Creating Metaballs

Metaballs are spheres that blend into each other based on proximity. With Metaballs, you can create a wide variety of realistic-looking shapes. Metaballs let you quickly create fluid shapes that are otherwise time-consuming or even impossible to create using primitives and Boolean operations.

When you are in Wireframe view, Metaballs are represented as simple spheres. To see how the Metaballs will blend together, you must either look at the Nano-Preview or render the image.

To create a Metaball, click on the Metaball tool in the Create palette:

The Metaball will be created with X, Y, and Z-size of 20.48 BU (although the actual Metaball is much smaller than that):

To create a Negative Metaball, press Shift+click Metaball tool.

The Negative Metaball looks just like the positive one, even down to the Attributes being set to Neutral. You'll only be able to tell the difference by rendering the scene to see the effect of the Negative Metaball on the Positive Metaball(s).

If your metaball looks like the image below (created by pressing N+click Metaball tool), then it will act like a Positive Metaball, even though it looks like a negative object:

Two rendered Positive Metaball compared to a Negative and Positive set:

You can blend Metaballs of different sizes. This gives you more control over the resulting shape. To blend Metaballs, simply place the Metaballs close to each other. The closer together they are, the more they will blend into each other. The farther apart they are, the more they will resemble distinct spheres.

You can also change the shape of Metaballs in your scene to get different effects. For example, you can squash or stretch a Metaball, changing the surface area that blends into nearby Metaballs. Two oval Metaballs will give you a different blend result than two spherical Metaballs.

For Metaballs to blend smoothly, they must have the same material. If you blend two Metaballs with differing materials, you will not always get a smoothly blended result - unless that's the effect you're going for.

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