As much as I appreciate this forum, I wonder if there’s some kind of direct support, like a subscription or pay per question type thing… where I could call or post and get through issues like this that are driving me crazy.

??

ron labbe
studio 3D

Not really - you can purcase support for installation/hardware issues, or for things which should work, but dont. This is not really one of those issues.

You can’t make both sides identical because the spline isn’t identical both sides to begin with.

0) You’d be better off having mm as your system units rather than inches for a model of that size. Makes rotating/zooming around a lot easier. Don’t forget to resize the model (Rescale World Units - 25.4) if you do.

1) Move the object to the origin
2) Move the 2 central vertices to exactly 0 (they are fractionally off).
3) Choose whichever side you’re happiest with and delete the other half.
4) Create a new, vertical line between the 2 “end” vertices you created by deleting half the object. Make sure to weld the vertices.
5) Add your extrude and Edit Poly, bend the side back as described above.
6) Remove the single Polygon in the centre where the two halves of the object will meet.
7) Apply a Symmetry Modifier (with the Weld option on).
8) Collapse the whole thing to Editable Poly once you’re happy with it.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Thanks, Steven…

That makes sense, thanks for the indepth explanation!
I’ve been off max for a few versions, I really need to bone up on the tutorials and get comfortable with the interface and the basics again :)

ron labbe
studio 3D

Many Ways to make the glasses.

I took your original, deleted the right half segments and closed the outline.
Added a Symmetry modifier, then added other modifiers below the Symmetry.

It seems you may have used Scale at the object level to increase the size of the spline. It is better to Scale the verticies on Object Center, or use the Rescale World Units utility to increase the size. If you must Scale at object level, apply an X-Form modifier and Scale its Gizmo. This change the Scale Transform into a Scale Modifier.

After the Extrude, I added an Edit Poly modifier and used Slice Plane to slice all the polygons at the “bend” point.

Then a Bend modifier with the Gizmo moved and Upper Limit set.

I also added a Smooth modifier to modify the Smoothing Groups.

I was not sure if you wanted to animate the Bend or not, but with this setup it is possible.
Play the animation.

[EDIT]
I was only reading the first page and did not see Steve’s explnation. Mime is almost identical with a few variations.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

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