Saturday, December 10, 2011

Inset Polygon

This tutorial describes the application of the Inset Add-On.  This add-on is built into Blender so it just needs to be enabled through the User Preferences menu.

To demonstrate its capability, will apply it to some text.  First add a text string (curve) then convert the curve to a mesh [Alt + C].  Once it's converted, select all the vertices.

At this point, on the left in the Tools panel, click the Inset button, an adjust the Amount (at the bottom of the tools panel) to give the desired thickness.

After the inset is created, the inset mesh can be extruded [e] upward [z] to create an extended border for the letter.

In some cases, the inset will be more complex than others and may involve multiple layers. Selecting the path of the faces can be easily done by holding [Alt] and clicking on an edge perpendicular to the path of the mesh ring.  Complex mesh selection an also be performed using the selection painting tool [c].  All in all however, it is consistent in creating a separate border mesh.

Once all the letters are extruded, the different materials can be applied to the extruded and non-extruded areas to create a 3D bordering effect.  Note that the amount of the Inset is not consistent between different types of meshes.  To account for this, letters may need to be isolated as a separate mesh before applying the inset.

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