Use case is 3D printing, which often has issues with hollow interiors, especially when scaled down. Miniatures from full size leads to thin walls and failed prints. Make the model solid and the slicer with create infill as desired and the miniature will print well.
I came here to say this. It becomes even more of an issue if you're designing for Resin printing where uncured resin can get trapped inside the hollows and if the part has resin filled hollows then you're possibly exposing someone to uncured resin. I am learning to design toys and BJDs. I would be mortified if a toy failed or cracked and exposed a person to uncured resin.
Thanks! I made a low-poly torso that appears to be missing a bottom vertex and on closer inspection my extrudes were done on vertices rather than faces, so I got some hollows instead of faces because I didn't select all the vertices when extruding. I found this video immensely helpful!
Thank You!!! I have just taken up 3D printing again but now with a resin printer. One of the things I have been trying to print is a 12 scale doll using MakeHuman. The problem I had is that the exported file has cavities for eyes and mouth and when I hollow out the model in my slicer it just adds walls around them with no way to drain the resin trapped inside. I'm not very savvy when it comes to Blender and you wouldn't believe the number of different terms I have done searches for trying to find the answer to my problem or the amount of time I've spent searching - I have learnt a few things I didn't know, so the searches were not entirely fruitless :-) So again thank you.
I am glad this has helped and I do know the problem you have! If I use a generated model from makehuman, charmorph or mb-lab I usually remove the teeth and tongue at least if the mouth is closed and it isn't always easy. I haven't found eye cavities an issue though. I think makehuman had an option to not include the mouth parts though I might have just mis-remembered that.
@@notverygoodguy so unfortunately, your solution didn't work because the cavities are not enclosed cavities at all - they are just caves so to speak from the front of the model, even with a closed mouth, there is a minuscule gap and the eyeballs don't seal off the eye sockets. Back to trying how to add a solid shape into the holes :-( But I still think I need to bookmark this video for future uses.)
@@OzTwinmum You might try just going mesh->cleanup->fill holes. This often works for me when there is an open mouth. Alternatively, select faces on the back of the head and hide them with "h". You can then just remove the mouth cavity fairly easily. At this point you either join the top and bottom lip or boolean a ball or somthing in there. Of course you need to unhide the faces you hid with ALT H afterwards. I would say that you can also drill resin draining holes through the entire head and then gluing the hair on top after wards :) With all that said, if you generate your character with charmorph, the mouth will print fine and the resin will drain out if you do nothing at all.
@@notverygoodguy yay, I have a printable file with no internal cavities. I took your advice and went in from the back of the head and remove the cavities and sealed up the open areas. Exported to my slicer and all solid. Wish I had found your videao sooner lol
ive been looking for this info for years. thank you. now i have some 3d printing to do again. also if boolean difference is not working right, this might be your solution, i found out if it aint manifold, boolean diff doesnt work right
Thanks! The use case I have here is to fill a hollow model that's too big, so that when it's all printed and assembled there is no chance of liquid uncured resin on the inside. I found that some models with a lot of volume internally can have liquid stay inside there and eventually cause problems.
Would it be possible to give the actual name of a function being used rather than just saying to press L then H etc? My use case is I use the industry compatible key map so I need to find the function myself. But even for someone using the default keymap it could be good for them to be told what’s happening rather than rote keypresses. Thanks for taking the time to make these!
I understand your pain here. It must be quite frustrating. The difficulty here would be that in many cases I don't know what the actual function is and I guess many people are the same. H is easy enough I guess as it hides the selection but I don't know what that is actually called in the key map. Even worse for things like p. Internally I associate that with seParate but I am pretty sure that isn't the correct name. I like your idea but am not sure how I would achieve it.
My use case was I downloaded a file I bought on cults3d and the creator had created it hollowed which makes it nearly impossible to print. After making it solid, I was about to hollow it myself but with infill to support the insides. Thanks for the video!
The use case is for 3D printing models that are hollowed, but are small so adding holes will only cause significant damage to detail without really allowing you to remove the excess resin. It's better to have a solid model at small scales than a 3 cubic cm well of uncured resin hanging out waiting to cause problems.
What does the action L do? Hitting L doesn't seem to select anything for me. When I just select the model by clicking on it, it all disappears when I hit H to hide. It's hiding the entire model and I'm not left with anything to delete. I can see shapes inside the model when I turn on X ray and when I slice it there are weird gaps inside that show up as solid on some layers that print but not others so I'm sure there's something odd going on inside this model.
L will select everything that is connected to the vertex under the mouse pointer. H will hide everything selected. I would guess that your inside wall is connected to the outside walls somewhere so when you press L, it is also selecting those inside the model. If this is the case, you could try manually selecting all the outside vertices by using the circle select tool by pressing c and then adjusting the size of the tool with your mouse wheel. Then brush all over the outside of the model. Be careful as it is easy to miss some. Then when you have selected everything you can see, you can press H. If you are having problem, post a link to your blend file and I'll have a quick look.
Hi - great video. I'm trying to fill a void in a model and followed all the steps however the interior walls are reading as exterior so when I hide the external vertices it hides the ones inside too - any ideas on why this may be happening?
