3-point patch is the answer?

[Telvak]

Hi everyone.

 

I'm trying to model this very basic shape, whatever it is, and I somehow made a 3-point patch, I've no idea how, but I need to do it again, I checked on boards and in TAOM but there's no mention of 3-point patches. All I got is "a patch must be composed of at least 3 points, but no more than 4."

 

If I draw a simple 3-point spline, it won't make a patch when I change to Shaded mode, but this one does, I copied the three splines and pasted them a little farther in my image to show what I mean. Another thing I noticed about that is that the copied version seems to be, very clearly, fatter than the original. The shape wasn't altered in any way.

 

I thought at first it's because I made a three-point spline, copy/pasted it, move it and added hooks to the CPs to make it shaded, but this happened when I was hooking CPs to one another to make 4-point patches.

 

I've been turning my model over itself a hundred times for the past hour and I don't know what the heck I did. Granted I could add more CPs to simple it out, but I'd rather take a lesson from this mistake and either prevent it, or fix it in the near future, should it point it's ugly head again.

 

Thanks in advance for taking time to help.

[robcat2075]

patches must be made from more than one spline. A single spline looping around 3 or four points will not fill in.

 

in complex models an opening may appear to be made of two different splines, but it's really one long spline doubling back on itself. That won't fill in either.

 

The patches you are making there will probably get creases but that's another issue.

[Telvak]

Does that mean I'll need to make 3 splines and hook them together? Because I tried that and it doesn't render.

Unless I'm doing something wrong... again...

[robcat2075]

ifyou just hook three splines end to end, they will form one spline. the CPs athe corners of a patch really should be made from the intersection of two splines.

 

Does anyone know where the pic Colin Freeman made of good and band spline continuity is? That would make it very clear.

[Caroline]

There's the TinCan tutorials:

 

http://www.alienlogo.com/tincan/

[phatso]

The way you avoid 3 splines joining into one circular one is to tell A:M that the splines are separate. The way you do that is to create a spline that's two CPs longer than you need. Then stitch together the middle CPs. Finally, delete the superfluous end CPs.

 

If you've done the flower tute in the workbook, look up the place where you put a spline across the end of the leaf. (My book is version 12, it's on page 90. Dunno if that has changed.) You see there's a 5-point spline across the end. If you'd just done a 3-point spline, A:M would have assumed you were just continuing the perimeter of the leaf. Those two extra CPs tell A:M you're actually joining two splines. Then a patch will form.

[robcat2075]

[Telvak]

Thanks everyone for your help, I got how to make three point patches, but it doesn't fix my problem, for some reason the CPs won't hook at certain spots, maybe because I already have two or three CP connected to one, I don't know.

 

I think I'm better off just trying to redo the shape, it'll be a lot less trouble. Still, I learned something, isn't that what counts?

[robcat2075]

I think I'm better off just trying to redo the shape, it'll be a lot less trouble. Still, I learned something, isn't that what counts?

 

Yup, get those bad patches out of your system.