5 point polys, edge tools that seems cool

[Kvaalen]

I totaly agree. I was also reading that thread and I must say I was sort of surprised by his statment.

But for the the face, IMO, edge loops are important to get good face expressions and flow.

I really would like to see the possiblity to subpatch polys with more than 4 points for that reason, and also do be able to reduce detail without having to stick in tris or adding extra quads. It makes things so much simpler and quicker to model.

With all the asking for that and edges I think NewTek will probably do something (or at least what they can) soon.

Also, about edges... you should check out the video they have on Maxons site for edge weighting in C4D. Don't tell me if I want those features I should get that program since that isn't my point. I'm not saying "look this program has it, we should get it!" I'm just saying you should look at it to understand how usefull they can be. Forget about the fact that it is for C4D.

I hope NewTek do something about these two issues. I have faith in them. :)

[telamon]

I a monitoring all the tutorials for many 3D packages and I have been really fascinated by all the edge techniques. Maxon site has very interesting output from this angle in particular.

I used Max in the past with its native edge cut tool. It was nice but max was so buggy in the past. It used to cut invisible edges while basically this was not expected :rolleyes:

Another good example that popped into my mind is Michel Roger's Joan of arc tut where edges are often cut to smooth the geometry and there are very limited point tweaking. Thus, there is very little risk to generate non planar pentagons.

[hrgiger]

It would be so nice to get subpatch support for 5 point polys or above. Especially when adding new edges via any new add edges tools we'll have with 8 and beyond. It'd be nice to not have to always go back in and fix areas that aren't 3 or 4 point polys.

[-JT-]

He also said this on 3dtotal (foot tutorial) :
"A lot of people seem to think that polygons with 3 or 5 sides are bad when converted into SubD's, especially in other packages but also in Maya. I've never seen any other valid reason given (for Maya) than that it makes the file slower and heavier, and creates bumps where you might want smoothness. (Oh, and that MR can't render non-quads yet.) Perhaps there's also a sense that it takes a lot of effort and patience and some skill to keep it all quads, and the resulting mesh has a more pleasing 'clean' look to it.

But personally I've never noticed any slow-down."


Only the result counts, ngons are the way to go, Silo is amazing for this, and i look forward to Modo (they are going to have ngons + model without the cage à la lightwave).

But i really hope Lightwave will take care of this, maybe for 8.1 ... :)

[sebek27]

model without a cage ? doesn't maya, xsi, c4d, max support this ?

[-JT-]

in subdivs no, only lightwave does this (isoline mode)

[Nemoid]

I read his statements in he foot tutorial too. I must admit that the final shape he gets is very realistic. dunno about animation because I didn't see. however, there are a couple of things I am wondering about.

1) Stahlberg works on Maya, wich has a different kinda sub- d . that's why they are slowest, when you convert from polys and they support n sided polys too, as well as refining.

Lw sub-ds are similar to smooth proxy in Maya, instead so while tbey are very good and fast, I suppose they're a different thing in some way.

when I convert polys in subpatch in Maya I have to say i notice how they work well smoothing well the mesh also with n sided, while the other technology we know it can cause pinches and also rendering probs sometime, when it comes to tris. so I think that in animation using tris and a free flow, can cause probs with Lw technology.

2) a script wich make sub-d in Lw handle n sided polys is surely doadle, but my suspect is that the different algorithm at the base of Alias wavefront technology gives good result in animation.also with 5 or 3 side polys, while Lw's maybe not. hope to be very wrong with this, though.

I am very curious of results you can obtain with your experiments, Telamon, so if you get some good animation with the different flow post them!! :scream:

finally, n sided polys support is more useful, in my vision, for working directly in subpatch , adding edges and cutting faces without getting your mesh with holes for not converted polys , allowing in this way a smoother modelling proces in a clay-like fashion.

[-JT-]

i see a cage in your picture, this is what i mean : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/julien.tromeur/silo/modelcage.gif

this is the main reason i switched to Lightwave, this mode is the best, i just wish they had ngons and edges then it would be the best modeler

edit : oups, you removed your post sebek ?

