Problem with mesh after Boolean

[Anonymous]

I'm trying to do a simple operation. I have a large cylinder to which I want to take away 9 smaller cylinders from it using a boolean, leaving 9 holes. After this I convert to an editable poly and I want to chamfer the edges of the holes that now remain and apply a turbosmooth.

The problem is when I apply the boolean it totally messes up the structure on the surface of the cylinder's mesh. Can anyone see where I'm going wrong here? I don't want to have to patch everything up here, just need to find a simple solution to what should be a very simple problem.

Or is there another way that i should be going about this?

16336_ASGWa7jSzVz6A6QCd4eU.zip

[ekahennequet]

Post edited: Attached pics have been updated with new info

Hi Playdo.

I'm attaching 2 examples - One for even number of circles (8 circles) and one for odd number of circles (5 circles).

I hope this helps explain what I wrote earlier.

Part II continued here: area.autodesk.com/forum/Autodesk-3ds-Max/modeling/problem-with-mesh-after-boolean/Page-60/#107414

[Anonymous]

Ok, thanks Steve and Ekah (great illustrations btw), I understand it now. I just need to get into this way of thinking for my modelling, and planning ahead more.

[ekahennequet]

You're welcome Playdo. I have a part 2 of my previous post that I didn't get a chance to post yesterday. I'll post them later today. They're more about finishing touches than initial setup, such as relaxing vertices and adding rows of edges on extrusions.

I just want to remind you that these aren't rules. These are just rough reference that helps me to break down a shape before I begin, but as I've already mentioned, each model will have different challenges and solutions. They are only rules in the way that many illustrators or modelers think. They start with simple blocks and add details later. In order to do that, you'll need to pare down the form to its minimum. It's a lot harder to make changes once your model has many details already. Of course, the example I used is a very simple one, but the concept is similar.

[Anonymous]

I look forward to it Ekah

[ekahennequet]

Part II

I've attached 2 pics:
Bottom image shows how to prepare your base mesh for Meshsmooth/Subdivide on sharp angles. The top image is an example using the previous post's model.

I've also updated the images on my previous post with new info: area.autodesk.com/forum/Autodesk-3ds-Max/modeling/problem-with-mesh-after-boolean/Page-50/#107262

[Anonymous]

Many thanks Ekah. The Polygon Inset Tool that you used, which I hadn't used before, is a nice way around the chamfer problems that I had encountered too.

[Anonymous]

Because it's Nurbs, the lines you see (called isoparms in Nurbs) are arbitrary and only for visibility -you can change the number of isoparms with a spinner, but it doesn't affect the geometry face count at all. Nurbs will always look clean like that because they are build from curves, so basically just the circles and arcs to define radii. Tha face count is different, since all renderers have to tesselate. "Face count" is changed via 'surface approximation' and parameters for angle, edge length, etc are controlled with a spinner. I think Pnurbs uses adaptive tesselation, so a 800x600 render might report 6k faces, but the same cam rendered at 8000x6000 might report 300k faces, and it will change with distance from camera. Pretty slick. I don't really use Nurbs anymore because Max's version is weak and I re-learned to do everything with polys, but Maya, Studio tools, Rhino are great, and boolean operations are the basis of all Brep modeling in Cad software like Catia, Inventor, Pro-E, etc. I agree that Booleans in Max are a last resort, and Pbooleans are amazing compared to old Max booleans. btw, if you collapse your lovely Nurbs model to mesh, it'll be a horrible pile of crap, like importing mesh from Cad software.