Can anyone help with a small problem I have. I’m fairly new to modelling so apologies if this i a bit of a silly question. I am proctising with poly modelling so am having a go at modelling an old toy and I have the below hole which I want to close but don’t know how to do it. I am using 3DS max to do this.

Maybe I have gone the wrong way in creating the shape, but if anyone could help i’d really appreciate it

Cheers
James

	Attachment

It depends, to a degree, on what you intend to do next with the model.

If you simply want the hole capped, that’s straightforward, but if you intend to use any Smoothing (MeshSmooth/TurboSmooth) then you’ll need to do more work on it.

The vertices at the top where the top of the curved section meets the flat top need to be welded.
You can then select the Border (the edges around the hole) and click Cap. That will fill in the hole, but the result won’t smooth very well, if at all.
You will need to Cut the new poly, and the surrounding ones, to create continuous “loops” of edges around the model. Edges which need to maintain their shape will need Chamfering - the closer the (parallel) edges the sharper the resulting corner.

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

Thank you for your reply, I thought that was the way to do it but for some reason I can’t get it to work. If i select border and choose the edge where the hole is, the border selected seems to shoot across to the other side of the model and so when I choose ‘cap’ the result is a bit dodgy. Would you know why the border would select like this, i’ve tried welding all corner vertices. Hopefully you can tell what I mean by the images

Cheers
James

	Attachment

If i select border and choose the edge where the hole is, the border selected seems to shoot across to the other side of the model

That means the vertices are not welded.
When you try welding the verts, are you selecting just one by clicking on it, or region selecting to grab all coincident verts?

Because you still have unwelded vertices - those at either side of where the curved section meets the roof.

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

	Attachment

I’ve tried this and just tried welding again now. I’m selecting the vertices using a drag window and then selecting ‘weld’ from edit vertices roll-out. I’ve done this for all vertices around the border but the border still selects like this.

Zip the scene (the .max file) an attach it to a reply. If those vertices won’t weld, there’s a reason - but it’s not easy to tell exactly what that reason is without seeing the actual model.

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

Ok, cheers for looking at this. It must be something to do with my method for creating the shape, like I said i’m just starting out

	Attachment
toy.zip

The polys which make up the curved section are flipped - facing backwards - which is why the vertices won’t weld.

You can see this by going to the Object Properties, clicking the “by Layer” button on the left so the checkboxes open up, and selecting Backface Cull. The curved area will disappear unless you look from towards the back of the model.

Select just those polys (the curved area) and click Flip.
On the left of the model, looking straight at the front (the curved area) at the top AND the bottom of that curve are not welded. Weld them and the Border will select correctly.

Big tip. Modelling an object of that size with your System Units set to Metres will give you problems. I’ve no doubt you’re having difficulty zooming in on the model?
Set the System Units to millimetres. On the Command Panel, Utility tab, More, Rescale World Units. Select Scene and change the value to 1000, and OK.
Much easier to work with it set correctly ;)

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

Also if I were you I’d head over to the tutorials section of this site and look for the Inorganic Modelling fundamentals videos 1 and 2 (still waiting on the third to show up).  Sit through them an learn how important topology is to your mesh.  Keep almost everything in quads and dare I say it, never use cap holes.

Thank you loads for that, works a treat. And thanks for the uits tip, I tried changing the unit setup to millimeters and I thought that had done the trick but it works much better once scaled as suggested

Cheers!

And thanks for the link to the tutorials, will go over and have a look and see how i should do it rather than using caps

Thanks!
James