how to merge lofts

[sculptor]

ladies bonnet

while trying to work out how simon did his arch

i discovered how you can merge lofts without forming holes in curvy

1 make your loft
2 make two copies of it
3 move one copy slightly in one direction
4 move the other copy slightly in the other direction
5 do the merge

what i mean by direction:-
keeping the plane of the lofts parallel with one another, moving along the normal

can be confusing to look at when group merging

better to have a practice with quick merge first

[Simon]

I could add this as a setting the the Merge options - "Thicken Lofts"
I am impressed how smooth your output is - I guess it needs careful control of the width.

[sculptor]

yes, its a very small movement

[Simon]

I couldn't reproduce the effect you got with a simple translation - But I did get a similar effect by using a white curvy map with a 50% grey border. The border claps the edges shut and allows for an easy and clean merge.

Speckled one is a single loft - smooth one is a merged loft after duplication and curvy map offset.



Here is the curvy map I used - it is very simple but also very useful!

http://www.curvy3d.com/images/Cloth.BMP

And just to show it is a full merge - here is a test with an extra line cutting through the loft.

[sculptor]

the clamping edges seems a great idea

i used quick merge all rather than merge group because merge group leaves the original loft which interacts and looks strange.

slight confusion in your use of the word lathe rather than loft.

but great you seem to have developed a working system
this extends curvy's capabilities

[sculptor]

oops

failed to mention
on 3d shape type lofts
slightly scaled up
and slightly scaled down copies before merge (ie not translated)
thats possibly why not same results

great for quick hair etc