Sounds like it is a model with a hole in it rather than a hollow model which might sound like its the same thing but actually isn't. It also sounds like the hole intersects with the outside walls which is why the inside gets selected with the outside. One thing you could try if you are patient is to go into edit mode and try to select everything you see with the circle select brush (press c and adjust the size of the circle with the mouse wheel) select as much as you can and then hide it with h (you might need to right click to come out of circle select first). If there is still more outside that needs selecting repeat the process until you are left with just the inside hole of the model. Finally do ALT-H to get the hidden parts back. They should still be all selected so go ctrl i to invert the selection. This should now select everything except the parts you selected before i.e. the inside and delete these vertices with x, vertices. Take a copy of your model first of course. Hope this works!
@@notverygoodguy It's a hollow model with drainage holes in. I've filled the drainage holes in with cylinders in 3D builder but it still doesn't seem to be recognising any of the internal topography.
@@kingfluff8065 Hmm in this case does it even matter that it has holes in it? It will likely print anyway. That said, it sounds like your only other option is to select all the vertices on the outside of your model and separate them from the rest of the model and I described above. This might require a lot of patience though. If you have a link to the model I would be interested to take a look at it.
Hi! In my case the hollow is connected to the outside, it is not just a separated object inside with inverted faces. Also the outside is very textured making it a lot harder to select. By using L it selects everything including the "hollow". Any insights will be appreciated, thx
This can be a little more difficult but you might be able to do it this way. Making sure X-Ray mode is off you can select everything you can see by using the circle select option, press c and then use the mouse wheel to increase the size of the selection circle and then go round your model selecting everything you can see. Because you don't have X-Ray mode on it shouldn't select any inside vertices. Then invert the selection ( turn on X-ray to check it has now selected the insides) and just delete the selected vertices. I'd be interested to know if this actually works for you.
@@notverygoodguy thank you for the suggestion, but unfortunately it doesn't work because the parts the surface is not smooth, lots of faces are hidden from view so even going around and around selecting, it isn't able to select everything.
@@notverygoodguy let me rephrase it: it works, but it is too much of a high poly textured sculpt model, that it takes forever to try to select everything. And I'm not that skilled in blender. So I'm trying to find an easier way.
@@julianopolito You are skilled enough that you diagnosed correctly why the method in this video wasn't working for you. Seems to me your only option is to select as much as you can with the circle select tool as described and then hide what you have selected by pressing h. This will then make it possible to see and select the more difficult to get at vertices. Keep selecting outside vertices and hiding them until you are left with just the inside of your model. Then turn x-ray mode on and select everything remaining which should be the inside of the model until you have selected everything. Delete the vertices and then do alt-h to unhide all the outside vertices you selected earlier. You'll need to be careful and have a copy of your model first and you might need to fill up some small holes afterwards (use Mesh->Clean up->fill holes) but this will work in principle even if it does take a bit of time. Also make sure you have face orientation on as described in the video so you can see a little easier which vertices to select.
Assuming you are not select everything with "a" instead of using "l" you could be very unlucky. If you have a model where the inside touches the outside somewhere this method wont work. What you could try although it would be a bit more annoying is to select all of the vertices manually using the circle select tool or the other selection tools. Then when you are sure you have them all selected, duplicate them with SHIFT D, press the left mouse button and then go p->by selection. This will give you a second but solid version of your model. If your models it complex it could be tough to be sure you have all the outside vertices selected though. Please let em know if you continue to have problems with this.
im have a model thats already made and im trying to delete the connection points on the inside of the model as i cant hollow it out in my slicer correctly without having a buggy mess, this did not work for me, is there something im missing or am i looking for the wrong solution?
This video is for when you already have a hollowed out model, likely created by your slicer, that you want to make solid again so is probably not suitable for what you want to do. What might make your job easier if you are just trying to delete some vertices inside your model is to select the outside faces of your model and then hide them with "h". Then you can see what is left inside your model and delete those you don't need. When finished you can get back the faces you hid with ALT-h. I hope this helps but let me know.
@@notverygoodguy i believe this is the best way to describe what im trying to do, delete the inside vertices, when selecting the outside faces it still doesn't leave behind the inside vertices without causing a glitchy mess, any solution to this? i have photos but im sure comment will be auto removed
@@PurrfessorFeline A picture is worth a thousand words but a blend file is even more valuable :) If you can upload it somewhere it would be interesting to see where your issue is.
@@notverygoodguy this is a before and after attempt of deleting vertices from the inside https :// drive. google. com/file/d/1FZejm_wrm1Y_qerWdWbEF1zzf30DC4sq /view?usp=sharing "sorry for spacing i cannot comment links"
when I press L hovering over the model, it only selects verts in that local zone, all around the map. how do I get it to select everything on the outside?
This will happen if the parts that don't get selected are not actually attached to the bits that are selected. You might want to try merging by distance on everything before you start. Select everything in edit mode and then go Mesh->Cleanup->Merge by distance.
Hello, thank you for this guide. I've tried it to a backpack model I would like to print for a diorama but pressing L makes the opposite - different (depends on where is the mouse pointer) OUTER parts of the model are selected. What can be wrong?
The L key selects all the connected vertices under the mouse. If you are getting different results depending on where your mouse is then your model is probably is separate parts that haven't been joined together properly. If you can post a link to your model perhaps I can take a look.
