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Prompted by my previous question, I am wondering if it is possible to bevel complex curves with bevel objects.

How can I bevel complex curve objects (such as a text object from this question)?

I have tried using a bevel object as suggested by haunt_house to bevel without fattening, but this creates many artifacts:

enter image description here

How can I fix these? (or failing that, is there another technique I could use?)

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2 Answers 2

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  The only way I have found is not a fast solution, but so far the only one I can imagine without writing a completely new bevel routine. If you have two beziers at a sharp angle, they don't normally have the same length, so the concept of resolution and even spacing would be in the way of a clean bevel where both sides shave off material.

  Okay, here's the way:

precison bevelling how to adjust the curves

  • This curve consists of sharp angles. The ones that cause trouble.
  • Give the curve a bevel of, for example, 0.2 and an offset of -0.2 and adjust resolution of bevel and curve to match your desired end result.
  • Duplicate the curves.
  • Change the shapes like shown. Every curve segment you want to retain should continue straight. The newly created bulges will be cut away. I adjusted adjacent handles to be 180° and made them longer. If you want more precision, extrude the curve, so you can be sure to have a straight continuation (or a slightly curved one if the dynamics of the curve demand that). I put opposite curve segments into the same object because I have an even count of segments. The blue object is contributing the horizontal part of the finished mesh while the green object adds the vertical one.
  • Convert both into meshes. Perform Remove Doubles and maybe Recalculate Normals Outside.
  • Connect them with a Boolean Modifier set to Intersect because you are only interested in the space both objects occupy. Apply it.
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  • $\begingroup$ Interesting idea, though it would be quite complex and time consuming to attempt this on a large curves such as the ones at the bottom of this answer $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Sep 12, 2013 at 22:38
  • $\begingroup$ If you have a lot of small parts, it gets a bit labor intensive, but basically it's just tweaking the curves. If you don't have to preserve the object origins, the boolean operation can be done in one go, IF it doesn't crash. The best solution is the possible one. So far I don't know of any Addon that handles irregular curve resolutions or boolean type bevelling. Maybe it takes 30 Minutes for a dozen objects, maybe less. Unless you start programming or pay a coder, it's my best bet. $\endgroup$
    – Haunt_House
    Sep 12, 2013 at 23:08
  • $\begingroup$ "If you have a lot of small parts, it gets a bit labor intensive" That's just it ;) While this doesn't solve my particular problem, it suppose is the answer to my question, so I'll accept. About my particular problem, I found that If I convert to a mesh with the old bevel and offset active, pure remesh does an okay (if hi-poly) job on it and it is pre-beveled. (though I'm still waiting for the decimate modifier to finish..) Incidentally, would this work on curves with a mix of normal corners as well as sharp ones? $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Sep 12, 2013 at 23:31
  • $\begingroup$ You can leave the normal corners alone in this approach. As long as the bevel looks okay, it doesn't require a boolean surgery. So, if you have 20 corners that look already decent and two that are sharp, it's not more work than my example. It just requires some thinking how the two work meshes should look like. $\endgroup$
    – Haunt_House
    Sep 12, 2013 at 23:37
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If they are ok not being curve objects anymore, you could convert them to a mesh, and try varying degrees of remove doubles or remesh, then when you have a nice simplified version, bevel or add a bevel modifier.

Converting a Text Object, Remeshing and Beveling

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  • $\begingroup$ Several hundred thousand polys and three remesh modifiers later, I am still no closer to getting a clean, beveled mesh. :\ Could you add more detail how you might do this? (my attempt was basically Remove doubles > P separate by loose parts > remesh > bevel > remesh > decimate > smooth > remesh.) $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Sep 12, 2013 at 1:24
  • $\begingroup$ I updated my answer. Not sure if the video helps or just messes you up more. $\endgroup$
    – Johnnygizmo
    Sep 12, 2013 at 14:10
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, though I get artifacts like this when attempting to bevel. (even after decimate) $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Sep 12, 2013 at 22:35

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