Different methods of mesh clean up in Blender

Mesh cleanup has been requested by quite a few people now and this seemed a great opportunity to show off different methods of approaching it.
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[@ChristinaMcKay]

Great video! 12:40 you can choose multiple components to snap to by shift-clicking them. So you can snap to edges or vertices how you need.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh that's awesome! I'll try that out for sure. Does Blender manage thag pretty well or does it get confused what you're trying to snap to? Thanks so much for sharing!!!

[@IrocZIV]

Always nice to see the benefits and downsides of different ways of doing something.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Hope it's helpful 😁

[@j_shelby_damnwird]

I follow dozens of Blender tutorial channels and IMO this is the best one for beginners like me, hands down. So many solutions and useful tools learned by watching a single video. The clean and clear diction makes a huge difference as well. (there are many good teachers here but sometimes is very hard to make out what they´re mumbling) Thanks man!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks so much. Is always lovely to hear that the videos are helping people out and that people are enjoying them. And cheers for taking the time to watch and comment. 😁👌

[@j_shelby_damnwird]

@@ArtisansofVaul Thank you sir and keep up the good work!

[@lis5344]

if you are the beginner, with HOps addons and more. I'm not going to say who I am, with almost clean blender. Looks like I'm even didn't opened it at all

[@toastedprinny]

I usually use the Object - bool tool built in to blender when merging stuff, just activate it like normal searching bool and merge everything with ctrl+shift and select union and it deletes everything inside that's overlapped.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I'll give it a look 😁👍🏻

[@radiumminis]

These tools are handy, but if you want the easiest and cleanest mesh the remesh/decimate tool is the go to solution for print focused production companies. It allows you to mash any wierd shapes together, texture your surfaces, and helps keep those error finders in slicers happy. I know you werent sold on this method before but it really opens up many build options that completely break bools. I hope you consider delving into this join method in future vids.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

The join itself just isn't as clean and when I can do it another way and keep the cleaner joins I'm generally happy to take the extra 5 mins. Especially now that a lot of those errors are even quicker to fix with things like 3D Builder. Having seen some of these remeshed results on a number of Patreons and MyMiniFactory purchases it still just doesn't hold up. I don't care that its small enough that it can't be seen at 28mm, I want my models to be able to be scalled up 300% and still lool crisp. But that's a personal preference that I place upon myself, others don't need to feel restricted by it.

[@radiumminis]

@@ArtisansofVaul hmm not sure why you would want plan for a model to be scaled up that much, after all the proportions a 6in bust size character and a tabletop size character would be different. But I hope you do reconsider teaching people this method since it is the method that all the bigger artists are using and if your fans hope to be able to make stuff like their favorite sculptor they would benefit from this knowledge even if it's not your preferred method.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@radiumminis It will be something that will go in a video at some point. Probably when I cover sculpting techniques over hard surface assets.

[@Senyrar]

Question for people, first time modelling long time fan. If you make your desired shape and want to add detail to it.. do you manipulate the shape to add the detail to it.. or add other boxes and sphere models and attack it to your original shape?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Great question! Its a heard one to answer because really it depends on the situation; as you get more practiced it becomes more and more intuitive to tell what can be done on the original part and what is easier to add. I actually just finished recording a video that doesn't directly answer this but looks at a lot of uses of the more simple Blender tools being used on and original shape to make things. Hopefully that might give some ideas. It will be up on Friday on the Patreon and here next Friday. In the mean time if you have a specific thing you're looking at and have a picture/description I could try to suggest what I would do for that situation.

[@maugan22]

11:29 at this point I would select all, face menu -> intersect (knife) in self intersect mode that will split each of the intersecting quads along the line of intersection then you can just delete the internal faces. Then cleanup merge by distance.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh.... Something I may have missed. That sounds like a great method. Thanks for that 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Just tried it and it works great. I'll have to do a video on this as its great and I didn't realise the self intersect was there as an option. Thanks so much for sharing!

[@maugan22]

I 3:44 for a more complex shape with 4+ sides using an array modifier with an object offset targeting an empty at the object origin might be useful

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh for sure. I'd normally just use a radial array using hard ops but in this instance keeping to vanilla blender (and not minding being destructive)the rotation method took less time for the same result as using an empty as I only wanted 3 sides. I have a few videos on how to use an empty or how to use Geometry nodes (which I think is preferable) already 👍🏻

[@mj2068]

wow this is a lot information... i need time to digest... but thank you, really.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@mj2068 😁👍🏻

[@MyronReimer]

Very helpful, thank you. One question, I get a different result from selecting all vertices and pressing F. Yours converts it to a single face, whereas mine creates a new face, and doesn't remove all the inner vertices and edges. Please help. Thanks

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Hmm... I might need to see the mesh but are the faces perfectly in line when you booleaned them and have you used the Xray to make sure you have everything selected? If you have you could try this: Select all the verts as before and make sure they are on the plane by scaling them to 0 on that axis. If you have Instagram and can message me there or can it a link here to your file saved I'd be happy to look at it.