Please forgive me if the answer is obvious, this is my first time using 3D printing for a project. I followed the steps in your video but for some reason my whole model will disappear. Which might sound like it's fixed, no issues, but there is a red part in my model just like it shows on your screen. So before hitting H, if I go into my model I see the red (blue spot was moved to transparent). But when I hit H, the whole model disappears. It also will say it has no geometry data when put into the orca slicer, so I know there's something wrong with the model. Do you know why the red part may be removed too when I hit H?
A possible reason might be if the hollow part of the model intersects with the outside so that when you try to select the inside of the model (the red part) is also selects the outside. Then when you press H to hide the vertices, they are all hidden. One thing you could do is to try this in reverse but you won't be able to use the l key to select things. If the model isn't too intricate you could use the circle select option c and then control the size of the selection circle with your mouse scroll wheel and then paint all the outside of your model to select everything you can actually see. Then hide these with h and see what is left. If it looks like it is probably the inside of the model, select everything and delete and unhide the ones you hid before. I hope this works. Let me know.
Hi, I have a Terminator Endoskeleton head. I need to kake a hole into the eye and holow the head so i can put leds into it. When I try the bohemien method, i get an error message, Could you help me out and make a hole into the eye of the headsculpt? Would be awesome! Thanks!
The easiest way to do this would be to model a shape of the hole you need and put it in the head where you need it. Then use a boolean difference. If you then turn off the "hole" in the outliner it will leave you with the hole in your model. Hope this helps.
@@notverygoodguy as ive wrote! The boolean tool gives me an error. Cant use it on the eyes. Otherwise it had been finished with that tool. But it dosnt work on that part of the model somehow
I'm running into an issue where when I press L it only selects a portion of the model I'm trying to fill in. It doesnt select the entire exterior face of the model.
L selects connected vertices. Is it possible that you have portions of your model that are not connected. You could try doing a merge by distance to see if that helps.
I have been trying to find a way to replicate your issue and I can't. Even on a non hollow model it will select everything. Be sure you are pressing "l" and not "L" though. If you still have an issue, let me know.
@@notverygoodguyi have a similar issue the model is a jet ski and the inside is hollow not any part of the object is a solid object so its like different layers of folded paper making a 3d object if that makes sense but now thinking about it this may be an issue that can be solved in fusion?
@@aaron8200 If there is no "inner model" then your model is already solid at least from the perspective of 3d printing. However, if you are able to provide a link to your model I'd be interested to take a look at it.
I presume you did it just on the blue colour? If not are you sure you have any inside faces. To check just create a cube and use ALT B to make a cross section. Then ALT B again when finished.
I am using the Blender plubin called Screencast keys github.com/nutti/Screencast-Keys. Bear in mind that it does not show a secondary key e.g. "g z" will only show the g and not the z. I still haven't found one which does that.
*IMPORTANT* I'm actually designing some jewelleries but when I'm putting them to 3d print it's showing that it's hollow from the inside in the preview... What can i do to solidify it completely from the inside (for ex. an earring) should i use softwares like meshmixers or something I'm trying to solve this for so long...
Firstly are you sure it's actually hollow? A Blender object by default is solid and so you have to actually make it hollow on purpose. There are several ways in which a model may look hollow in other software e.g. a printer slicer with no infill selected but that doesn't mean it actually is. Are you able to share a link to your blend file or model, maybe using wetransfer.com or google drive or similar? I would be interested to have a look at it.
I was going to do one but in the end printer slicers are just way better at it than Blender. There are some edge cases where Blender can solve some hollowing problems so I may do one about it soon.
This video is great unfortunately it hasn't fixed my problem. I sculpted some crystal formations and made each crystal using a circle plane with 5 sides extruded and filled the top and bottom (which I thought would make it a solid object I was wrong haha) all I have is planes technically but trying to make it solid this method isn't working it has however fixed my mech I was making
To be fair this method only works at taking "hollowness" away from models that were originally solid but have been hollowed out in a slicer or something. It hadn't occurred to me that someone might try to make a "manifold" solid model with it. Your problem is likely to be fixed by the "make manifold" option in the 3dprint plugin that blender comes with or by selecting everything in edit mode an going Mesh->Clean Up->Merge by distance. Hope this works!
@notverygoodguy right on, I'm just starting out, and I have a printer on the smaller side, so for the size of models I'm going to be making, I'm going to need to fill the interior to key the separate pieces. This is why it's useful for me personally
@@zacharyhall7466 Sounds sensible to me. If you are resin printing then hollow models are essential unless they are small. For FDM printing hollow models are very annoying :)
How would one make a model solid, that has been hollowed for printing in several parts? Those models are usually made hollow, but with holes, that connect the inside surface with the outside surface, leaving you essentially with just one surface. This method seems to not work in that case... Any other methods for that known?
This case is more difficult as you would need to fill in the holes. One suggestion that comes to mind would be to ensure all the parts are put together in object mode so they make up the completed model. Then join them with CTRL J. Next, in edit mode you need to select all the outside vertices. This might be difficult depending on the model but as a last resort you could select them with the circle select (press c and the use the mouse scroll wheel to adjust the size of the circle) and then just go p->by selected. Then you should have an object of just those selected vertices.
great, that worked. Even easier, when selecting all verticies and then just unselecting the inner surface verticies :) Thank you for the help! @@notverygoodguy
@@bofuhonaw12 Just a thought though, the final model may not be manifold. I would suggest doing a quick merge by distance. In edit mode, select all and then go Mesh->Clean up->Merge by distance.
