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View Full Version : cake walk along poly vertices as NURBS

balcides
02-18-2004, 09:20 PM
Well,

Ive been modeling in polys but I found that one simple thing could speed up my workflow tremendously....If only I can find a tool for maya4.5 or 5.0 that will allow me to up,down,left,right arrow select vertices along the path of any edge between them as in NURBS. I asked many techinally inclined individuals who are as baffled as I.

Some of the suggestions to my problems included:
(Highend 3D.com)

•pickWalkRem.mel (didnt work for me)
•butterFlyPickWalk.mel (didnt work for me)
•fitMorph.mel (didnt work for me)
•pickWalkAdd.mel (didnt work for me)
•VectAlig.mel (didnt work for me)
•uniToolBox.mel (didnt work for me)

All of them were tried and all of them failed...some of them didnt execute properly and probably becuase it was 5.0 I was using, but not really sure, (im only referring to VectAlig, the rest worked fine)

I then searched through CG talk forms, but came across nothing.

Now, for the sake of argument, maybe i didnt search through every nook and cranny of highend3D and cg talk but at this point even with some assistance i really couldnt find anything.

The irony is that this little thing I want seems to simple, but a BIG time saver...and yet its baffling (or maybe im being too dramatic) some pros I talk to.

please help!
gmask
02-18-2004, 09:29 PM
Yeah.. I think you are pretty much outta luck on this one..


The scripts you mention that use pickwalk will only work with nurbs.

Since poly meshes aren't allways quads like nurbs you have the complexity of having to decide which direction to go when there are more or less than four possible directions at any given intersection.

Also the numbering of vertices n a polymesh can be totally chaotic makignusing any kind of coordinate systme impossible to predict.

The only possiblity would be some sort of semi intelligent search for vertices in a particular spatial direction which I imagine would be incredibly slow.

"The Ultimate answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is...
(You're not going to like it...)
Is...
42
"
balcides
02-18-2004, 09:37 PM
The only clue I really have to all this, maybe can be found int eh function used by byrons tools or MJPoly tools that allow you to select Outline or select Loop, giving you the ability to select along a row of edges as in a NURBS hull. If a well layed-out quad poly can be selected by rows at a time, then maybe through a similar way you would be able to select adjacent vertices.

Its just theory...If Im really outta gas (so to speak) then Ill just take my losses and move on, I really dont have the time to dissect scripts and figure it out...which is why im hoping someone in this forum can :)

anyways, thanks
gmask
02-18-2004, 09:49 PM
Originally posted by balcides
The only clue I really have to all this, maybe can be found int eh function used by byrons tools or MJPoly tools that allow you to select Outline or select Loop, giving you the ability to select along a row of edges as in a NURBS hull. If a well layed-out quad poly can be selected by rows at a time, then maybe through a similar way you would be able to select adjacent vertices.


Hmm well the built in select contigous edges function in Maya is pretty sketchy.. it only works some of the time and goes in both directions along the edge.

I don't have BPT so perhaps his plugin could do it.. you might want to send him an email about it but I'm still positive that there is no reasonable way to do with MEL and Maya out of the box.
balcides
02-18-2004, 11:25 PM
Well, with Byrons tools you have a point...but the MJPoly tools that execute the same basic "loop" and "outline" selection for polys are written in MEL. So there may still be a chance.

:bounce:
gmask
02-19-2004, 12:11 AM
Originally posted by balcides
Well, with Byrons tools you have a point...but the MJPoly tools that execute the same basic "loop" and "outline" selection for polys are written in MEL. So there may still be a chance.

:bounce:

I don't have time to really inspect the MJ script but let me put it this way.. I don't think you are the first person to want this so if it were possible to do this with a script then one would have been written by now. :cry:
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