[@MyronReimer]

@@ArtisansofVaul Thanks for your help! The test I was using produced a different result. I had just made an object one face thick., no volume. Then pressing F doesn't act the same way. As soon as I give it volume like your example had, it functions as expected. Thanks again

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@MyronReimer ah cool. Thanks for taking the time to report back. I didn't know it would have issues without any volume so that's good to know 👍🏻👌🏼

[@CsokaErno]

No doubt - you are the best. Thank you for the knowledge ocean you give us.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks so much 😁👌🏼 I'm glad it's being useful to people.

[@bogdanboata2836]

Very insighful, I learned a lot today

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Awesome 😁

[@liteningstrike12]

Great! I've always wanted to make a hard surface bell pepper :) Joking aside I'm curious about the Shift-D vs Alt-D step when you made the shape originally. I know it wasn't the focus of this video, but are there any adjustments you'd make to these techniques when doing a radial array (or any shape of array for that matter) or mesh instances?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

There isn't much if anything I would change when using radial arrays and for a lot of this Alt+D would have been the better option (I just didnt want to have to explain things like instances on a video where people may be coming into it wanting answers to a specific problem). I will say that the comment that's been paid about using the intersect (knife) function is great as I didn't realise you can set it to a "self" setting.

[@Thiccron]

Always learn at least a couple useful things on these videos, thanks!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

That's exactly what I'd want to hear. Thanks Mike 😁

[@neeleshchevuri6268]

Great video! Just wondering, is the icon under the hardops button in object mode you have in the video a addon or is it part of blender? I do not see it in my blender.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Ahh... That's construction lines. Such a good add on. You can find my video on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/anXNo5uga5meiZo And there's a follow up video here with some new stuff in an update: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZmayiZicepqrqJY

[@splitthesound743]

at 1:11 if i press alt+w nothing happen, can't figure out how to cut the mesh as you did

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@splitthesound743 That's using an addon called Boxcutter. Without that you can create a cube and then use that to boolean difference the end portion. 👍🏻

[@splitthesound743]

@@ArtisansofVaul Oh ok thanks! 😀

[@rodolflum3444]

and the bisect tool weep on the corner. you neglected it, it can cut flat in one stroke

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Weep? I didn't quite understand that. Typo? I can't say I've used the bisected tool in that way. I'll have to look into it.

[@Revenant483]

This was very helpful! Can you do a tutorial on how to make meshes from SVG files? I am good in vector graphics and I have quite a few things I would like to convert. I tried to just make a straight conversion but the amount of faces and verts causes a lot of problems that need cleaned up.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

So SVGs can be a bit of a pain to cleanup, that's just part of dealing with SVG. I'd use similar tricks to how I manage using text so this video should help with the cleanup. It's a bit of an older video but it's got the important bits: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eIunmZJ9nJeGr7s

[@Revenant483]

@@ArtisansofVaul Thanks for the reply! I will check out your other Video. The dissolve faces function helps until you get to complex curves. I have tried many times just to clean up the blender logo. It is a bear. I might try and model it. Being a perfectionist, just okay is not an option. LOL

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@Revenant483 Yeah, if you want perfection you probably won't get there using an SVG I'm afraid

[@Revenant483]

@@ArtisansofVaul Sounds like it! Thanks for letting me know. I was wondering why there were no good tutorials on this. All of them end up with the mesh being a mess.

[@apatsa_basiteni]

Genius stuff!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Cheers man 😁👍🏻

[@Starflight_Miniatures]

Great video thanks mate 😊

[@ArtisansofVaul]

My pleasure 👍🏻😁

[@Rohnon]

I just finished a 3d Model of a Rhino, and I now realize how much easier it could have been... Also I noticed that I need to do alot of cleanup... (there are some non-flat faces and the likes) And here I thought I was done...

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I mean you can try the trick of putting it through 3D builder (free program from microsoft) and that might manage it.

[@cekconi1773]

👍👍👍

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁

[@Newemka]

you should better use Plasticity

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😅 For a few button clicks I think I'll be fine. Also there are many reasons why I'd be worse off with Plasticity, you can check out why here (though I imagine in the future a lot of these will be dealt with): kzbin.info/www/bejne/gpjGaXiXmc57hKs

[@Newemka]

@@ArtisansofVaul of course I watched this video, why do you think I made this comment ;) sorry I forgot the ;) at the end of my comment. Also I agree with you about Plasticity, it's a pity that it's destructive, in CAD softwares like Catia or IronCad you can always come back to a boolean operation and modify it or change any radius whenever you want. I think placity is still young and perfectible its UI is still draft, I'll give it a try again when 2.0 will come out and if I'll be able to run the demo.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@Newemka 🤣 I was wondering but didn't want to dismiss someone's comment without being sure 😅

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@Newemka I agree that looking out for what is there when 2.0 is released seems a good choice.

[@jasonax1523]

Dude you talk and move too fast to be making tutprial vidoes. Please add "For Advance Users" in your title.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I would say this speed and movement would be more intermediate, higher intermediate at best...