Sorry about that. I used to have issues with the audio before I realised I wasn't recording on a mono track but this one seems OK to me. Not sure how to improve it but happy for any suggestions.
The most common reason for a problem here is either incorrect normals somewhere in the mode or the model isn't correctly hollowed. If any part of the hollow intersects with the outside of the model then this won't work. If this is the case you do have the option of selecting all the vertices of the outside manually. That said, can you explain at one point you have the problem and what do you mean by "a shell of itself"
Can you explain which parts you felt were missed? It is always a balancing act getting the amount of detail right. If you go into too much detail you end up saying the same thing in every video and it turns people off. On the other hand of course you want your video to be helpful to as many people as possible.
@@notverygoodguy Dont get me wrong its great video helpful just when you went to click and highlighted at the start would be very helpful if you did that for each menu you click on cause later in the video when switching menus I h lost track of your mouse had no clue what you click on and had to replay video afew times to figure it out. But again thank you for your guides was very helpful
@@bujinmar Thanks for your reply. I'll admit editing videos to highlight all the menu clicks can start to get a bit tiring :) However I'll take what you say on board for the next one. Thanks again.
Another way to accomplish this is to select in Edit Mode, go to Mesh > Separate > By Loose Parts. This will give you the inside and outside parts in the Scene Collection tree, select the outside and hide it, then the inside will be visible. Select and delete it and you now have your solid.
This absolutely does work although would be very annoying with models that actually already have a lot of loose parts. That said, it's an option I hadn't thought of so thanks.
@@notverygoodguy I've had that experience as well, although I've found that at the bottom set of parts the outer shell is either the first or second listing from the bottom. I just turned visibility on and off, and when I located the outside I just shift+clicked the rest of the parts in the list and deleted them wholesale, leaving just the outside. And thank you for this, it let me figure out how to do it that way - I was having a heck of a time trying to get a solid from an STL so I could print it properly.
@@RRSF09 I will play with this idea a bit and see how it stacks up. It makes more sense than just trying to find the insides. Actually, just selecting the outside from the start is probably better than what I have in this video anyway.
It is not easy to get this right to be fair though I don't see it too much lower than other videos I watch. I'll put some more effort into the next one though. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
@@notverygoodguy I am really interested in hearing it. My laptop is usually loud enough in a silent room with nothing else going. Do I detect a British accent? Love the Brits, I've moved here now. Best to you.
HI! It didn't work for me. When I press H it shows nothing, the when select any potential verticies, I delete and press alt H, seems like it was accidentially deleted?
If you pressed h and everything disappears (assuming you have pressed l to start with) then your model isn't truly hollow. Are you able to provide a link to your model?
@@notverygoodguy HI! I just saw this message and while I don't have the same model anymore, I still would like to thank you for offering help! I just have new issues now to figure out
Use case is 3D printing, which often has issues with hollow interiors, especially when scaled down. Miniatures from full size leads to thin walls and failed prints. Make the model solid and the slicer with create infill as desired and the miniature will print well.
Thank you. That makes sense :)
It also prevents resin traps.
I came here to say this. It becomes even more of an issue if you're designing for Resin printing where uncured resin can get trapped inside the hollows and if the part has resin filled hollows then you're possibly exposing someone to uncured resin. I am learning to design toys and BJDs. I would be mortified if a toy failed or cracked and exposed a person to uncured resin.
Thanks! I made a low-poly torso that appears to be missing a bottom vertex and on closer inspection my extrudes were done on vertices rather than faces, so I got some hollows instead of faces because I didn't select all the vertices when extruding. I found this video immensely helpful!
That's great to hear and thanks for leaving the feedback. Appreciate it.
Thank You!!! I have just taken up 3D printing again but now with a resin printer. One of the things I have been trying to print is a 12 scale doll using MakeHuman. The problem I had is that the exported file has cavities for eyes and mouth and when I hollow out the model in my slicer it just adds walls around them with no way to drain the resin trapped inside. I'm not very savvy when it comes to Blender and you wouldn't believe the number of different terms I have done searches for trying to find the answer to my problem or the amount of time I've spent searching - I have learnt a few things I didn't know, so the searches were not entirely fruitless :-) So again thank you.
I am glad this has helped and I do know the problem you have! If I use a generated model from makehuman, charmorph or mb-lab I usually remove the teeth and tongue at least if the mouth is closed and it isn't always easy. I haven't found eye cavities an issue though. I think makehuman had an option to not include the mouth parts though I might have just mis-remembered that.
@@notverygoodguy so unfortunately, your solution didn't work because the cavities are not enclosed cavities at all - they are just caves so to speak from the front of the model, even with a closed mouth, there is a minuscule gap and the eyeballs don't seal off the eye sockets. Back to trying how to add a solid shape into the holes :-( But I still think I need to bookmark this video for future uses.)
