3D Design: Smoothing Reliefs

Carveco Tutorial: Smoothing a Relief

This tutorial covers how to smooth a relief in Carveco Maker and Maker Plus, reducing roughness and refining the top surface of your model. This is especially useful when working with imported images or heightmaps.

🔹 Viewing the Relief Without the Zero Plane

• To clearly see your relief, toggle off the zero plane by clicking the Draw Zero Plane button.
• This hides the flat background and lets you focus on just the raised relief.

🔹 Accessing the Smooth Relief Tool

1. Go to Relief Smooth Relief.
2. Choose the smoothing area:
   • Entire Layer
   • Within Selected Vector
   • Selected Colour (if applicable)

🔹 Real-Time Preview

As you adjust the Strength slider, you'll see the smoothing update in real time. This helps you dial in just the right amount of smoothing before applying it.

• This tool uses your computer's graphics card (GPU), so performance may vary based on your system.
• Zoom in and rotate the model to examine the surface quality as you adjust the smoothing.

🔹 Finalizing the Smoothing

1. Once you’re satisfied with the smoothing result, click Apply.
2. Then click Cancel to exit the smoothing tool.
3. Turn the zero plane back on if needed to view your full model again.

💡 Tip

Smoothing can be applied multiple times if needed—just be mindful of over-smoothing which can reduce detail.