Normals>Soften Edge [Maya 8.5]

[spalose]

Hey, long time lurker, first time poster. I feel bad that my first post is a question that probably had the easiest answer in the world, but here goes.

I'm creating an ostrich type robot as a personal project, and it's got an egg shaped head, connected with metal piping to a spherical body. The problem I'm actually having is with Normals>Soften Edge. I'm softening the parts I'd like to be soft (obviously), and leaving creases for the hard edges. Here comes my issue. I'd like to render with mentalRay with some shadows. When I throw a light in there, instead of a SOFT shadow across the surface, I get complete black squares where there should be transition. Am I screwing myself over by choosing to soften these edges?

I've spent so much time searching on google for the answer I don't know what to do :(

Thank you very much for anything you can do. I'll try to supply some images if you need them.

Everyone here is awesome, by the way.

[poopinmymouth]

You might want to try unlocking all the normals, then average everything, then re-harden your edges. Maya sometimes randomly decides to ruin your normal direction.

Also, post an image of your problem if this doesn't solve it, it might jog some people's memories of how to fix it.

http://www.mr-chompers.com/images/poop.gif (http://www.poopinmymouth.com)

[spalose]

Thanks, Ben, I'll give this a try!

(Also, been a fan for two years, it's a honor to have one of the people I aspire to answering one of my questions!)

Off to test this out.

[spalose]

Alright, after unlocking (should I be in object mode or a different component?) and averaging them out, when I go in to harden the edges I want, it seems to do absolutely nothing. I press Harden Edge, and I see no difference. Averaging them seems to work best for this instance, but like I said, now I can't get hard edges, or at least, they aren't noticeable like they are when I choose to soften and harden without unlocking/averaging. I'll post some images..

http://www.justpressa.com/misc/droid_problem001.jpg

http://www.justpressa.com/misc/droid_problem002.jpg

[Jonny3D]

select the edges you want to make hard and go to Normals, harden edge, simple... If you want to soften the edge, its right on top of the harden edge! If not, try to conform your edges first, that will check for any inverted Normals. Then set to face, and re soften and harden the edges you want. In some cases, exporting out the model in OBJ and importing it back might fix the problem...