Non-geometry problems

[gnusareva.alina]

Hello, everyone

I'm relatively new to Autodesk Maya and I encountered an issue while attempting to use the sculpting tools on a character model. Upon trying to sculpt, I received the following error message: "Error: Sculpting cannot be performed on non-manifold geometry. Perform a mesh cleanup before using the sculpting tools." I searched through various articles discussing this error, but unfortunately, I couldn't find a solution that adequately resolved my problem.

In an effort to address the issue, I employed the "cleanup mesh" tool. However, this resulted in the creation of additional vertices and the smoothing of corners was not achieved, as illustrated in the attached images.

[First Picture: Cleanup Mesh Tool Settings]

[Second Picture: Result after applying the Cleanup Mesh Tool]

I am seeking assistance in resolving this problem. Could you kindly provide guidance on how I can effectively address this issue and successfully use the sculpting tools on my model without encountering non-manifold geometry errors? Thank you!

[Christoph_Schaedl]

Double check your geo in that area.

I assume there are doubled faces or verticies on top of each other.

[jdeclanflynn]

Sometimes, it can be a problem when extruding edges, for example, often causing two faces or vertices that practically exist in the same 3D space. Here's a tip, press the #3 on your keyboard, assuming you're using the Maya default hotkeys, to preview Sub-D or smooth, and you'll see a spike where two vertices meet. This is a dead giveaway there's double faces/double vertices, etc. 

The attached image is a lesson when I first encountered them. I created this and showed it to my instructor. I think it's a good example of what to look for.