Help - How to prevent Non-Planar Polygons

[wtdedula]

Hello All;
I am doing a very simple task in lightwave 7.0 and I just can't figure out how to prevent non-planar polygons. Here's what I do.

1) I create a Bezier curve which I CLOSE with the Numeric Panel.
One of the Tangent handles ends up way down the drawing and it looks very much like the points also ends up off the plane.

2) Then when I create the curve, and "make pol", I end up with a bunch of non-planar polygons.

My question simply is ... How do I create a bezier curve that remains totally on the same plane even after closing the curve and dragging the tangent handles into place ?

My ultimate goal for this exercise is to create a curve, convert it to a polygon, then extrude it.

I am working with a friend tonite so it would be helpful it someone can provide an answer quickly. Thanks so much.

Tim

[ThreeDBFX]

wtdedula,

After you draw your curve, deselect it, grab all the points that make up the curve and use the "Set Value" tool to set all the points to 0 on whatever plane you want, i.e. X, Y, Z. After you do this, the points will all be aligned.


Hope this helps. :)

[wtdedula]

Hello All;
(And thanks TheeDBFX, btw ...)

After performing the operation you suggested, my points were alligned on one plane or so it would seem. But when I created a polygon from the points in preparation for extruding it, there was still one non-planar polygon. I do not understand what is happening here.

My end result is to create a extruded shape where I can surface all six sides. Here is what I do ...

1) I loaded the 2-D profile I want to extrude in the backdrop.
2) I traced the TOP profile using the bezier curve function and after tweaking the curve, I created it.
3) I could see from one of the side profiles that a bunch of points were off the plane so I used the "Set Point" function as TreeDBFX suggested to allign all points to the Y-axis and this apparently worked.
4) Then I selected the points again and did a "Make Pol" to Make the polygon.

(Anyone know why I still have one non-planar polygon ?)

5) Then I extruded. and the result is below Click below to see what I am experiencing.

Click Here (http://home.att.net/~wtdedula/)

This is probably very obvious to most folks but I don't know why I can't create a polygon for each end so they can be surfaced just like the sides. Can anyone offer any suggestions ?

Thanks so much.

Tim

[ThreeDBFX]

For some reason your picture did not load.

I did exactly what you described and I had no problem. Can you post your scene file?

[tburbage]

I was able to reproduce what you are seeing, even if I copied the points only to a separate layer, pasted them, selected them in order and created a poly from that. The points are definitely all on the same plane. Odd.

One thing. Watch out for the Bezier command. it creates a series of curves, not a single one. I prefer Spline Draw. Also, the Closed option can result in some twisting at the start/end point. Zoom in to make sure it looks OK.

As a workaround which does seem to fix it, copy your curve into a background layer, make a single polygon larger than the curve bounding box (say with the Box tool), then use Template Drill, Core option to cut out the shape.