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I'm trying to use BoolTool and the Boolean modifier with no success. I want to cut out the cylinder from the widget in the attached file.

I did look at The Boolean modifier is not working and checked for inverted normals, duplicate vertices, and non-manifold geometry using the 3D Print plugin.

(I switched the names of the two objects in the file. Oops!)

Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. I keep running into these problems. I'm using Blender 3.2.0. Thanks!

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  • $\begingroup$ Hello and welcome. While files, images, and external videos or links may be helpful additions they should not be the only way to obtain information about your issue. Don't make understanding your question rely on downloading a file, watching a video or visiting an external site. Use the builtin tools to upload images or gifs, along with thoroughly explaining the problem in written form so it can be indexed and searched for thus helping future visitors with similar issues. $\endgroup$
    – Duarte Farrajota Ramos ♦
    Commented Mar 12, 2023 at 23:05
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you @DuarteFarrajotaRamos. Since JohnEason added images below I won't edit this question since it will be redundant, but I'll do so in the future. $\endgroup$
    – Becca
    Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 14:26

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You may have checked your main object for inverted normals, but the normals are inverted on the cutter Widget object as shown in red with Face Orientation on: enter image description here

Select All on the Widget object in Edit mode, Shift-N to recalculate them and the bool tool works as expected: enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you! I won't be able to confirm this until later today to accept the answer -- though I'm sure it'll work! Out of curiosity and for my own learning, do you know what would cause a "brand new" cylinder to have inverted normals "out of the box" so to speak? $\endgroup$
    – Becca
    Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 14:29
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    $\begingroup$ To be honest I've no idea with a straight cylinder object. However, if you start with a filled circle or a plane and extrude it downwards in the Z direction instead of up that creates a cylinder or cube with the normals flipped. The same applies if you extrude the face of an object to the left or down instead of right or up which is why it's a good idea to recalculate the normals fairly frequently if you're modelling with extrusions. $\endgroup$
    – John Eason
    Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 16:11
  • $\begingroup$ That is good to know. Though in this case, I did start with a cylinder that I just rotated and resized. Do you want to add to the answer that the way to recalculate the normals is under Edit Mode: Mesh menu: Normals: Recalculate Outside? I'm amazed it was somewhere easy to find! So many things seem buried. Thank you so much for your help! $\endgroup$
    – Becca
    Commented Mar 14, 2023 at 0:24
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    $\begingroup$ I did say use "Shift-N to recalculate the normals" in my answer or you can use Alt-N which brings up a popup menu which is the same as the submenu on the main Mesh menu that you're talking about. To be honest I almost never use the main menus nowadays since there's a hotkey combination for pretty well everything in Blender. Thanks for accepting the answer. $\endgroup$
    – John Eason
    Commented Mar 14, 2023 at 0:38

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