Crease operation. . .works to UN-crease, as well

I really couldn’t think of a better name. Perhaps andquot;Adjust Creasingandquot;. I don’t know…

Richard

Those who have used the crease tool probably know this already, but most of us have just seen people explain how to use the crease tool to andquot;sharpenandquot; edges, and reduce the smooth-shading that is sometimes applied inappropriately to objects like cubes, etc. that should have sharp edges.

Well, I may seem a little dense for just now finding this out, but the crease tool can be used not only to REMOVE the smooth-shading, but to ADD it as well (ie. not only to crease, but to uncrease).

Take the following cylinder, with longitude 6 (that low number tends to save on polys but makes a not-very-rounded cylinder). andnbsp;I just select the cylinder, push the crease button, and drag the slider all the way to 0. andnbsp;Now, even the blocky, low-poly cylinder looks rather round (except of course if you look at the ends). andnbsp;The round-looking effect is enhanced even further the smaller the cylinder is. andnbsp;I have been using this to minimize the longitude (and number of polys) needed to create round-looking handrails for MSTS models.

Again, it might seem pretty basic to some, but the way crease is always mentioned, it always struck me as a way to [i:c0xppc0p]sharpen[/i:c0xppc0p] edges, not smooth them.

You’re right in that crease sounds more like sharpen than smooth, but actually I’ve only ever used it to smooth things out!!

I’d never have known what it was used for if I hadn’t stumbled on a low poly modelling tutorial / tip sheet which showed how to do this!

jonrach73 (changed name from JonG so that I’m the same alias as on uktrainsim)

Hehe. I haven’t actually read any of the tutorials, so I guess I didn’t see that. I stumbled on it when I wanted to sharpen an edge: I brought up the Crease operation, and the slider was near the middle of the range, and I just wondered what would happen if I slid it to the left. Boom <!– s:oops: –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_redface.gif" alt=":oops:" title="Embarrassed" /><!– s:oops: –>, smooth box. I was kind of surprised, actually.