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View Full Version : Scripted topology brush for max?

Haamu
09-16-2004, 03:36 PM
I guess this is the right place to post this.
I've had this idea of using native tools in max to produce "topology brush" (as they call it in silo, though I had this idea even before I heard of that feature).

My idea is to draw freehand splines (with lots of vertices) on surface of another object. Max already has script that draws freehand splines but doesn't allow face snapping. Entire mesh is drawn like this and then vertices are added to the crossing parts and are fused (like normal crossinsert but automatic). All vetices are then deleted except those in the crossing sections. After this, patch surface is added and the model is converted to editable poly.

Is it possible to make something like this simply with maxscript or would it require some harder coding...or is it possible at all? I asked this same thing in the new plugin development forum www.splinecage.com but that doesn't seem to be very active place yet. I'm not much of a scripter so I will never be able to do this myself but if someone likes the idea, feel free to use it. Possibly I'm the only one who thinks this is a good idea but It's worth a post anyway :)
CLONEOPS
09-18-2004, 01:10 PM
set up a sphere, setup snap to 3d. or 2d or 2.5d...use 3d i guess.
setup snap settings in menu to snap to vertexes, face also,or pivot point or other.
work on the sphere ...a liitle tricky be carefull.
i actually used a nurbs curve this way....which has options for refinement.
what is this for?
f97ao
09-18-2004, 01:32 PM
Yes, nearly anything that has to do with creating geometry is possible in MaxScript. All kinds of painting things in max would be nice.

I may post more when I have the time, gotta sleep.
/Andreas
Haamu
09-18-2004, 04:36 PM
After few hours of struggling I managed to modify the freehandspline script so it now snaps to faces. All it needed was "snap:#3D" after pickpoint function. Ok, so now I can draw freehand splines on a surface but now I need to optimize them to form a mesh. Fusing vertices would work but it can only fuse selections and not by threshold like welding in poly. Any suggestions?
DentonVanZan
09-24-2004, 09:10 PM
hey man,

convert the model to poly,
select all edges
USE create shape from edges function
delete the model
select the shape
add surface modifier
then voila
but this is valid for 3-4gons

see ya
f97ao
09-25-2004, 05:54 AM
This is something I'm looking at doing myself too. I was thinking about building the faces from scratch totally instead, from the vertex points.
Will be interesting to see what you come up with :)

/Andreas
Haamu
09-30-2004, 02:29 PM
I came up with new idea today:
How about freehand cut tool? This seems far better than the freehand spline thing but once again I have no idea how to make such script. It is easy enough to produce clean mesh just by clicking like hell on the base mesh (:)) but it would be fancy to have freehand tool for this. After it has all been cut you have edge selection, then just extrude those edges a bit, grow selection, select invert, convert to vertex selection, collapse and remove. To get rid of those useless verts I have used Externe's select by stats script (pretty cool script by the way). The last part would be quite easy to script but it's fairly easy to do it by hand so I can't be arsed to do that :).
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