So in Blender let’s take a mesh. And sharpen it the old way.

Set mesh to smooth, Go into edit mode, select menu >> sharp edges, ctrl + e >> mark sharp / set bevel weight to 1 and set crease to 1, object panel >> auto smooth (set angle to 60).

That in short is what ssharpen does. Before Hard Ops I was doing this to every single mesh repeatedly. It was quite a process. So we turned this into a step. Hard Ops does nothing new however it does take a series of separated tools and utilize them together.

It’s best to understand what is going on inside of the function because it makes troubleshooting easier.

So ssharpen basically takes a mesh into edit mode. Calculates the sharps / marks them and then goes back into Object Mode. That’s all there is to it. This makes it safe for most meshes and exporting them as well. When bevels and booleans get involved it’s still possible albeit a little more tricky.

Csharp is almost the same as ssharp except it applies select modifiers in addition to calculating the ssharps. This is important because in the ideal hard ops workflow you would want to keep a modifier stack but not collapse things that you don’t want to lose.

Csharp should always keep the bevel. If the bevel is applied its not going to end well.

Array and Subdivision in addition to mirror are also able to be respected.

In the above example you can see me using the Booltool (ctrl + (-)) to cut into the shape and then use csharp to apply the boolean and set up a bevel modifier after calculating sharps. This is where things get interesting.

Csharp also has an F6 Menu however the options are best left at default however to add to it you must hold shift to select more.

I used the automirror to mirror the mesh and used the booltool on this mirrored mesh across the middle to cut it. It did not work out initially because of the mirror modifier being in place. Sometimes modifier stack is important so it’s important to keep that in mind. You can see in the above image I held shift clicked mirror to add it to the applied modifier list and it worked fine.

These behaviors are both intentional and unique but also specific. This allows you to work quickly using booleans and then apply them and calculate the sharps as you go allowing you to work more organically.

I like to ssharpen my shapes before I cut them into other shapes. I also used to recommend not using csharp shapes to cut into csharp shapes but that has been fixed in 007 so cut away.

I would recommend trying the tools on some simple shapes to get used to it before adopting it to a project. However the tools are quite useful once you get the hang of them.

Booleans can also be tricky at times so I made a guide about some tips.