@@OzTwinmum You might try just going mesh->cleanup->fill holes. This often works for me when there is an open mouth. Alternatively, select faces on the back of the head and hide them with "h". You can then just remove the mouth cavity fairly easily. At this point you either join the top and bottom lip or boolean a ball or somthing in there. Of course you need to unhide the faces you hid with ALT H afterwards. I would say that you can also drill resin draining holes through the entire head and then gluing the hair on top after wards :) With all that said, if you generate your character with charmorph, the mouth will print fine and the resin will drain out if you do nothing at all.
@@notverygoodguy Again thank you.. I will give these methods a try. Added bonus is I'm learning more and more of Blender
@@notverygoodguy yay, I have a printable file with no internal cavities. I took your advice and went in from the back of the head and remove the cavities and sealed up the open areas. Exported to my slicer and all solid. Wish I had found your videao sooner lol
ive been looking for this info for years. thank you. now i have some 3d printing to do again. also if boolean difference is not working right, this might be your solution, i found out if it aint manifold, boolean diff doesnt work right
I am very glad this was useful for you. Feel free to let me know if you have any issues when trying this technique.
You are doing a great job. This will help lots of people 👍🏻
Thanks so much for the feedback!
Thanks! The use case I have here is to fill a hollow model that's too big, so that when it's all printed and assembled there is no chance of liquid uncured resin on the inside. I found that some models with a lot of volume internally can have liquid stay inside there and eventually cause problems.
Thanks for this. It is something I hadn't considered. Do you think that the solid version might have some suction issues on the FEP though?
@@notverygoodguy
So long as you support it with a raft, that shouldn't happen. Or at least it hasn't for me, yet lol
@@ParryHisParry Then I wish you luck :)
I will probably never memorize these stepts but saving your video will surely help me in the future :D Thanks!
Hope it will be helpful
Would it be possible to give the actual name of a function being used rather than just saying to press L then H etc? My use case is I use the industry compatible key map so I need to find the function myself. But even for someone using the default keymap it could be good for them to be told what’s happening rather than rote keypresses. Thanks for taking the time to make these!
I understand your pain here. It must be quite frustrating. The difficulty here would be that in many cases I don't know what the actual function is and I guess many people are the same. H is easy enough I guess as it hides the selection but I don't know what that is actually called in the key map. Even worse for things like p. Internally I associate that with seParate but I am pretty sure that isn't the correct name.
I like your idea but am not sure how I would achieve it.
My use case was I downloaded a file I bought on cults3d and the creator had created it hollowed which makes it nearly impossible to print.
After making it solid, I was about to hollow it myself but with infill to support the insides.
Thanks for the video!
Excellent! Thanks for letting me know.
The use case is for 3D printing models that are hollowed, but are small so adding holes will only cause significant damage to detail without really allowing you to remove the excess resin. It's better to have a solid model at small scales than a 3 cubic cm well of uncured resin hanging out waiting to cause problems.
Thanks for this. I hadn't thought of that one!
Ive been looking for this for a months, was using 3d builder but it always make my model mess up. Thank you!
I am very glad to hear this was useful for you! Thank you for letting me know.
What does the action L do? Hitting L doesn't seem to select anything for me. When I just select the model by clicking on it, it all disappears when I hit H to hide. It's hiding the entire model and I'm not left with anything to delete. I can see shapes inside the model when I turn on X ray and when I slice it there are weird gaps inside that show up as solid on some layers that print but not others so I'm sure there's something odd going on inside this model.
L will select everything that is connected to the vertex under the mouse pointer. H will hide everything selected. I would guess that your inside wall is connected to the outside walls somewhere so when you press L, it is also selecting those inside the model.
If this is the case, you could try manually selecting all the outside vertices by using the circle select tool by pressing c and then adjusting the size of the tool with your mouse wheel. Then brush all over the outside of the model. Be careful as it is easy to miss some. Then when you have selected everything you can see, you can press H.
If you are having problem, post a link to your blend file and I'll have a quick look.
This is helpful as i have purchase models that are oddly sculpted or assembled with hollows that cause printing issues.
Good to hear it was helpful and thanks for the feedback.
Hi - great video. I'm trying to fill a void in a model and followed all the steps however the interior walls are reading as exterior so when I hide the external vertices it hides the ones inside too - any ideas on why this may be happening?
Sounds like it is a model with a hole in it rather than a hollow model which might sound like its the same thing but actually isn't. It also sounds like the hole intersects with the outside walls which is why the inside gets selected with the outside.
One thing you could try if you are patient is to go into edit mode and try to select everything you see with the circle select brush (press c and adjust the size of the circle with the mouse wheel) select as much as you can and then hide it with h (you might need to right click to come out of circle select first). If there is still more outside that needs selecting repeat the process until you are left with just the inside hole of the model. Finally do ALT-H to get the hidden parts back. They should still be all selected so go ctrl i to invert the selection. This should now select everything except the parts you selected before i.e. the inside and delete these vertices with x, vertices.
Take a copy of your model first of course.
Hope this works!
@@notverygoodguy It's a hollow model with drainage holes in. I've filled the drainage holes in with cylinders in 3D builder but it still doesn't seem to be recognising any of the internal topography.
@@kingfluff8065 Hmm in this case does it even matter that it has holes in it? It will likely print anyway.