[sebek27]

sorry JT I removed it once I realized what you meant about the cages; you can turn them on in LW in c4d you always have them

[telamon]

I would be interesting in reading the mathematical formulae which are behind. Do you have any link to any scientific article about that.

Thanks in advance.

[angus1965]

Originally posted by telamon
Disclaimer, I don't want to initiate a flame war or a blabla on feature requests. I want here to give a feed back on 5 point polys and edge tools. If this thread becomes a flame war, I'll delete it or will ask a moderator to do it for me

LW has a very nice limitation. The Subdivision surface algorithm does not handle polys with more than 4 points. This forces us to model everything with quads and sometimes tris. This is nice because, having this in mind, we do our best to model the best edge flows particularly in areas that are to be deformed (joints for instance).

I have recently been to the maya forum. and I read a thread from the great Steven Stahlberg. His models are amazing and his animations are very smooth. He did the best arm pit deformation I have ever seen. And what does Stahlberg say?

>> Steven Stahlberg's thread << (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=108412&perpage=15&pagenumber=1)

I have tried to model a body recently with the edge tools ignoring the basic workflow with smoothshift, spinquads and so on. My only tools are edge-tools, drag, merge polys, weld points. This technique gets amazing results very rapidly. It is very intuitive. Wherever I need an edge, I add it, leaving a tri there, adjusting points here, applying the 3+5-point-polygons-to-3 quads trick (I use DI's tool), sometimes bandsaw and spine quad.

This technique is very intuitive. BUT... I have to replace all the 5 point polygons. This increases sometimes the polycount and sometimes needs tedious tweaking.

I do not make a request to NT so that LW should handle polygons with more than 4 points. Nevertheless, it could be very helpful sometimes ;)

Thank you for posting this. I recently had a heated discussion with Lary regarding the need to polys greater than 4 points (I think it was on cgtalk.com - perhaps the NT boards). Oddly enough Stahlberg was referenced as someone who avoids them. The reference to Stahlberg was used to illustrate that the need for n-gons was not needed.

I am happy to see, directly from him, that he feel they are of value - they do have their place and should not be used freely.

Thank you again for posting the link.

As I have stated before, I too feel that n-gons, for use in a subdivision surface cage, are needed.

[angus1965]

Sorry, I forgot to include my thoughts on edge tools.

They are needed. Badly.

We do have some edge tools available to us via plugins, but they are not nearly robust enough and the interactivity is slower than I like.

Just my $.02

[telamon]

Hi angus,

Nice to see you voting for such a feature. I did not see your thread or perhaps I do not remember it.

I think 5-point polys are helpful for the workflow and to keep meshes as light as achievable.

I have reinstalled my old license of 3DSMax R3 yesterday to make a test with Meshsmoothed 5 point polys. even after turning the invisible edges to get the best tripling, the deformation was awful. And I don't think it is only max related. The subdivision of those polys is quite a miracle, flows follows a rule which is difficult to understand IMO. I was not surprised that the result was that bad.

IMHO, yes for 5 point polys or more, but users must keep the old quad-based techniques for the joints.

[angus1965]

Originally posted by telamon
Hi angus,

Nice to see you voting for such a feature. I did not see your thread or perhaps I do not remember it.

I think 5-point polys are helpful for the workflow and to keep meshes as light as achievable.

I have reinstalled my old license of 3DSMax R3 yesterday to make a test with Meshsmoothed 5 point polys. even after turning the invisible edges to get the best tripling, the deformation was awful. And I don't think it is only max related. The subdivision of those polys is quite a miracle, flows follows a rule which is difficult to understand IMO. I was not surprised that the result was that bad.

IMHO, yes for 5 point polys or more, but users must keep the old quad-based techniques for the joints.

There are most certainly time when to use them, and also when not to use them.

As I stated in the previous thread they made my life nuch easier recently when I had to make a hard surface model using sub-d's.

[Tesselator]

Originally posted by angus1965
Sorry, I forgot to include my thoughts on edge tools.

They are needed. Badly.

We do have some edge tools available to us via plugins, but they are not nearly robust enough and the interactivity is slower than I like.

