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I'm totally new to Blender, but have done some of the basic tutorials and in particular was trying to follow this tutorial for rendering a ring based on a shape. In this tutorial, the author draws a big circle, then draws a small circle that defines the cross-section of the ring. He then sets the big circle's bevel object to be the small circle and voila - it works beautifully.

I drew the cross-section of my ring in inkscape and imported it into Blender, but when I try to set it as the bevel for the circle, the orientation is wrong. I've tried everything I can possibly think of to change the orientation but nothing seems to do it.

This is the cross-section I drew (this is a png, but I'm using the SVG version of it):

image of cross-section of ring

Here's my setup in blender after having imported the SVG, added the circle, then rotated and moved them into place:

image of blender board

Finally, here's what happens when I apply the cross-section as a bevel:

enter image description here

As you can see, rather than the top of the dome being the outside of the ring and the flat bottom being the inside of the ring, the top of the dome is applied as the right side of the ring and the flat bottom is the left.

I cannot think of what else to try....

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  • $\begingroup$ Ha.... there was one thing I hadn't thought of, which was to go into inkscape and actually rotate the path 90 degrees CCW. When I then imported that path into Blender, it worked! Still, I would love to know how to do this in Blender. $\endgroup$
    – kael
    Commented Feb 5 at 5:28
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    $\begingroup$ should be the same way, just rotate the profile in edit mode $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Commented Feb 5 at 5:30
  • $\begingroup$ @Chris nope, doesn't work. Don't know why, but rotating the shape does nothing. $\endgroup$
    – kael
    Commented Feb 5 at 6:01
  • $\begingroup$ I don't want to tread on @lemon's thorough exploration of the 'gotchas' with an answer. Just a couple of suggestions, here, to help avoid them. 1. Enable 'Axes' in the Object tab > Viewport Display panel. That will show you the spline's orientation relative its own Object's axes, which is what matters, 2. If you set the profile curve to be '2D' at the top of its Data tab > Shape panel, some unwanted orientations will be forbidden. In this case, you could do that for the circle as well. In Edit Mode, adjust to this relative orientation: imgur.com/a/6JW7t99 $\endgroup$
    – Robin Betts ♦
    Commented Feb 5 at 8:29
  • $\begingroup$ if lemon's answer doesn't help and if you want a solution for exactly your case, pls provide blend file, because we have no idea what you applied and what you didn't. $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Commented Feb 5 at 8:31

1 Answer 1

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Be sure the bevel object is in the X/Y plane as indicated in the documentation. It will be extruded along its Z local axis.

From that and starting with both objects having no rotation (rotations applied), you'll need to find the good orientation, but you have 4 possibilities rotating around Z for the bevel object (and once rotated, apply rotation if you're not doing it in edit mode):

For instance:

enter image description here

Your case should be the bottom one.

Complement:

Experimenting a bit, we can notice that normal of the curve corresponds to minus Y of the bevel object for the two on the left above.

But for the one on the right, where the curve is flat on Z, minus X of the bevel object is the good orientation.

And effectively, for this case below, if the curve is rotated 25° around X (going to be flat on Z), we also need to turn of 25° the bevel object from minus Y in direction of minus X.

This is purely experimental.

enter image description here

Second complement:

The curve segment directions also matter, below the segment directions are switched and positive Y should be used to have the same result:

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ +1 I guess most experienced users will have fallen into the habit of constructing 2D-path profiles in the XY plane, without even thinking about it.. so don't notice all these variations. $\endgroup$
    – Robin Betts ♦
    Commented Feb 5 at 8:40
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    $\begingroup$ @RobinBetts XY plane is in the doc. Just wanted to dig a bit into the cases. $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Commented Feb 5 at 8:43
  • $\begingroup$ Mmm, I tried rotating and applying, but when I try to apply the rotation it just says "rotation/location can't apply to a 2d curve". Honestly, I think I need to go take a class on this or something. I'm understanding now that Blender is not something people just casually pick up. Thanks for the input though! $\endgroup$
    – kael
    Commented Feb 6 at 20:33
  • $\begingroup$ @kael, share your file as it is. Possibly something is different somewhere. $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Commented Feb 7 at 7:17

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