modelling - welding vertices 'issue' - bare with me!

[sv]

Hi guys,

I've got this mad shape that I wanted to convert into a proxy, and then array maybe a couple of hundred times to create a wall surface.
Modelling wise, all the edges are completely symetrical - (they are - double and triple checked) but i'm getting this seem that I need to get rid of.
Welding the verts will get rid of it and sort out the smoothing, but because I want this as a proxy object, I obviously can't weld the edge vertices.
I've tried collapsing all the smoothing groups, but can't seem to work this out.
I could make one big proxy, but it would be more efficient to have a small one arrayed a lot..

Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks.

[vlado]

You will need to make sure that the vertex normals match at the seam; perhaps weld two copies for a moment, put an edit normals modifier and then delete the extra copies... or something like that.

Best regards,
Vlado

[sv]

cheers vlado - tried this - all the normals looked correct - a perfectly repeating pattern, it seems that when I add an edit poly to delete the faces, it seems to visually change again...
Not sure what might be the issue; edit poly it seems.
thanks.

[Jer25]

Is it possible to hide it when it's textured? Are you going to be really close to it?

[glyph]

have you tried a 'delete' modifier in the stack acting on the faces you don't want?
I guess that wont work with the proxy
(unless it lets you collapse while retaining the normals)

[beestee]

Would a simple displacement map work instead of the geometry?

[stevesideas]

Would a simple displacement map work instead of the geometry?

Exactly what I was just thinking. You could create your displacement map from one tile of your exisiting geometry..as long as you got the tiling correct you wouldnt have to worry about seems.

[Morbid Angel]

to blend two objects while having them separated you need to apply a single edit normal modifier to both of them, select the normals at border edge and hit avarage selected with use threshold option. This should blend the normals together making it seamless.