Just my $.02

Yup! I hear ya on the "Badly Needed" :beer:

What 3rd party edge tools are you currently using? :cool:

[telamon]

I use DStorm Edge Tool which are nice but miss some features. These combined with edge bevel are almost OK...

[angus1965]

Originally posted by telamon
I use DStorm Edge Tool which are nice but miss some features. These combined with edge bevel are almost OK...

As do I.

However, as I said before, these are very limited. The operations available to them are limited due to the lack of lw's internal structure and resources.

The problem is Modeler (or Layout for that matter) does not "recognize" edges as entities. We currently have points and polys. That's it. Until that changes we will not be able to fully utilize "edge tools."

[sebek27]

angus, i read somewhere that you guys added XSI into your toolset

[angus1965]

Originally posted by sebek27
angus, i read somewhere that you guys added XSI into your toolset

I have not seen it here.

[telamon]

Originally posted by angus1965
As do I.

However, as I said before, these are very limited. The operations available to them are limited due to the lack of lw's internal structure and resources.

The problem is Modeler (or Layout for that matter) does not "recognize" edges as entities. We currently have points and polys. That's it. Until that changes we will not be able to fully utilize "edge tools."

Is it difficult to define edges as entities? It seems to me that any edge can be derived from any pair of points: edge A is the link between point A and B.

I don't really know how XSI, Maya and Max handle edge, I presume that this must not be very far from what I said.

When you use DI's extender. It rearranges automatically the point selection set. It is thus able to "identify" an edge set. This means that any highly qualified programmer is able to "identify" edges in a geometry. DStorm's edge tool goes a step farther whereas it actually proposes edges to be cut... However we have to select and drag a virtual point to make the cut effective. When the cursor passes over an edge, it does not blink like in Max's edge cut tool.

I repeat it here, I am not a programmer but it seems to me that if DStorm and DI have been able to "emulate" edges, NT should not be very far from implementing them effectively in LW.

8 is seemingly a revolution for layout . 8.5 or 9 will be a revolution for modeler..... Hopefully :D


Sebek ==> a couple of LW users went to XSI, some went to Maya or Max. That is the market. You should not specialise in any software.

[SplineGod]

Hey Telamon,
I dont think the whole N-sided poly thing is really that much of an issue on hard surfaces or in non crtical areas on a character. What I mean by non critical areas are those areas on a head for example, that done deform. Wrinkles, folds and etc. can only form along polygons edges which is one reason why you see pople like Bay Rait and others use the edge loop concept.
I dont see how predictable deformations can be gotten from using
N sided polys without alot of tweaking. With quads and a few 3 sides polys I definately know where things will deform. I still t hink a person can still model with qyads and keep it light.
It would be nice though to be able to use something like metaform plus in realtime since it can handle subdividing n sided polys. Heres an example of
Steve Stahlbergs statement is interesting though since William said in the thread Randy was mentioning that Steve told him that he models pretty much with quads.
One thing I find interesting and useful with metaform plus is that it does work with n sided polys as I mentioned but also seems to subdivide in a predictable way.

[telamon]

Hi Larry, best wishes..
I have metaform plug as well as DI's cut toolset which does similar things quite well.

My concern is not to fight against edgeloops or pentagons. The thing is that when you have very little time to do things well, it is sometimes very nice to feel overwhelmed by details like "Am I sure that all my polys are quads?"... Make a cut and bingo, this works fine. If I get some pinching or any issue when deforming my mesh, I'll look in the topology and fix tris/pentas or even the basic polygon flow if required.

I think most of the people think that the best technique is quad & edgeloop in theory. Moreover the meshes are quite clean and nice to look at.

But practically, Handling a very large "perfect" mesh is a bit tedious sometimes. And it requires a lot of time to concentrate on and FIX things which are not problematic anyway e.g. the 5-point polys stahlberg uses.

[Bytehawk]

now if metaform plus can do it I imagine it couldn't be that hard for NT to make that into a realtime preview like when we press tab.

I remember the days when we had to metaform in modeler beause layout didn't have subd capabilities.

[Kvaalen]

Some people might think that n-sided polygons wreck the edge loops and bla bla bla... This may be true, but organic models aren't the only kinds of models that you can create.

