Can someone tell me what is wrong with this mesh?

Hello everyone.

I have used Blender on and off for the last two years, and while I am by no means an expert I have a good understanding of the principles of 3D modelling.

I decided to start a serious project and make a simple tank in blender. I finished one of the tracks but noticed some weird shadows when rendering it out. The track is a simple arrow-shaped mesh following a path with an array modifier.

Here is the render. There is a point lamp to the right and a duplicate to the left and behind (away from the camera). The issue is the weird shadow on the track.



Here’s a screenshot of the mesh in blender. I circled some things that stick out in the mesh but don’t know why they are there.


The issue is the mesh is flat (and doesn’t curve even after following the curve, which is what I want), but the shadows in the render look like the surface is creased.

If anyone wants to look at the actual Blender file, then I will upload it when requested. I would appreciate any advice!

If anyone wants to look at the actual Blender file, then I will upload it when requested
Why should we have to ask for it, you should have supplied it without prompting to do so.

Are the faces of the track planar ? I suggest not so that when you render and the faces are triangulated (the renderer uses triangles so will triangulate your meshes at render time) you will be able to see the triangles with different shading on non planar surfaces.

The original mesh is planar, but when it gets to a curve on the path it appears to deform inward. Is there anything I can do to prevent this?


Just from the image alone, i can see Ngons and overlapping faces on the track.

Might not be the only problems so post the .blend file.

The track mesh is flat, but I checked and saw that it deforms inward when it comes to a curve in the track path.

Select those 3 middle bottom faces pull them down a bit on the z-axis. it should solve it.

How far? I pulled the three bottom (inner) faces down 0.01 and then another 0.01 and the problem is still there.

Would using dupliframes fix the issue? I’ve never used them before.