How do you make a Rounded Square?

Hey all,

I’ve been beating my head against ehw all and I can’t figure out how to make this shape. I’m trying to make some keycaps and I found a maker that I really like their work and I want to try and make some myself of various other animals to put on my keyboard.

However I literally cannot figure out how to make these really nice squared circles that they do and it’s driving me nuts. I’ve tried a square and then using select mask and low powy to draw it how and blow out the dies, I’ve tried a low poly circle and again using slesct mask and transform tool to pull in the sides but I’m still not happy with the shapes I’m getting. Am I approaching this all wrong? See photos of the shape I’m trying to make for reference.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

See more om imgur here -

You could use the Boolean tool to get you shape really close:

  1. Add a cube
  2. Add a sphere
  3. Transform the sphere to sit where you want to cut the curve
  4. In the Objects menu, select both and turn the visibility off.
  5. Boolean the objects

A few screenshots below of a quick test has the shape close. If you get the circle just right you could probably get it there. Then you could smooth and shape as needed. Probably using radial symmetry would make it even easier.

I will give this a try. When I trim or boolean like this the uh mesh will be a mess right. So I should remesh and then smooth it back down?

Or use multiresolution + sharp border


Hi Beecee,

while Holger’s approach sure is more elegant and versatile, I just took a cube, cranked up the resolution and smoothed the four top edges. After that I reduced the resolution and voila:

It was even a bit smoother, but I also masked the lower half, blurred the mask (could have done that better) and used the gizmo to alter the height. That’s where the bump comes from.