To anyone who has created a car... you probably know how annoying it is when you have a triangle that doesn't look good so you spend a whole bunch of time tucking it in some less obvious place. In those situations subdivided n-gons would be a real time saver and make the mesh a bit better. Also you don't have to worry about deformations since there won't be any. ;)

BTW, there is also DIs' edge divide tool and (as someone already mentioned) DIs' extender. I think that and the other plugins mentioned sum up quite a bit of the edge capabilities other programs have, but not edge weighting! I really hope we get that feature soon. :)

[SplineGod]

Hi Telamon,
Hope you had a good christmas (and everyone else too).
One thing Newtek would have to do to properly support N sided polys with SubDs is having a way to allow you to cut the implicit surface rather then just the control surface or at least a way to change the control surface based on the implicit.
That way when you model something and it has a particular shape, you dont lose the curvature because youre cutting the polys rather then the supatch object. In this example I have a cyclinder. One is a frozen version with standard LW SubDs and the other is has a cut thru it and then frozen using metaform plus. You can see that it doesnt quite keep its shape.

Bytehawk,
You know, there was some advantages to using metaform plus that way in the old days because you could use n-sided polys in some areas on an object. :)

[angus1965]

Originally posted by telamon
Is it difficult to define edges as entities? It seems to me that any edge can be derived from any pair of points: edge A is the link between point A and B.

I don't really know how XSI, Maya and Max handle edge, I presume that this must not be very far from what I said.

True. An edge is, in it's simplest form, a connection of points.

I cannot speak to Max or XSI and how they have implemented edges. I have not spent an appropriate amount of time behind XSI - yet.

Maya's handling of edges is nice. It is just like any other type of component. Point, polys, cv's - whatever. Select an edge and then move it. Easy enough. What is really nice is the snapping to edges. grab a point, use the move tool (translation) and you can snap it to an edge - even better you can drag the point along the edge and then release the mouse button when you are satisfied with the location. That is just a couple examples.

It is nice.

I wish LW had it.

When you use DI's extender. It rearranges automatically the point selection set. It is thus able to "identify" an edge set. This means that any highly qualified programmer is able to "identify" edges in a geometry. DStorm's edge tool goes a step farther whereas it actually proposes edges to be cut... However we have to select and drag a virtual point to make the cut effective. When the cursor passes over an edge, it does not blink like in Max's edge cut tool.

I repeat it here, I am not a programmer but it seems to me that if DStorm and DI have been able to "emulate" edges, NT should not be very far from implementing them effectively in LW.

I too am not a programmer, but I agree with you about how the current tools may be implemented. They may be doing some sort of virtual "connect the dots" and then executing the appropriate command when the use is done manipulating.

[telamon]

That is a problem that I have already mentionned in this forum, I wanted to find a way not to lose the curvature when I add details to an object. It can be time-saving in many occasions.


But, the position of the new point should not affect the curvature of the spline outside the segment where it is added. If you want to keep the curvature on three segments, you build 3 sets of equations with one unknown value. Mathematically, it is not possible. Therefore, to get something suitable, the position will be approximated and should require iterative calculation. That is quite feasible IMO.

[BAROBA]

I think that the renderengine is the reason why Newtek hasn't added N-gons to modeler.
I think because of the pre-triangulation of polygons n-gons are excluded. Triangles and quads can be tripled in a predictable way,n-gons on the other hand can not. And they can cause rendererrors if they are tripled the wrong way. If Newtek had/has? a way to triple them in a predictable way then they will be add.
I think it is fairly easy on a n-gon that does do nothing between two frames, but it would be another story if that n-gon would be deforming all the time. I don't think Newtek is willing to take that risk.


Edgetools would be nice :)

just my €2 cents :)

[sebek27]

i know designers switch from LW to max, max to maya etc. I was just trying to find out since I do remember seeing an interview with someone from Digital Domain, if I am not mistaken, I think he was Asian and he was saying that they are going to be using XSI more since it is more powerful for the stuff they will be doing than LW is.

