| Once you have a finished shell form complete, you can begin to create the gaps that visually define the buttons. |
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| In the modifier stack, go down to the edge sub-object level of the edit poly modifier. |
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| Hit F4 of the keyboard to show the white edges on the model. Start by selecting edges |
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Select the edges on the mouse where the gap or channels will be.
If there are not any edges where you want a gap to be, you can use the cut tool to cut or place an edge specifically where you want. |
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Cut from vertex to vertex if you can, otherwise to an edge is ok too. Select all of the edges that will be come gaps or channels.
Tip: Make sure you select all the correct edges and no other ones. This is important. If you miss some edges now it will be much harder later to fix. |
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Next chamfer the edges creating the polygons that will become the gaps.
When you are done chamfering do not deselect the newly created edges. This will be helpful if the edges remain selected for a later step. |
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Now select the newly created polygons.
Tip: Make sure you are extruding the polygons and not the edges.
Click on the extrude settings box to bring up the extrude settings window. |
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Click Local Normal for the extrusion type. Extrude the selected polygons inward approximately the same distance as the width of the newly created polygons from the chamfering process. click Ok to finish the inward extrusion.
Do not click the apply button this is for doing multiple extrudes. |
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Delete the newly created polygons (if any) that are created wherever a gap ends in the middle of the mouse. The illustration shows to of the three I need to delete. There is one more around the back of the mouse.
Not deleting these rouge polygons will cause problems later. |
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| By switching to the edge sub-object level the edges selected earlier should still be selected. If not re-select all edges where the shell surface polygons meet an edge of the gap. |
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| When and only when you have selected all of the appropriate edges, you can do one final chamger, a very small chamfer, to angle the edges. |
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| This is the detailed area of the mouse buttons with the Turbosmooth modifier on prior to the final chamfer. |
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| Here is the detail area of the mouse buttons after the final chamfer. |
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Here is the the mouse after the appropriate chamfer and extrusion steps listed above.
Yeah it's Ugly but the modeling detail is there. |
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