That said, it sounds like your only other option is to select all the vertices on the outside of your model and separate them from the rest of the model and I described above. This might require a lot of patience though.
If you have a link to the model I would be interested to take a look at it.
Hi! In my case the hollow is connected to the outside, it is not just a separated object inside with inverted faces. Also the outside is very textured making it a lot harder to select. By using L it selects everything including the "hollow". Any insights will be appreciated, thx
This can be a little more difficult but you might be able to do it this way. Making sure X-Ray mode is off you can select everything you can see by using the circle select option, press c and then use the mouse wheel to increase the size of the selection circle and then go round your model selecting everything you can see. Because you don't have X-Ray mode on it shouldn't select any inside vertices. Then invert the selection ( turn on X-ray to check it has now selected the insides) and just delete the selected vertices.
I'd be interested to know if this actually works for you.
@@notverygoodguy thank you for the suggestion, but unfortunately it doesn't work because the parts the surface is not smooth, lots of faces are hidden from view so even going around and around selecting, it isn't able to select everything.
@@notverygoodguy let me rephrase it: it works, but it is too much of a high poly textured sculpt model, that it takes forever to try to select everything. And I'm not that skilled in blender. So I'm trying to find an easier way.
@@julianopolito You are skilled enough that you diagnosed correctly why the method in this video wasn't working for you.
Seems to me your only option is to select as much as you can with the circle select tool as described and then hide what you have selected by pressing h. This will then make it possible to see and select the more difficult to get at vertices. Keep selecting outside vertices and hiding them until you are left with just the inside of your model. Then turn x-ray mode on and select everything remaining which should be the inside of the model until you have selected everything. Delete the vertices and then do alt-h to unhide all the outside vertices you selected earlier.
You'll need to be careful and have a copy of your model first and you might need to fill up some small holes afterwards (use Mesh->Clean up->fill holes) but this will work in principle even if it does take a bit of time.
Also make sure you have face orientation on as described in the video so you can see a little easier which vertices to select.
pressing h hides both inside and out of model. What am I doing wrong?
Assuming you are not select everything with "a" instead of using "l" you could be very unlucky. If you have a model where the inside touches the outside somewhere this method wont work.
What you could try although it would be a bit more annoying is to select all of the vertices manually using the circle select tool or the other selection tools. Then when you are sure you have them all selected, duplicate them with SHIFT D, press the left mouse button and then go p->by selection. This will give you a second but solid version of your model.
If your models it complex it could be tough to be sure you have all the outside vertices selected though.
Please let em know if you continue to have problems with this.
Inside does invert to outside at some points. This is my problem. Thank you for your response.
@@archonoch Thanks for letting me know!
im have a model thats already made and im trying to delete the connection points on the inside of the model as i cant hollow it out in my slicer correctly without having a buggy mess, this did not work for me, is there something im missing or am i looking for the wrong solution?
This video is for when you already have a hollowed out model, likely created by your slicer, that you want to make solid again so is probably not suitable for what you want to do.
What might make your job easier if you are just trying to delete some vertices inside your model is to select the outside faces of your model and then hide them with "h". Then you can see what is left inside your model and delete those you don't need. When finished you can get back the faces you hid with ALT-h. I hope this helps but let me know.
@@notverygoodguy i believe this is the best way to describe what im trying to do, delete the inside vertices, when selecting the outside faces it still doesn't leave behind the inside vertices without causing a glitchy mess, any solution to this? i have photos but im sure comment will be auto removed
@@PurrfessorFeline A picture is worth a thousand words but a blend file is even more valuable :) If you can upload it somewhere it would be interesting to see where your issue is.
@@notverygoodguy this is a before and after attempt of deleting vertices from the inside https :// drive. google. com/file/d/1FZejm_wrm1Y_qerWdWbEF1zzf30DC4sq /view?usp=sharing "sorry for spacing i cannot comment links"
@@notverygoodguy This actually helped with my problem. Thank you very much!
when I press L hovering over the model, it only selects verts in that local zone, all around the map. how do I get it to select everything on the outside?
This will happen if the parts that don't get selected are not actually attached to the bits that are selected. You might want to try merging by distance on everything before you start. Select everything in edit mode and then go Mesh->Cleanup->Merge by distance.
Hello, thank you for this guide. I've tried it to a backpack model I would like to print for a diorama but pressing L makes the opposite - different (depends on where is the mouse pointer) OUTER parts of the model are selected. What can be wrong?
The L key selects all the connected vertices under the mouse. If you are getting different results depending on where your mouse is then your model is probably is separate parts that haven't been joined together properly. If you can post a link to your model perhaps I can take a look.
Please forgive me if the answer is obvious, this is my first time using 3D printing for a project. I followed the steps in your video but for some reason my whole model will disappear. Which might sound like it's fixed, no issues, but there is a red part in my model just like it shows on your screen. So before hitting H, if I go into my model I see the red (blue spot was moved to transparent). But when I hit H, the whole model disappears. It also will say it has no geometry data when put into the orca slicer, so I know there's something wrong with the model. Do you know why the red part may be removed too when I hit H?
