Cerbera

Do you have latest version of R20 ? Your profile suggests not... CBR

Actually, no scrap that - that gives me big problems in R20 ! We have possibly found a bug there, because cube 2 is NOT doing what I expect it to.... and nor is Cubic if we look closely... Could you try these (no relax) in R17 and let me know if your results are the same ? CBR

...The hard way, in the absence of any method I am aware of that does not create your aforementioned co-planar polys. That involved: Doing 1 extrude to the maximum depth I wanted with ALL the center polys. Inserting 4 loops inside that Bridging the front polys between pairs to define where I wanted the indents Bridging the side polys between the various levels. Deleting the back polys where they were no longer needed to avoid internal geo. There is no easier way that I am aware of, although we should note that if you are good and familiar with all the tools, the above only took 3 mins. Another way to go is to start with your indented polys - that way you can build up the surface with careful selections and positive extrudes. CBR

No, then I'd map it as cubic 2, then relax once I think... CBR

Frontal mapping (top view) + LSCM relax ? Could maybe do with a little straightening out, but it was 2 clicks to get this far... CBR

Is this the sort of thing you're going for ? CBR

Do you have the latest version of R18 ? CBR

Not so far, but I haven't had much need to model cars or things that would especially benefit from the patch approach, and I much prefer working with Sub-D over patches. CBR

That mainly fixed it for me, but to solve it completely you also need to do what I suggested back on page 1, and check your Dynamics Scale, in Project / Dynamics / Expert which you have set to 100 cm when your fragments are absolutely tiny fractions of that number. Set that to 1 cm, and tell me if they get through now, because I've just done that and not a single piece makes it to the other side for me... CBR

Have you tried a floor ? Nothing gets through a floor. CBR

See also Dynamics scale settings (Project / Dynamics etc) - worth checking that is in the same order of magnitude as the scale of your dynamic pieces.. CBR

Don't assume 360 is a good value there ! You want JUST above your maximum angle in the object you're trying to bevel. 91 probably would have been fine ! There will be times when having that angle too high is definitely NOT what you want. CBR

SplinePatch (3 in particular) has a great deal more options and possibilities than Coons Mesh, the most important of which is its ability to seamlessly and procedurally combine multiple patches into one contiguous mesh... Just checking you have seen this, which expounds on, among other things, the spline cage object, with which Coons Mesh just cannot compete... CBR

Come on @mikoian, you know by now this doesn't belong in New Users etc... we have a Mograph section exactly for problems like this ! :) I'll pop that over there for you, but pls try and remember for future postings. What we really need is the scene file uploaded , rather than pictures of it. Then we can quickly go in and find what's wrong and avoid a lot of unnecessary speculation... Cheers CBR

Just to clarify - angle setting in Extrude tool needs to exceed that of your steepest corner. CBR

Booles are problematic enough on their own, but booles within booles even more so, especially if you just accept the default settings, and ignore the limitations booles have around not working with non-contiguous meshes. You should try the volume builder for this sort of thing ideally - it is a lot more powerful and is likely to give an ultimately nicer result. We could also probably persuade your booles to work with a few settings changes, but you'd need to upload the file... CBR

You don't need to do multiple posts about this in different sections. It is true you are using Octane, so that should be in the title, but it is not yet clear if Octane is the problem, so this doesn't necessarily belong in the 3rd party renderers section, hence why I moved it to miscellaneous Questions for you. I'll retitle this thread which seems to make most sense now. CBR

Yes - just extended the timeline into negative frames. CBR

I don't have Gorilla-cam but I do know it has a single button QuickBake Option, and that's probably what you need. CBR

I think we need to see this scene. Please do Save with Assets, zip the folder that creates, upload to dropbox or similar, and link it here... CBR

It's not non-planar polys I worry about there - SDS will be fixing those. I worry about SDS surface deformation around those holes, so turn off lines mode and check very carefully for any weird pinching or shading... if you don't see any by all means carry on as you are... CBR

You can use the Points to Circle script to get perfect circles - search that up on Google. I did mine with the HB modelling bundle, which also has that, but that isn't free. Or you can line up an 8 sided n-side primitive as a guide, turn on spline snap and move the points that way. If you have used the move tool whilst adjusting those points you have probably broken the curvature - this should be a slide-only procedure so that you don't ever depart from the established curve... CBR

Welcome to the cafe... This should send you in the right direction... CBR

Here's how we might proceed with Helmet 1 above after that. Hopefully you can see how we can get surprisingly attractive and controllable curvature with a minimum of polys... CBR

No I absolutely refuse to believe the only way was to eyeball it :) If we couldn't use a Y edge on the shaft to set null alignment, presumably we could have found another axis on another object that would have been right. Or we could have aligned a workplane to blades and the null to that. But anyway, glad you got it sorted... CBR