did you know that hierachical modeling is possible in max7?

[Erka2]

Wow, I thought it is Top Secret, you will be exterminated by discreet's top spy!

ps: btw, it's really slow :( Discreet should do something with speed of editing of polys...

[gustojunk]

Yeah we know, that Discreet wants us to "believe" it's possible. However the epoly modifier is so slow that it's unsusable. I think adding a feature that is so unusable because of its piss-poor performance is a insult to the users.

[Reality3D]

I'm interested in how you worked out it to allow face construction of the low-polys parts that get their response on the highpoly ones. Btw, there is also that "unusable" HSDS modifier

[peekoot]

woah you guys.. :) no, discreet didn't make me believe it is possible, i thought of it and tried it myself (infact i didn't read anywhere they state such things) ... works slow, but it works! if you turn off show end result it works just fine, just like regular epoly and performance is acceptable... it is limited, that stands, but still pretty usefull technique...

if you think about it, it's not a surprise that it's slow, especially when you have lots of epoly modifiers because prog has to go through whole stack each time and perform multiple transformations... but what if you have hipoly head and suddenly decide that you don't like overal shape... just go back and correct it in matter of seconds.... with turned off show end result, but, on the other hand, interactivity isn't a must because you're able to predict roughly how it will look... not to mention how much it helps when you have to make morph targets...

@erka2: Top secret?!... are you being ironic? how can something that's released to so many people be top secret?

@reality3d: i'll explain it if people show interest in it.. and hsds is just like you said... mostly unusable.. :)

[f97ao]

Hiya guys.
I'm experimenting with alot of tricks in this regard. I know for sure that I can create hierarc modeling in 3dsmax, and I'm considering it for PolySpeed Advanced. It's however very complicated to program so I'm not sure I have the time. Unless of course someone has a very clever trick for how I should do it.

The best idea so far is this:
- I have the low poly version, say just one face. The high poly version could then be say 9 faces that are in the same area of this face. in the high detail mode you can move the 9 faces. When you move the one single low poly face, then these high poly faces will be transformed in a similar way. So if the original face is bigger these 9 faces will be bigger too.

When you open the high detail mode then I have to rebuild the parts that are in high poly. The same for rendering.

I'm not convinced it wil work perfect but I think so. However it does not sound that simple to do.

Any ideas? Perhaps I can make this happen :)

/Andreas

[Reality3D]

f97ao: but what happens if you cut the original face?. You should cut the subdivided version too. Well, that's the same problem if you do

Edit Poly(high poly version)
Turbosmooth
Edit Poly(med poly version)
Turbosmooth
-------
Editable Poly(Low poly version)

It works until you change the topology of the low poly version

I'm intrigated with the method :)

[peekoot]

reality3d: i don't know if f97ao has solution to this, but with method i had in mind you can't perform additional cuts once you've passed on to higher level (and it doesn't have to be with turbosmooth)... actually you shouldn't change geometry in any other way than altering vertex positions... but with little bit of planning when modeling this shouldn't be a problem...

however... you can use method with skinwrap which will allow you to perform cuts on lower level control meshes...

i'll try to make screen capture video of method i had in mind, but i don't have enough webspace to host it... if somebody can host it, i'll be happy to make it..

[f97ao]

I can handle topology changes much better than max has. For example if you cut a face into 2, I can still regard this as one face if I like. I remember the original face. I would probably look for topologychanges like this. and when they happen I recalculate this face that is now to faces. So that the highdetail faces 9 of them are now split into to parts.

But yes it sounds problematic anyway. Extrude, Bevel also have similar problems. Some will always create problems for sure. For example if the user does a bridge between to polygons, what happens with the data in these polygons? It has to be deleted for sure, but what about the surrounding ones? They will not match after this.

I really would like to allow topology changes. Perhaps one could allow a few functions, like extrude and bevel. And others work but will delete the high level data close to it.

More ideas?

/Andreas

[f97ao]

But yes, hmm, perhaps skinwrap could somehow be used for this.
/Andreas

[peekoot]

But yes, hmm, perhaps skinwrap could somehow be used for this.
/Andreas
it can.. that's for sure... only bit annoying when it has to update mesh every time, but definately works! :)

ok, i'm gonna bump this once just to get more voters, but i think i'm gonna do a short video showing my technique with tools max already has and we put our faith in f97ao to make them more advanced ;)

hosting problem also solved.. .i'm gonna register myself a domain (was about time anyways) and buy some webspace.. i found http://www.hostexcellence.com/ anyone have experience with them? they're supposed to be good...


cheers!

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