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I am using Blender to create typography and 2D designs with basic flat shapes. I really like the general workflow for this; here's an example of one I made recently to get an idea of my goal.

enter image description here

Right now, I'm working with rectangles rotated at 90 and 45 degree increments, but I have a problem that relates to the geometry and topology of my shapes.

enter image description here

In the above image, I have a flat plane in top-down view.

  • Figure 1 extrudes the bottom edge of the rectangle, resulting in a parallelogram, which has less width visually.

  • Figure 2 duplicates and rotates the rectangle, producing the correct width, but the shapes are separated.

  • Figure 3 is the desired topology with 1 connected shape, but I had to achieve it through careful manual editing.

Is there a process I can use to properly achieve the shape in figure 3? I haven't been able to figure this out...

axe
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  • Hello and welcome. very simple, in figure 2 just create a vertex at the intersection with this method https://blender.stackexchange.com/q/272048/142292 and then u can select 2 vertices and press j to split the geometry with that slanting edge. then dissolve the other edges with x > dissolve – Harry McKenzie Mar 18 '23 at 01:49
  • @HarryMcKenzie Thank you! This works great, but I wonder if there's a less destructive way to achieve this geometry? Is there an easy way to achieve this without additional editing? – axe Mar 18 '23 at 02:10

2 Answers2

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You can enable the addon called Mesh: Edit Mesh Tools, select your edge and press CtrlE > Offset Edges > Extrude:

enter image description here

Then set the Width value in the Operator Box:

enter image description here

moonboots
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This is a bit of a hack, but the easiest way I found was the following:

Model it as you had been in figure 2... Once you're happy with the design, create a plane that is bigger than the entire design. enter image description here

Then use Knife Project to cut your design into the plane and you'll end up with this mess... enter image description here

Then, delete the outer 4 vertices that formed the original plane (this has just really been an easy way to get verts at the intersections of all the lines, you might know a better way??) enter image description here

Next, use the MACHIN3tools addon (which is free) to do a cleanup and you'll be left with just the perimeter enter image description here

Finally hit CTRL T to triangulate your mesh, then ALT J to make quads and you should be good to go. enter image description here

Psyonic
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