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I'm making a futuristic katana for practice and fun (inspired by playing Ghostrunner). I have the basic shape done; now I'm starting to add some finer details, like filework along the back. After making one cut (which turned out better than expected), I realized I had no idea how to easily repeat the geo several times along the back of the blade. The blade is curved, so I can't just alt-d the geo and move along the relevant axis, then reattach it to the blade.

Edit View with Subdivision

Edit View without Subdivision

Solid View

Eevee View

I think I could alt-d the geo, then rotate and move it to sit closely in the right spot, but it wouldn't be "perfect." I'll probably just boolean the rest of the cuts and clean up the geo afterward, like I did for this first one.

But, I'm curious: How would you go about adding these circular cuts to this slightly curved blade? If I have to make each one from scratch, then that's what I'll do. I'm just curious if there are more clever ways to do this.

And, if you notice any ways to optimize my edge flow shown in the pictures (or how I can submit better questions), I'd be happy to hear them!

Thanks for your time :)

P.S. What's the best way to share a blend file here?

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To make a set of boolean "cutter objects" that you can copy for the rest of your sword, first, make your base cutter object (I used a cylinder for the example), then use an Array Modifier to make multiple instances of the cutter object, a Curve Modifier to curve the array, and a (scaled) Empty, used as an object offset to scale the array along its length:

CurveScaleArray

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, Christopher! This is indeed quite elegant. I started to test it out, but then something went wrong with my viewport renderer (I just made a separate post about it). As soon as I get that resolved, I'm going to experiment with your suggestion/solution. $\endgroup$
    – Max Williams
    Nov 14, 2020 at 2:50
  • $\begingroup$ I finally got a chance to test it. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but the cylinders are being deformed along the x and y axis by the Curve modifier. I tried applying transformations on everything (except the empty) and that didn't fix it. $\endgroup$
    – Max Williams
    Nov 14, 2020 at 4:23
  • $\begingroup$ Make sure the curve and the cylinder have their origin points in the same place (most easily accomplished by not moving either after they are added, so they share the world origin) - this should avoid any deformation. Once that's done, if you have to move the cylinder(s), move them and the curve together. $\endgroup$
    – Christopher Bennett
    Nov 14, 2020 at 4:42
  • $\begingroup$ I did that, but the deformation still occurred. This was way more complicated than I expected, but I found this video that resolved the issue (and learned a lot in the process): youtube.com/watch?v=7pXcyq0gUnU $\endgroup$
    – Max Williams
    Nov 14, 2020 at 5:09

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