[m_luscombe]

Originally posted by BAROBA
I think that the renderengine is the reason why Newtek hasn't added N-gons to modeler.
I think because of the pre-triangulation of polygons n-gons are excluded. Triangles and quads can be tripled in a predictable way,n-gons on the other hand can not.

Catmull-Clark routines can get any n-gon to a set of quads easily. And quads are easily turned into tris.

I think modeler is the problem, not layout. CC SDS is pretty resource-intensive, and would be difficult to do as quickly as modeler does it. I suspect they are using a loop or butterfly scheme in modeler (tab) which doesn't support n-gons. Which is why smoothing and pinching is more obvious in modeler and cleans up nicely in layout.

[policarpo]

Meshsmooth was always nice in 3dsmax...I miss it from time to time.

I wish metaform were interactive and available for OSX in LW.

i mean, wouldn't something like this in LW be nice (i merely subdivided a section of the subdivided cube on the SUB-D cube without affecting the entire cube...granted, C4D is triangulating on the fly to accomodate the lack of true nGon support...but it is nice to have this feature available when tweaking your mesh to meet your needs):

http://www.policarpo.us/samples/metaform.jpg
:hmm:

[Facial Deluxe]

Hahahaha ! No frankly...

I haven't red the thread yet but, dont forget it's Stalberg speaking...
It's like having Zeus saying : "_me ? using matches ?"
or Chronos saying : "_ a watch ? What for ?"

I believe edgeloops being necessary AND N-gons being helpfull sometimes. But starting some anatomy without edgeloops in mind is nonsense IMHO, unless you're VERY VERY good.
Anyway, at this level, whatever you model, you don't start it like a punk, you have a solid experience behind you, and a good idea of the structure of the shape. Otherwise, you're a scanner :D

[policarpo]

Originally posted by Facial Deluxe
Hahahaha ! No frankly...

I haven't red the thread yet but, dont forget it's Stalberg speaking...
It's like having Zeus saying : "_me ? using matches ?"
or Chronos saying : "_ a watch ? What for ?"

I believe edgeloops being necessary AND N-gons being helpfull sometimes. But starting some anatomy without edgeloops in mind is nonsense IMHO, unless you're VERY VERY good.
Anyway, at this level, whatever you model, you don't start it like a punk, you have a solid experience behind you, and a good idea of the structure of the shape. Otherwise, you're a scanner :D


true true....but having a toolset to meet your needs at any point while you are on the edge to finish a project is what is key.

that's all anyone is saying. :drool:

[Facial Deluxe]

Originally posted by policarpo
true true....but having a toolset to meet your needs at any point while you are on the edge to finish a project is what is key.

that's all anyone is saying. :drool:

Yes, sure ! Defenetly ! Lw needs Ngons, can't agree more.

It's just I already had this discussion, and often noobs think Ngons is the key to their problems. I have seen model done by people who don't know what edgeloops are (or just ignore them), and I can say that the geometry was uggly. Sure at 99% it won't animate properly, even with the most powerful app....

[policarpo]

yep...totally spot on...and i could not agree more...but i just hate hitting tab during those instances where i have a 5 sided poly that becomes a non renderable hole ya know. :drool:

[Facial Deluxe]

Oh yeah, I understand ! :)

But for everything that is organic, I'm so used to model in quad and direct in SDS mode (tab), that I don't feel the "real" need, but that is personal.

But for industrial/ technical shapes, yeah some Ngons, and Edgeweight control is truly missing (as some history (just in order to adjust my f*** extruded tube)

Damn, back again...

:) :) :)

[angus1965]

Originally posted by sebek27
i know designers switch from LW to max, max to maya etc.

M'kay. Not too sure what you are saying here. M'kay.

I was just trying to find out since I do remember seeing an interview with someone from Digital Domain, if I am not mistaken, I think he was Asian and he was saying that they are going to be using XSI more since it is more powerful for the stuff they will be doing than LW is.

I have heard nothing of the sort.

I am highly suspect of that information.

DD has invested a lot in it's pipeline. Making such a dramatic shift would be costly.

Lightwave performs very well and is a key tool here at Digital Domain.

When did you hear/read this?

