modeling a mug & spoon

 From:  Michael Gibson
945.4 In reply to 945.3 
Hi Lish, it looks like the different parts don't quite match up exactly at the pole area:





Normally it isn't necessary to make things touch exactly for Network, but it looks like things are more sensitive in this type of configuration where several things come to touch one single point. If I edit these curves to make them touch right at one point there the Network is successful.

I'll see if I can tune this up a little bit so it isn't quite as sensitive.

But actually for a bowl shape like that, Rail revolve may be a better choice. Rail revolve is kind of like regular revolve in that it takes a profile and rotates it around an axis. But you can give it a custom shape for the revolve path, so it can fit along an ellipse like you've got there.

To use rail revolve, just use one of those 4 small pieces and select it:



Then run Construct / Revolve / Rail revolve, and pick the ellipse as the rail. For the axis, pick the first point at the end of the short curve, and then the second one snapped along the z axis above it:



That will create this bowl shape (here I turned Cap ends off before finishing picking the axis):



The nice thing about rail revolve is that it uses fewer curves to create the surface - generally when you have a smaller number of curves to manage it can be a bit easier to control things.

You might want to use Network if you wanted to have something less symmetrical with more of a bulge on one side or something like that...

- Michael