Relax Brush is doing the opposite effect - lines become more erratic instead of having more even loops

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am an intermediate user of Maya and I have been using it many times without problems.

I was creating a character with Maya time ago, and I was using the Relax brush to relax vertices on the mesh and everything was working fine.

Now I have just started to model a new character. I started from modelling the Torso from a cylinder, and before moving on, I tried using the Relax Brush to relax the mesh and create evenly distributed edge loops.

Whenever I use the brush, though, it creates the opposite effect, instead of relaxing the mesh, the vertices move in random directions, becoming more erratic, creating "zig zag" lines instead of relaxing them.

I have already tried:

- Deleting History;

- Average and Conform Normals;

- Reverse Normals;

- Set all Vertices to Normal;

- Reload Maya many times and import and export the file;

- Reset the Relax brush tool many times and try to change the values.

All snapping and symmetry options are turned off.

Obviously, changing the size of the brush does not work. If the brush is smaller, the change in the vertices will just happen slowly, so the effect remains the same.

Take into consideration that my version of Maya is 2019, so tool settings will be different from other versions, especially older ones.

Below are the few screenshots, respectively before and then after the use of the Relax brush, and the last picture is my Relax tool settings menu.

This is my original mesh, before using the Relax Brush.This is the same mesh after using the Relax Brush. As you can see, instead of relaxing it, it creates chaos.This is the tool settings, which is reset to the default.

[hamsterHamster]

Have you tried SculptGeometryTool from Curves/Surfaces shelf?

[mihirsbcc]

I wonder why people do not use sculpting NURBS surfaces and convert to all quad poly? You have given a great advise. I am a Curves and surface person. It is more procedural short of non destructive, not so heavy to draw in viewport.

[hamsterHamster]

Polies are more forgiving, you can have triangles here and there, especially when you are in hurry or low budget.. Nurbs require planning. And with softpolies in game, the Nurbs lose. imo

[mihirsbcc]

I got it. NURBS needs planning. What I do is create 1D simple curves and
convert to poly and create super low triangles to keep extremely low poly
objects. But you are right,* polys are a little forgiving.*

[hamsterHamster]

More than forgiving. Today I accidentally discovered polyRetopo tool which Maya-wise is groundbreaking. Available since Maya2018, which I've missed in my absence.

[mihirsbcc]

in my 15 years of teaching I was warning my students not to use boolean
tools at all. Now I am telling them to use Boolean. Route is boolean the
heck out of the poly, remash and retopo. That,s all. Here comes all quad
geo.