I´m quite new to Blender and this is what I have achieved so far:
Now I want to print a little model of this helmet. Unfortunately there are a lot of sharp edge areas like this one here:
Is there any way I can get rid of them without editing every single edge by hand?
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2$\begingroup$ When adding screenshots consider to crop them to the actual area of it (white areas). As to object, those likely caused by how the mesh was constructed (topology). There isn't one-solution, try checking non-manifold geometry, removing doubles, and may be uploading your file. $\endgroup$– Mr ZakJul 17, 2016 at 19:58
1 Answer
The Subdivision surface object modifier
There are two things that I've identified in your screenshots that need to be improved. One is a fix, and one is the modifier.
Mesh Topology
Tab into Edit Mode and key A once or twice until everything is selected. Key Alt + J to convert Tris to Quads (triangular faces to quad faces). You can also key Ctrl + F to open the Faces menu and manually select Tris to Quads. Lastly, you can go 3D Viewport > bottom menu > Mesh > Faces > Tris to Quads.
Ctrl + F menu:
Mesh > Faces menu:
Subdivision surface
The Math
This will use the Catmull-Clark algorithm to create new faces between two imaginary points in the center of each current face.
From Wikipedia:
Catmull–Clark surfaces are defined recursively, using the following refinement scheme:
Start with a mesh of an arbitrary polyhedron. All the vertices in this mesh shall be called original points.
For each face, add a face point.
- Set each face point to be the average of all original points for the respective face.
For each edge, add an edge point.
Set each edge point to be the average of the two neighbouring face points and its two original endpoints.
For each face point, add an edge for every edge of the face, connecting the face point to each edge point for the face.
For each original point P, take the average F of all n (recently created) face points for faces touching P, and take the average R of all n edge midpoints for (original) edges touching P, where each edge midpoint is the average of its two endpoint vertices (not to be confused with new "edge points" above). Move each original point to the point:
This is the barycenter of P, R and F with respective weights (n − 3), 2 and 1.
Connect each new vertex point to the new edge points of all original edges incident on the original vertex.
Define new faces as enclosed by edges.
The Modifier
Go to the Properties panel > Object modifiers tab and add a Subdivision surface modifier. The two values you should care about are the View: and the Render: values. The View: value determines the number of subsurf levels, or iterations, displayed in the 3D Viewport. The Render: value determines the number of subsurf levels in a rendered image or animation. The Render: value should generally be higher.
The Subdivision surface modifier:
Subsurf levels 0, 1, 2, and 3 on a Suzanne: