How on earth do I do a simple offset? [Archive]

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virgil_disgrace

02-27-2006, 07:18 PM

Hi everyone! I just recently got back into LightWave, so I apologize for the stupid question, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to simply offset a set of polygons. I want to "shrink" a solid I have so that it has a precise 40mm space between it and the original. The closest I can come is using the Smooth Shift tool, which does almost exactly what I want, but it doesn't trim the edges of the result. I must be missing something really basic!
Thanks in advance, guys!!

Captain Obvious

02-27-2006, 07:31 PM

Point Normal Move works.

virgil_disgrace

02-28-2006, 10:12 AM

Thanks for the quick reply! Is there an equivalent for polygons? Moving the points by their normals doesn't really get the right results in this case. I noticed that Smooth Shift does get the right results but doesn't trim the edges in since I'm shrinking. What is the appropriate way to do that?
Thanks again!

kruemel_1

02-28-2006, 10:28 AM

Move Plus with RMB.

Matt

02-28-2006, 10:46 AM

Could also try Thickener2, not really an offset tool, but might give you the result you want. You might need to flip some polygons around afterwards.

http://www.blochi.com/gfx/lscripts/Thickener2.zip

Some form of Offset tool has been needed in LightWave for a LONG time now IMO. Basically Smoothshift with real dimensions for the offset rather than percentage. This tool should also work in 2D as well as 3D and respect ALL point / edge / poly normals.