Extrude faces struggles

[Anonymous]

Hello. Thank you in advance for reading/helping.

I'm sure this is a simple fix/setting but for the life of me I cannot figure it out. 

I am trying to add thickness to some faces by extruding them. But instead of adding thickness, when I try to extrude down, it just pushes the faces down deeper. I'm sure I'm not using the right terminology either so forgive me. But it's like I want the faces to stay "capped."

See attached screenshot for what's happening. I don't think it's "keep faces together" issue but could be wrong. Thoughts?

Thank you.

[_sebastian_f]

you can´t add thickness that way to just some faces of an object. the reason is you would create non-manifold geometry. means in this case if maya would leave this area capped you get edges which are sharing 3 faces where the extrude starts.

[laura.jolly]

Maybe middle mouse button and drag after you've pressed "Extrude" to get it to raise or lower. Or let go and press "enter" to complete the extrude function and then drag Up or wherever manually to get the thickness. Hope this helps!

[_sebastian_f]

it´s not a question of mouse button or using the extrude handle vs. the move tool.
the "cap" faces are just not created during the extrude function in the above case for a good reason (explained above).

[J450NP13]

You can extrude the edges then fill the hole.

[_sebastian_f]

sorry @J450NP13 while this will technically work it´s really bad advice...
one more time: there is a reason why the extrude doesn´t create thickness in the case shown by the OP. and even if you can force maya to create a cap when you extrude the edges it doesn´t change the fact that you end up having nonmanifold geometry which i.e. doesn´t smooth properly anymore or doesn´t allow selection of edge loops in this area.

[J450NP13]

I've never had issues modeling that way.  

[_sebastian_f]

create a 4*4 plane > extrude half of the faces (or use the edges like you said before) to create the situation the OP shows > close the other side to cap it and hit "3" and then tell me if it´s acceptable what you see.

[J450NP13]

I can imagine what it looks like....I would subdivide it..extrude it with more divisions.

[_sebastian_f]

more subdivisions do not change the problem you get when extruding only a part of a non solid surface. somehow i have the feeling you don´t get the point...

[J450NP13]

I can't do your task yet...but I have never had a problem extruding edges.

[laura.jolly]

I understand your point about non-manifold modeling but wouldn't it be okay for a low poly or game style model, one that will not be smoothed in the end? Generally this method is not reccomended for higher rez models because of the issue you'ves stated but I think the fix itself depends on how exactly the model is used. The answer I gave (and I'm assuming the other commenter here) was merely pointing out how to fix the exact issue that is being asked by the OP instead of assuming that they will be smoothing it later. Sorry for any inconvenience,

[_sebastian_f]

J450NP13 i also don´t have problems with extruding edges but that´s neiter the point of my initial answer nor of the discussion.

laura the thing is the "problem" is basically a non issue. "fixing" it by using other technics after the extrude to close the hole is what will create issues.

so the answer is no, also with geometry not meant for subdivision modeling one should not do it. already there you will i.e. get shading artifacts with soft edges. there is just no reason to get into bad habits of producing nonmanifold geo on prupose!

you can either extrude the whole piece of geometry (then you will get a solid volume) or only the border edges around the area. 

[J450NP13]

I tend to model more hard surface models than organics...so I may have stuck my foot in my mouth...  But..like I said I have never had an issue doing it..even if smoothing it.  If I do smooth it...and it needs work...I increase the resolution until the smoothing looks good.  

[Anonymous]

I haven't read thru all the replies, so forgive me if I'm being redundant, but try deleting the object's history, then freezing transformations before you extrude (also might not hurt to reset your extrude settings as well).

With geometry, over the course of pushing, pulling, twisting, turning, etc., sometimes things can get turned around...and your extrude will end up pushing instead of pulling.  By deleting the object's history and freezing transformations, you basically reset the object direction (and the object's faces) to 0.

Hope this helps...good luck!

[Anonymous]

Bit of an old thread, but since its one first results on google, for anyone that wants to do this, you can do Edit Mesh > Duplicate with your faces selected, then move then just like you would with extrude. The new faces will be a new object, so you'll have to combine them and bridge the edges to fix any holes. 

As mentioned above, be careful of non-manifold geo, you'll probably have to go in and manually clean up topo a bit where you do this.

[arnoldT4FLB]

You need to select every face in the object ONLY THEN will Maya solidify geometry with the extrude command. So you would need to separate the piece of geometry into a separate object.

"For they had not gained any insight from the incident of the program, but their heart was hardened."

Mark 6:52

I guess Maya is not to be understand

[coreyschiffer]

I can do this with out issue in blender maya should get with the times and fix there trash software