Smoothing the rough edges

Blender provides a number of object modifiers that can be used to quickly alter objects in the scene. In this project only two modifiers, namely Multiresolution and Boolean, will be used. Modifiers can be stacked, turned on and off, and their settings can be changed on the fly. The modifiers are accessed in their own menu in the right-hand side bar.

Begin with an incremental save (Press F2, then Numpad +, and click on Save As Blender File) to set a save point. Then carry out the following steps to create a new modifier:

  1. In the right-hand side bar, click on the icon that looks like a wrench to open up the modifier tab.
  2. Click on the Add Modifier button.
  3. Select from the second column (Generate) the Multiresolution modifier from the menu.
  4. In the Multiresolution options box click on the Subdivide button twice.

Multiresolution smoothes the mesh out by adding more vertices between existing vertices and putting them in a location that rounds the shape. In this case the final result looks good except that the top of the handle is too rounded so it doesn't join the body of the mug well. To flatten these curves out more points will need to be added to the original mesh. Fortunately modifiers do not change the original geometry until you click on the Apply button, so you can still modify the shape in Edit Mode.

To further modify the shape carry out the following steps:

  1. Enter the Wireframe view (Z).
  2. Enter Edit mode (Tab).
  3. The Loop Cut and Slide operation is accessed either by finding the button in the left-hand side bar under Add or by pressing Ctrl + R.
  4. Move the pointer with the mouse to the lines near the top at the end of the handle, as shown in the next screenshot.
  5. Left-click to select this subdivision.
  6. Move the pointer closer to the end of the handle, to slide the loop cut closer to the end of the handle, but not overlapping the existing points.
  7. Left-click to end the loop-cut operation.
  8. Exit Edit Mode (Tab).

The top end of the handle is now blunter and will sit inside the mug better. Save the work done so far before continuing further.

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