Well, I'm currently modeling a Humvee. Anyways, I'm trying to use the difference boolean operation, but everytime I do the operation the whole humvee dissapears. Oh, I'm trying to make the grill in the front part. I'm pretty positive that it's my normals, but I could be wrong. I've reversed them on both the humvee and the piece that is intersecting every which way, but to no avail. I don't know, maybe it's not my normals. Anybody have any advice at all?
I'm new to Maya, but I think I can be of some help. It seems that the order in which you select your two objects for boolean operations makes a big difference. Try to be very aware of the order in which you are selecting your objects. Try selecting the object that you want to perform the boolean operation on first, then shift+select the object that you are using to "subtract" it with. If this doesn't work, try selecting them in the reverse order. I know this seems pretty simple but it helped to clear things up for me when I was getting fussed up with booleans - especially difference booleans.
I am a noob, but I have had the same problem. I find that is I turn of my Delete the CONSTRUCTION HISTORY or turn it off all together I have more sucess.
hope I was of some help
Tacking a unnecceserily big amount of booleans might cause a crash yes.. YOu maya actualy want to search the forums on this as im too busy to answer to this satisfactorily right now. Basicaly booleans fail because you fail to understand the difference between realworld geometry and surface modeller geometry.
READ:
http://www.highend3d.com/boards/showthread...amp;Main=193570
Booleans in Maya In My Opinion are the best you can get from a surface modeler app. I've Booleaned huge (heavy) "polyon"geometry that took an hour to calculate with success . Make sure you are using closed and non-manifold geometry it will work %100 percent of the time. Cleanup your geometry first, delete history, and make sure your normals from the 2 intersecting pieces are facing the way you wish. If one piece is facing the wrong direction you will get a different result.
Finaly someone who agrees with me, they dont suck. You just cant make them any better, without slowing them down even more, and causin even wierder results.
I dont men sonome will in the future but rather TODAY.
I think the main problem people have is the wanish result, wich hides the result when non computable. ITs just so what happened (se most realy only understand whats on screen)
Made me remember a tip others might find useful. If you've gone through these steps and then apply a boolean and still get a "vanish" result, You can sometimes shift 1 of the boolean objects in x y or z a small amount and the boolean will finish booleaning. e.g. move bool operator .01 in the x direction. Reason being(I think) that at times vertices will lie coincidently in the same place from both objects and need to be seperated by a small amount for Maya to see the surface seperation.
Well overlap is not problem but slight miss is. the quantitze method outlined in my longer post is basicaly the same thing but taken further