(click image for larger view)

After many years of using Poser, I decided to try my hand at modelling in Hexagon. My first two projects a coffin figure and a chainplate prop (both available in my free stuff) turned out reasonably well for first attempts. But I realize I still have a lot to learn.

In my current project I'm making a threaded bolt. The problem is that I have a visual seam running up the shaft of the bolt, and I have no idea how to get rid of it. The image was rendered with shadows off, Smoothing on, and with the default crease angle of 80°. Setting the crease angle to 10° or lower removes the seam, but shows hard edged facets.

The obj consists of three separate geometry groups, BoltHead, Shaft, and Thread. They all use the same material zone.

Any advice on how to cure the problem welcome. Bare in mind that I am new to modelling, and not familiar with all the terminology and techniques.

Let me see a wire frame of them.

Actually, nevermind that. I didn't take a close enough look at your pic. Give me a minute and I will see what I can come up with.

I tried to reproduce the shaft of the bolt in Wings to see if it was a problem with subdivision, but I dont' think it is. I am thinking you have some extra vertices in there causing that problem. You might want to take a look at it in a view that allows you to see each vert and look at it from the top down along the area where you are getting that crease. I bet you have verts in there over lapping.

YMMV

I see it already....

Look at the bottom of your wireframe screw....the beveling doesn't go the whole way around and it will sort of make a nasty edge there since the next long thin poly (which poser doesn't like btw), is really an n-gon (more than 4 edges). It would be a total of 6 vertices there in that long polygon.

Laurie

Connect the last vertice on the top row to the bottom right vertice on the next long poly and see if that makes a difference. You can also have problems turning smoothing down if the model isn't set up right in the first place. You're better off using UVmapper, split the verts and then weld at the default and try and keep the smoothing at the default in Poser. Poser has no problems with ngons so long as they are flat (like the top underside of the bolt head), but not if they have to curve. Poser is twitchy. LOL

Laurie

Hi Laurie,

I've been trying to follow your advice, but must be doing something wrong. In Hexagon I select the two vertices then hit the x key, which to the best of my understanding should create an edge between the two vertices, but unfortunately nothing happens, no new edge!???
:sad:

The above image is in Hexagon, with the two vertices selected. Only the shaft group is visible, which I guess is what I should have shown in the first place, if I had any sense.

:blink:

Rather than showing pictures, here is the Shaft group itself.

Quote -

Rather than showing pictures, here is the Shaft group itself.

In order to connect those two vertices, you may have to select the corner vert also. Or just move the bottom vert along the Y axis until it aligns. I'll get back to you.

Ooops...looks like the model is split there, which will definitely cause a seam. Connect the two sides right there where the bottom of the short part runs into the long part. You'll need to go the whole way around tho. And I don't have time to look it over right now :(. You do seem to have overlapping edges where the two pieces don't share edge loops.

Laurie

The two edges are separated somehow. I had to scale it up 1000% twice to get in there and look. Hexagon has a smaller scale than Wings does. I am still looking at it. Give me a few moments.

Zoom in to the bottom, and select the middle vert like I did. The delete it.

Here's a revised OBJ that doesn't show a seam in my Poser.  I deleted a couple of facets around the seam, and redrew them to be sure they were really connected; then added a diagonal edge so there won't be a T-junction.  I don't know if the T-junction was the real problem, but this version looks seamless, so it's a good theory anyway.

Select this vert and then select 'weld'.

Weld it to the vert at the bottom.

This is the result.

Shaded.

Yep...all fixed ;). LOL

Laurie

Thanks Ockham. Your new shaft seems to have fixed the problem with the bolt. I should now be able to add the morphs and post it to the free stuff. However there is an ongoing problem, in that I don't yet understand how to fix this sort of thing myself.

Quote - Ooops...looks like the model is split there, which will definitely cause a seam. Connect the two sides right there where the bottom of the short part runs into the long part. You'll need to go the whole way around tho. And I don't have time to look it over right now :(. You do seem to have overlapping edges where the two pieces don't share edge loops.

I'm sure what you say is correct, and good advice. Problem is I don't yet know how to connect the two sides. I tried selecting all the verts and using Weld, and also tried the Average Weld. Since that did not seem to do the job, I'm at a loss for what I do need to do. I guess if I keep looking at the tutorials, eventually I'll learn this sort of stuff.

Thanks to LaurieA, Ockham, and Rokket, for the help and advice.

No problem!

according to lightwave you have a polygon (actually two)  yhay run right where that seam is.  That would cause a break in Posers smoothing.

 

How to fix things is a bit of an art, picking what method will cause the least problems later.  You need to look at if your thread part is entirely a seperate pice to see how to either weld points or split polygons so that adjacent polys share vertices.  I would probably splot one poly so yhe ywo long ones match and have a tri where the thread is starting. 

 

Very nice bolt though.

You can use Weld Points, and chose one then the other. However, unlike Wing's weld (which I like) Hexagon will average the distance between the two points. And depending on how far apart they are, can really move something to where you don't want it ;). If they're very near, it's no problem.

Laurie

Here is my attempt. I have bookmarked this thread to see how the others did it.

 

I deleted two faces , split one edge and welded two vertices to make a tri and a quad.

 

Markschum, thanks for the contribution. Ockham's fix seems to have worked better than yours. Yours seems to show a pronounced seam at the bottom, disparaging towards the top. On the plus side your version still had all the polygons, ockham's had one missing that I had to replace!

:rolleyes:

I would have to check that the vertex I added actually welded in correctly.  I do see the difference.  Ockhams fix looked easier , but I dont know if he removed the two bad polygons.

Its really a choice of what works best and causes less hassles later.

Maybe you meant disappearing rather than disparaging ?

I am not a great modeller either.   I have a lightwave script that makes bolts when I need one.    :lol:

"Maybe you meant disappearing rather than disparaging ?" I meant "disappearing", but I don't know what my spelling checker meant.