Doc:2.6/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Editing/Subdividing/Bevel

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Bevel

Mode: Edit mode

Hotkey: CtrlB or W » Bevel

Menu: Mesh » Edges » Bevel or CtrlE » Bevel

With bevel and without bevel.

The bevel tool allows you to create chamfered or rounded corners to geometry. A bevel is an effect that smooths out edges and corners. True world edges are very seldom exactly sharp. Not even a knife blade edge can be considered perfectly sharp. Most edges are intentionally beveled for mechanical and practical reasons.

Bevels are also useful for giving realism to non-organic models. In the real world, the blunt edges on objects catch the light and change the shading around the edges. This gives a solid, realistic look, as opposed to un-beveled objects which can look too perfect.

Bevel Modifier

The Bevel Modifier is a non destructive alternative to the bevel tool. It gives you the same options, with additional goodies, like the bevel width controlled by the vertices weight, and all the modifiers general enhancements (non-destructive operations, …). Note that the Bevel modifier has no recursive option. To overcome this, you can add additional modifiers to multiply the effect.

Usage

The Bevel tool works only on selected edges. It will recognize any edges included in a vertex or face selection as well, and perform the bevel the same as if those edges were explicitly selected. The Bevel tool smooths the edges and/or “corners” (vertices) by “subdividing” them a specified number of times (see the options below for details about the bevel algorithm).

Use CtrlB or a method listed above to run the tool. Move the mouse to interactively specify the bevel offset, and scroll the Wheel to increase or decrease the number of segments. (see below)

Selected edge before beveling

Result of bevel

Options

Offset

You can change the bevel width by moving the mouse towards and away from the object, a bit like with transform tools. As usual, the scaling can be controlled to a finer degree by holding ⇧ Shift to scale in 0.001 steps. LMB finalizes the operation, RMB or Esc aborts the action.

Bevel with 4 segments

Segments

The number of segments in the bevel can be defined by scrolling the mouse Wheel to increase or decrease this value. The greater the number of recursions, the smoother the bevel.

Alternatively, you can manually enter a scaling value while using the tool, or in the Mesh Tool options panel after using the tool.

Examples

Result of beveling multiple edges

Another example of beveling multiple edges