- The bevel modifier is similar to an extrude modifier
with the added ability to produce a chamfered
or filleted edge, that is, angled or rounded corners.
And the corners of an extrude modifier would be
at exactly 90 degrees, but that's not terribly realistic.
There really aren't any perfectly sharp corners
in the real world.
Everything's got some roundness,
even if it's very small or even microscopic.
In this case I want to create some angled corners
in order to catch the light
and make my extruded logo look more interesting.
This logo imported from illustrator
is the perfect example of a situation
when we would want to use that bevel modifier
to create angled or rounded corners on a 3D extrusion.
Let's select that, go over to the modify panel,
and from the Modifier List,
we'll choose Bevel, and add that bevel modifier.
Now, if you orbit around in the perspective view
with alt + middle mouse and take a look,
you'll see that the backside looks normal.
It's actually receiving light.
Orbit back around to the front,
and the front is all black,
and that's because the front
and the back are perfectly super imposed over one another
and we're getting kind of a rendering error here
in the view ports.
We need some non-zero height to this extrusion,
and that can be done over here in the bevel values.
We'll see level one,
and there's a height with a value of zero.
So each one of these levels is an extrusion,
and between each one of those extrusions
is an outline value where we can sort of offset the shape,
we can increase the thickness of the letters in this case.
All right, so let's increase the high height
on level one and that'll give us a basic extrusion.
See this a little bit more clearly.
Let's enable edged faces in the perspective view.
With a focus on that view, press F4,
and we can see all the edges superimposed over the surfaces.
Now, normally, actually, we want a negative height
for these values,
and that's because generally we want to see
the start outline be the front of our object.
Let's give level one height a negative value
and that'll push it backwards.
Okay. So right now the front we could consider
to be level zero.
And then the back of our extrusion is level one,
and it's about 54 centimeters away from the front.
All right. Now let's talk about the outlines.
We've got a start outline here of zero centimeters.
We're not actually changing the shapes at all.
Let's try increasing this a little bit.
It's going to make the letters thicker, or if I decrease it
it's going to make the letters thinner.
But notice that we have very limited range here
of really only fractions of a centimeter.
Generally, we want to leave that first start outline
at level zero at a value of zero.
We're not changing the thickness of the letters,
but we'll extrude this backward
just a small amount and then increase the outline
and that'll create a nice chamfer.
Okay. Our next step here is to enable level two
because we want a chamfer at the front
and then we want a straight extrusion after that.
So we need another level.
Turn that on, and give it some negative height value.
Now, if you look in the top view port,
you'll see another series
of edges running through the extrusion.
And if we orbit in the perspective view
with alt + middle mouse, we'll see the same thing.
We've got a new edge loop running through everything.
All right.
So the front is level zero,
this new edge loop is level one
and then the back is level two.
Okay. So for a traditional chamfer effect,
we want a very small chamfer in the front here,
just a little bit of an angle in the front.
And so level one should have a very low negative value.
Let's bring level one's height down
to negative 0.5 centimeters and press enter.
We can dolly forward here, control + alt + middle mouse,
take a look.
So we've got a straight extrusion here.
So here's level zero, level one,
and level two is at the back.
So now to introduce that chamfer we want to give level one
some positive outline value.
And if we want a 45 degree angle
then the outline value should be the same
as the height value,
just in this case, the reversed sign and positive sign.
Let's set the outline value
for level one to 0.5 centimeters.
And now we've got that traditional chamfer here.
Let's take a look at this.
We'll right click in the perspective view
so we don't lose our selection and maximize it
with alt + W, dolly back with control + alt + middle mouse,
and orbit around with alt + middle mouse.
So we've got a nice little chamfer effect there.
Let's finish this up by giving level two height
some round number.
Let's give it negative 20 centimeters.
Okay. So that's how to produce an angled chamfer
using the bevel modifier.
In the following movie,
we'll look at more advanced parameters
on how to edit the underlying spline in order to add detail
in case you want to add a deformation effect
and change the shape.