UE3 - General Bend Modifier in MAX

Yeah bend is a bit of a nuisance, for simple profiles it's probably worth just using a loft, if that's not an option then you can use the technique that I use when creating bent sections. I'm not claiming this is the absolute best way but it does work.

In the following example I've got a 20x20x200 section (although you can use whatever you want, the principle is the same. This is using a radius of 120 to try and get the most natural bend for the length. For your piece you will need to use r radius of:

(512 * (90 / 360)) / (PI * 2) = 325.9 (for a 90 degree bend)

So 320 should work for a 90 degree bend, you always want to be on-grid and also just under the suggested radius and you'll see why.

Here is the scene with 3 of the sections to for reference, we'll bend the blue piece. Set up your section to be bent so that it is at the same offset from the origin as your desired radius:




Apply the bend modifier but don't do anything with it yet:



Next apply a symmetry modifier and rotate it to half of the total bend (so in this case 45 degrees), then snap it to the point you want to be the "pivot" for your bend, in this case the origin point:



Next go back to your bend modifier and alter the Angle property to the desired bend amount, but then alter it until your radius looks smooth, I went to 95 degrees here:



Finished bend looks like the following:



Because your start point is on-grid and your symmetry point is on-grid, the end point should be on-grid also and you have a natural bend. Also, if you've applied and collapsed your UV coordinates beforehand, the UV's will be nicely mirrored too.

There's probably a better way of doing this but this method works for me, plus you can use it to create nice angles and other weird stuff, the symmetry modifier keeps your start and end on-grid.

Hope this is helpful to you.

Heh, no problem. Yeah soft selection has it's uses but I always feel dirty sticking an edit poly or edit mesh on the top my nice shiny stack

ninjanomics said:

I'm a big proponent of 'if it isn't working, try a symmetry modifier!'

Click to expand...

Having this as a rubberstamp would be awesome, or maybe a bumper sticker. Also, sorry if the step-by-step reply was a bit overkill, it's more for the benefit of anyone that finds this thread who has the same question. Had a quick look at your website and some nice work there.