A possible reason might be if the hollow part of the model intersects with the outside so that when you try to select the inside of the model (the red part) is also selects the outside. Then when you press H to hide the vertices, they are all hidden. One thing you could do is to try this in reverse but you won't be able to use the l key to select things. If the model isn't too intricate you could use the circle select option c and then control the size of the selection circle with your mouse scroll wheel and then paint all the outside of your model to select everything you can actually see. Then hide these with h and see what is left. If it looks like it is probably the inside of the model, select everything and delete and unhide the ones you hid before. I hope this works. Let me know.
Hi, I have a Terminator Endoskeleton head.
I need to kake a hole into the eye and holow the head so i can put leds into it.
When I try the bohemien method, i get an error message,
Could you help me out and make a hole into the eye of the headsculpt?
Would be awesome!
Thanks!
The easiest way to do this would be to model a shape of the hole you need and put it in the head where you need it. Then use a boolean difference. If you then turn off the "hole" in the outliner it will leave you with the hole in your model. Hope this helps.
@@notverygoodguy as ive wrote! The boolean tool gives me an error. Cant use it on the eyes. Otherwise it had been finished with that tool. But it dosnt work on that part of the model somehow
@@gaboaaa23 What is the error you are getting? Have you turned face orientation on to check your normals are correct?
I'm running into an issue where when I press L it only selects a portion of the model I'm trying to fill in. It doesnt select the entire exterior face of the model.
L selects connected vertices. Is it possible that you have portions of your model that are not connected. You could try doing a merge by distance to see if that helps.
@@notverygoodguy i ended up merging the model in the basic windows 3D editor and it also filled it in as well.
@@SnekPlskin Good news. WIndows builder is often a pretty good option for fixing things.
pressing "L" does not work to highlight anything when i hover over my model it instead only highlights one vertice :/ is there anything i can do?
I have been trying to find a way to replicate your issue and I can't. Even on a non hollow model it will select everything.
Be sure you are pressing "l" and not "L" though. If you still have an issue, let me know.
@@notverygoodguyi have a similar issue the model is a jet ski and the inside is hollow not any part of the object is a solid object so its like different layers of folded paper making a 3d object if that makes sense but now thinking about it this may be an issue that can be solved in fusion?
@@aaron8200 If there is no "inner model" then your model is already solid at least from the perspective of 3d printing. However, if you are able to provide a link to your model I'd be interested to take a look at it.
For some reason when I turn down the opacity of the face orientation, it shows only gray and I cannot see the inside faces.
I presume you did it just on the blue colour? If not are you sure you have any inside faces. To check just create a cube and use ALT B to make a cross section. Then ALT B again when finished.
hi good guy What is the name of the plugin or software that displays your mouse and keyboard operations on the screen? It is beautiful and concise
I am using the Blender plubin called Screencast keys github.com/nutti/Screencast-Keys. Bear in mind that it does not show a secondary key e.g. "g z" will only show the g and not the z. I still haven't found one which does that.
Latest versions of Screencast-keys does show secondary keys :)
*IMPORTANT* I'm actually designing some jewelleries but when I'm putting them to 3d print it's showing that it's hollow from the inside in the preview... What can i do to solidify it completely from the inside (for ex. an earring) should i use softwares like meshmixers or something I'm trying to solve this for so long...
Firstly are you sure it's actually hollow? A Blender object by default is solid and so you have to actually make it hollow on purpose. There are several ways in which a model may look hollow in other software e.g. a printer slicer with no infill selected but that doesn't mean it actually is.
Are you able to share a link to your blend file or model, maybe using wetransfer.com or google drive or similar? I would be interested to have a look at it.
Do you have a tutorial on making a solid model hollow as well?
I was going to do one but in the end printer slicers are just way better at it than Blender. There are some edge cases where Blender can solve some hollowing problems so I may do one about it soon.
I do now, yes. ua-cam.com/video/mAIEIy3kLr4/v-deo.html
This video is great unfortunately it hasn't fixed my problem. I sculpted some crystal formations and made each crystal using a circle plane with 5 sides extruded and filled the top and bottom (which I thought would make it a solid object I was wrong haha) all I have is planes technically but trying to make it solid this method isn't working it has however fixed my mech I was making
To be fair this method only works at taking "hollowness" away from models that were originally solid but have been hollowed out in a slicer or something. It hadn't occurred to me that someone might try to make a "manifold" solid model with it.
Your problem is likely to be fixed by the "make manifold" option in the 3dprint plugin that blender comes with or by selecting everything in edit mode an going Mesh->Clean Up->Merge by distance.
Hope this works!
@Not Very Good Guy thank you ill get on that tomorrow morning! Thank you so much for your help
For 3D printing
Well yes but you can 3d print hollow models too. In fact, I have 3d printed this very model :)
@notverygoodguy right on, I'm just starting out, and I have a printer on the smaller side, so for the size of models I'm going to be making, I'm going to need to fill the interior to key the separate pieces. This is why it's useful for me personally
@@zacharyhall7466 Sounds sensible to me. If you are resin printing then hollow models are essential unless they are small. For FDM printing hollow models are very annoying :)
How would one make a model solid, that has been hollowed for printing in several parts? Those models are usually made hollow, but with holes, that connect the inside surface with the outside surface, leaving you essentially with just one surface. This method seems to not work in that case... Any other methods for that known?
