting to place an ellipse within the green area.
Here are the steps I've tried, but with rather poor results:

1. Select a 3 x 3 (or higher) area of faces (See Example)
2. Apply an Inset (Example)
3. Delete the selected faces (Example)
4. Switch to Edge Mode, and double-click the edge of the hole (Example)
5. Open the Loop Tools (Example)
6. Click the Circle button (Example)
7. Scale the circle along the X-axis to form an ellipse (Example)

After following these steps, then shift-dragging & scaling the edge loop around a few times, followed by a meshsmooth, I was able to produce the following halfway-decent result:

It looks decent enough, but the topology around the ellipse is far too messy, and it screws up UVs when applying textures:

... So I was wondering if anybody had a better solution to this? What can I do to make the topology cleaner, and still produce a relatively equal result?
Thanks!

[Daf · Accepted solution]

Hi,

As with most situations there are many ways to do this. This is what I would do. First go get the Loop regulalizer - great script!

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/loop-regularizer

Create your plane - just need 4x4 subdivision. Convert to editable poly. 1.jpg

Select middle polys of top 2 rows - then inset slightly. 2.jpg

Run the regularizer script. 3.jpg

Scale the selection to avoid overlap of edges - then scale to create the elipse shape as needed. 4.jpg

Delete polys 5.jpg

Add opendubdiv or turbosmooth x2 6.jpg

There is your ellipse and with clean topology. 🙂

The deges can be moved prior to running the script to accommodate the size and location of the ellipse as needed.

Hope this help! You will probably get more suggestions as well.

Thanks!

Daf

[Daf]

Here's a video that helps explain the functions of the Loop Regularizer - even if you don't use it for this instance it's a great script to have on hand. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kACvVCB2_pI

[Anonymous]

I had to select a larger range of faces than just a 2 x 2 area in order to get better results, but this is what I ended up with:

... And after adding the ellipse's border and applying a turbosmooth, I got this:

... Still not perfect, but definitely a massive improvement! Thanks!