Is Meshtools necessary?

[jone]

meshtools saves many hours,
they just.. they just help and speed up your modelling.
and i dont know is there any tutorials for it.
and thats is only good and useful plug/script what i ever seen for meshModelling.

[dvornik]

In max 5 most functionality of meshtools is built-in and you can live without them. You may still want to install them if you like using scPolyTools (like move vertices along normals or slide an edgeloop towards the next edgeloop).

[Joril]

Is Meshtools necessary?
Yes.

learn more about them here:
http://www.s21net.com/meshtools/

[sforsyth]

I'd say you can't live without them as a Max user. They've improved my modeling speed no end, and as a direct result, my modeling skills. As for tutorials, one of the best is the head modeling time lapse video on the link Joril gave. Study it a few times and you'll see most of the advantages to them.
Also invaluable are cspolytools. I honestly can't imagine working without meshtools or cspolytools again. I don't have Max 5, and won't for the forseeable future, so if you're stuck in the same situation, get them as soon as possible.
After a short while you'll find yourself binding some of them to shortcut keys, and soon you'll be lost without them.

[skunk184]

yep i ll agree with all of you.........

meshtools just make modeling so much nicer...i would nt wanna model without now!

[Nikodemus]

how do i get and install meshtools?

[butterfly_fx]

Originally posted by dvornik
In max 5 most functionality of meshtools is built-in and you can live without them. You may still want to install them if you like using scPolyTools (like move vertices along normals or slide an edgeloop towards the next edgeloop).

In max 5 you can just select edge constraint instead of none in the dropdown menu under the modify geometry rollout of editable poly, then move edges or vertices they will slide on the edges depending the direction you give at the start ;) no need cspolytools for that...only thing i don't understand in that dropdown menu is that face constraint heh, i don't see the point of it yet lol....

[visualboo]

Originally posted by Nikodemus
how do i get and install meshtools?
Get Meshtools from Script Spot (http://www.scriptspot.com) then get csPolyTools from Captain Subagio (http://www.3dluvr.com/subagio/) :)

edit: YES to the question at hand. I have never had a more nessesary script/plug in my life :)

[ilasolomon]

if you ask me, absolutly YES, maybe in max 6 we will not need it
but even with max 5, it offers some good features that you can't
abort, like CONNECT. (it's stupid that max doesn' have it & it's more
stupid that the max' edit-mesh tool doesn't have those of PolyMesh!!!)

[Nikodemus]

ok i just downloaded meshtools... and put the files in the folder that the readme said to... but then it say go to customize/customizeUI >> i got a pop up menu.. now what do i do?

[facial]

i heard from my friend said, mesh tool is cool, and it realy bring more convenience. :beer:

[Nikodemus]

can someone help me out? look 2 replies up please :cool: want to get started using "mah new toolz" :D

[visualboo]

Nikodemus: sorry dood...

Just put them in a quad or a toolbar. Here's a partial shot of one of my quads>

http://www.visualboo.com/images/misc/helpers/meshtools-quad.jpg

And if you're useing max 5 here's a shot of my default (built in) meshtools quad>

http://www.visualboo.com/images/misc/helpers/max5-meshtools-quad.jpg

Post if you get confused :thumbsup:

[edit] uhhh... why wont my [img] tag work?

[Nikodemus]

visualboo.. im confused. ive never customized or installed plugins before and i dont want to mess my 3ds max up....
here is a picture of what i did so far... i selected the meshtools from the pulldown in the toolbar popup.. and i hit load? then a new popup shows and has maxstart.cui selected.. is this what i do? :shrug:
http://web.utk.edu/~mkuzio/whattodo.jpg

[visualboo]

no what that does is load saved toolbars, keyboard, quad, color and menu settings.

If you don't want to mess up the way max is right now... just save a custom UI scheme with your name (mine is boos UI crazy :) ).

ok once you save a UI scheme... PLAY with it to see what you like and don't like. If you want it back to how it was... load the DefaultUI scheme.

Just so you know for the future, when you save a UI scheme, it saves different files for each part of the UI (colors, menu's, quads... etc... ) all with the same name as the UI scheme. 3dsmax5\UI is the directory and keep these backed up, because if your puter takes a crap... it sucks having to redo all the customization. Mines super custom so it really sucks for me. :)

so now you want to make a new quad. Go to the quad tab and hit New, then enter a name. where it says "Quad Shortcut" enter a key that you want to use for that quad. Now that you have a quad, find the meshtools group and drag and drop from the left side to the right side. Just to the left of where it says "Label" there's a little picture of the middle of the quads. That lets you choose what quad your putting things into. Once you have all the meshtools you want in that quad.... click save and it will ask for a name. Enter the same name as your UI scheme.

[Nikodemus]

ooohh k .. after a lot of problems and alert pop ups and max crashes.. i figure that it has to be editable patch for these meshtools to do anything.... will let you know if i have more probs :D

[Chris]

you mean editable poly?

[EricUNSL]

I recently installed meshtools. Luckily without the problems you were having Nikodemus. The icons show up in the top toolbar but I can only select 3-4 out of the dozen or so icons in the meshtool menu. So, I have to be working in editable poly for all the meshtools to become selectable?

Thanks alot to everyone for your help. Joril: great link!! thanks.

[Chris]

yep, meshtools is designed to work with ediable poly's.

[ilasolomon]

now, in max5 there is no reason to work with editable mesh!
but it's bad that we have to work with edit mesh coz there is
no edit poly modifier! :annoyed:

[Nikodemus]

you're right chris :rolleyes: i MEANT editable POLY :D
i got so confused and stuff i edited that message and goffed up
hehe

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