This case is more difficult as you would need to fill in the holes. One suggestion that comes to mind would be to ensure all the parts are put together in object mode so they make up the completed model. Then join them with CTRL J. Next, in edit mode you need to select all the outside vertices. This might be difficult depending on the model but as a last resort you could select them with the circle select (press c and the use the mouse scroll wheel to adjust the size of the circle) and then just go p->by selected. Then you should have an object of just those selected vertices.
great, that worked. Even easier, when selecting all verticies and then just unselecting the inner surface verticies :)
Thank you for the help! @@notverygoodguy
@@bofuhonaw12 Glad to hear you're sorted now. Thanks for getting back and letting me know how it went!
@@bofuhonaw12 Just a thought though, the final model may not be manifold. I would suggest doing a quick merge by distance. In edit mode, select all and then go Mesh->Clean up->Merge by distance.
@@notverygoodguy The cleanup didn't work here, but i managed to fill the holes in the end. Thanks again and have a nice rest Weekend!
not sure how to follow when my L and H don't seem to do the same thing so the video use ended there for me with no guide as to what the function is
Sorry about that. I used to have issues with the audio before I realised I wasn't recording on a mono track but this one seems OK to me. Not sure how to improve it but happy for any suggestions.
thanks for this video. I got a badly made stl file with a weird hole inside that was driving me crazy!
Great that this helped! Thanks.
I cant select all verticies at one there are always some left over
This could be an issue with your model. Any chance you can provide a link to it so I can have a look?
great, great, great! You are excellent!
Thanks for the vote of confidence :)
Now that's an unusual technique!
I haven't seen anyone else doing it :)
blud i spent 4 hours making a model in blender since im new to the whole thing and come to find my model is completely inside out im kms
No problem. In edit mode select all and go ALT-N and select flip. Should swap them all around.
The reason this is helpful for people like me is for 3D printing!
Glad to hear it :)
This is helpful! thank you.
Thanks for the feedback!
YES, THANK U!!!
And thank you for the feedback.
I followed the steps but the model just turned into a shell of itself.
The most common reason for a problem here is either incorrect normals somewhere in the mode or the model isn't correctly hollowed. If any part of the hollow intersects with the outside of the model then this won't work. If this is the case you do have the option of selecting all the vertices of the outside manually. That said, can you explain at one point you have the problem and what do you mean by "a shell of itself"
Thank you !!
Brilliant
Thanks :)
wow, how easy :0
Thank you :)
Thankyou.
Appreciate the feedback. Thanks.
Video is good but would be great if you didn't skip so many steps in the expectation that people know what you know ^^
Can you explain which parts you felt were missed? It is always a balancing act getting the amount of detail right. If you go into too much detail you end up saying the same thing in every video and it turns people off. On the other hand of course you want your video to be helpful to as many people as possible.
@@notverygoodguy Dont get me wrong its great video helpful just when you went to click and highlighted at the start would be very helpful if you did that for each menu you click on cause later in the video when switching menus I h lost track of your mouse had no clue what you click on and had to replay video afew times to figure it out. But again thank you for your guides was very helpful
@@bujinmar Thanks for your reply. I'll admit editing videos to highlight all the menu clicks can start to get a bit tiring :) However I'll take what you say on board for the next one. Thanks again.
Another way to accomplish this is to select in Edit Mode, go to Mesh > Separate > By Loose Parts. This will give you the inside and outside parts in the Scene Collection tree, select the outside and hide it, then the inside will be visible. Select and delete it and you now have your solid.
This absolutely does work although would be very annoying with models that actually already have a lot of loose parts. That said, it's an option I hadn't thought of so thanks.
@@notverygoodguy I've had that experience as well, although I've found that at the bottom set of parts the outer shell is either the first or second listing from the bottom. I just turned visibility on and off, and when I located the outside I just shift+clicked the rest of the parts in the list and deleted them wholesale, leaving just the outside.
And thank you for this, it let me figure out how to do it that way - I was having a heck of a time trying to get a solid from an STL so I could print it properly.
@@RRSF09 I will play with this idea a bit and see how it stacks up. It makes more sense than just trying to find the insides. Actually, just selecting the outside from the start is probably better than what I have in this video anyway.
your volume is so low I can barely hear your voice. 😞
It is not easy to get this right to be fair though I don't see it too much lower than other videos I watch. I'll put some more effort into the next one though. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
@@notverygoodguy I am really interested in hearing it. My laptop is usually loud enough in a silent room with nothing else going. Do I detect a British accent? Love the Brits, I've moved here now.
Best to you.
@@Mrstrikerace You detected correctly :) I am a Brit though live in Norway these days :) Hope you are enjoying your new home!
Yeah, helpful but boring.
"Helpful" is where I aim. Next time I'll see if I can add a car chase or two to fix "boring".
HI! It didn't work for me. When I press H it shows nothing, the when select any potential verticies, I delete and press alt H, seems like it was accidentially deleted?
If you pressed h and everything disappears (assuming you have pressed l to start with) then your model isn't truly hollow. Are you able to provide a link to your model?
@@notverygoodguy HI! I just saw this message and while I don't have the same model anymore, I still would like to thank you for offering help! I just have new issues now to figure out