[sebek27]

i know it was newtek europe interview or main newtek site interview with a designer, I do think think it was DD but since you work there you obviously know if that was the case, so it must of been another big effects/3d company i'll see if i can find it

[Miyazaki]

Sebek, I think you refer to this interview with Akira Orikasa from cafefx.

http://www.rendernode.com/articles.php?articleId=89

[sebek27]

yes ! that's it sorry for confusing this with DD

[angus1965]

Originally posted by sebek27
yes ! that's it sorry for confusing this with DD

It happens.

[telamon]

Originally posted by Facial Deluxe
Hahahaha ! No frankly...

I haven't red the thread yet but, dont forget it's Stalberg speaking...
It's like having Zeus saying : "_me ? using matches ?"
or Chronos saying : "_ a watch ? What for ?"

Funny but so true... What is interesting in Stahlberg's link is that you can spot the edgeloops. Perhaps (certainly) he builds them naturally without thinking and hesitating even a second about that.

Look at the very nice flow around the brest to the shoulder. It is very nice and clean.

http://www.androidblues.com/body5screen1.jpg

In fact, when you use edge tools, you build your edge loops very naturally and intuitively. The only issue is that you generate 5 point polys all the time that you need to fix unavoidably. And fixing sometimes increases the poly count. Back to the above picture. Look how Stahlberg manages the area underneath the breast. A small edge (almost vertical) stopping on a 5 point poly. With LW, such an adjustment would require a much longer edge and much more polys.

He can do that because this part is not deformed during animation ;)


I believe edgeloops being necessary AND N-gons being helpfull sometimes. But starting some anatomy without edgeloops in mind is nonsense IMHO, unless you're VERY VERY good.
Anyway, at this level, whatever you model, you don't start it like a punk, you have a solid experience behind you, and a good idea of the structure of the shape. Otherwise, you're a scanner :D
We agree completely.

[proton]

Digital Domain continues to create som eof themost amazing work.....Someof my favorite commercials are by DD...

[Sil3]

Originally posted by proton
Digital Domain continues to create som eof themost amazing work.....Someof my favorite commercials are by DD...

True, so why doesn´t Newtek listen to their artist´s (and lot´s of others users like me) and add EDGES and NGONS support in Subpatches into LW? It would make our job SOOOOO MUCHHHH easier :buttrock:

[angus1965]

Originally posted by Sil3
True, so why doesn´t Newtek listen to their artist´s (and lot´s of others users like me) and add EDGES and NGONS support in Subpatches into LW? It would make our job SOOOOO MUCHHHH easier :buttrock:

In looking at what Newtek has shown for Lightwave 8 edge support as been added under the current architecture. It is my belief that as the program continues to develop and mature we will see added suport.

I want to be very clear on two points:

1. My statements regarding edge support and ngons is in no way a condemnation of NewTek and it's talented employees. The opposite it true - I have the utmost respect for everyone at NewTek.

2. Everything I express here is as a Lightwave artist and in no way reflects anyone at Digital Domain. Read the disclaimer in every post I make. I do not want people thinking that because I shoot my mouth off here that it is what people think at DD.

That is all.

I return you to your regularly scheduled program.

[proton]

I wonder if I can add disclaimers as well :)

No offense was taken Angus....I think we share the same goal....we both want to see LW have the workflow and tools needed to get th ejob done on time, within budget leaving enuff time to go home and play Doom 3 :)

[telamon]

Originally posted by proton
I wonder if I can add disclaimers as well :)

No offense was taken Angus....I think we share the same goal....we both want to see LW have the workflow and tools needed to get th ejob done on time, within budget leaving enuff time to go home and play Doom 3 :)

I don't know why but I love this statement :D

[ThE_JacO]

Originally posted by -JT-
in subdivs no, only lightwave does this (isoline mode)

for the record:

xsi has a splinelike display since a while now, with manipulation as well
blender as well (and it's free)
max 6 does (without manipulation tho, not so useful then)

another one or two apps do this as well, can't remember which tho.

and Npolys (as well as tris) are converted to quads ALWAYS when subdivided.
+ the hidden edge ordering is fixed, so deformations, unless in very critical areas, won't suffer much

the main issue with Npolys and tris is infact texture crawling and pinching, nothing else.

[-JT-]

oups yes you're right, i got the same answer on the xsi forum.

[Sil3]

Originally posted by angus1965
In looking at what Newtek has shown for Lightwave 8 edge support as been added under the current architecture. It is my belief that as the program continues to develop and mature we will see added suport.

I want to be very clear on two points:

1. My statements regarding edge support and ngons is in no way a condemnation of NewTek and it's talented employees. The opposite it true - I have the utmost respect for everyone at NewTek.

2. Everything I express here is as a Lightwave artist and in no way reflects anyone at Digital Domain. Read the disclaimer in every post I make. I do not want people thinking that because I shoot my mouth off here that it is what people think at DD.

That is all.

I return you to your regularly scheduled program.

From what i´ve seen from the LW8 preview vids about edges im not really exited, i can do all that presently with free plugs/scripts, i mean it´s cool they are now "integrated" and shipping with LW, but saying they are main NEW features is a bit off IMO.

What i would really like to had seen in those vids were things like adding Edges to polys on a Subd mesh without getting the nasty holes that in some cases completly ruins the fast workflow LW has in modeling terms.

I never said anything depreciative to NT or it´s employes, i only stated that what i would like and what other users (wich happen to work in big production houses) like yourself expressed, sorry if i sounded like i was refering to what you said like if it was as DD "thinking", i was not :)

[proton]

Originally posted by Sil3
What i would really like to had seen in those vids were things like adding Edges to polys on a Subd mesh without getting the nasty holes that in some cases completly ruins the fast workflow LW has in modeling terms.



The same thing happens when you use the knife tool... our Subpatches currently work with 3-4 polys....the holes are generated due to polys with more then 4 points...

[Sil3]

Originally posted by proton
The same thing happens when you use the knife tool... our Subpatches currently work with 3-4 polys....the holes are generated due to polys with more then 4 points...

I know that Proton, but i was hoping that Ngons issues on Subd´s were gonna be "fixed" in LW8.

I use LW since 5.5 im completly used to non having Ngons, but i have "seen" and experienced the beauty of having Subd´s on Ngons on other packages, Modeler is still my main modeling aplication but im getting more and more into other modelers that have this "features".

For some non having Ngons on Subds dont interfere in their workflow, to me it does, im finding using Wings 3D for Organic modeling (what i do most), IMO Wings has some of the best modeling tools and costumizing it´s shortcuts to mimic LW Modeler is actually very simple making it extremly workflow eficient, best of all it´s FREE.

Happy New Year

:beer:

[Ramon]

Originally posted by proton: Digital Domain continues to create som eof themost amazing work.....Someof my favorite commercials are by DD...
Originally posted by Sil3
True, so why doesn´t Newtek listen to their artist´s (and lot´s of others users like me) and add EDGES and NGONS support in Subpatches into LW? It would make our job SOOOOO MUCHHHH easier :buttrock: Originally posted by proton: Digital Domain continues to create som eof themost amazing work.....Someof my favorite commercials are by DD...

Proton, I love the work you guys do! LW is excellent.
But, I have to agree with Sil3 and Randy, metaform has always been the sweetest subdivision tool. It has always had the nicest divisional flow AND could easily handle 5 point polys which makes it even sweeter! WHY can't that metaform plus algorithm be integraded into the tab (toggle) key in the way that the current SubD fuction is? Metaform plus with the interactive tab key toggle is the answer to this right? That would be awesome!

Another thing (a bit OT though)would interactive spline cages pulling/pushing a spline cage interactively adjusts the polys of that cage. Same thing with the number of poly rows - interactive. Check this out! http://www.hurleyworks.com/
It's called patch it. Nice if Newtek brings this to LW.

Go Newtek! By the way, Proton, thanks for the LW 8 videos. Nice work.

[Ramon]

Originally posted by Ramon
Proton, I love the work you guys do! LW is excellent.
But, I have to agree with Sil3 and Randy, metaform has always been the sweetest subdivision tool.

Correction there, I meant metaform PLUS has always been the sweetest subdivision tool. Not the standard metaform.

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