BevelMan v0.1 - max 5 Polygon Extrusion Manipulators

[gundog]

haha...dude, you rock morning, noon and night...

thanks.

[little]

that does look kewl ill have to try it out
thanks always for all your great work

[ToddD]

Always takin it to another level!!!! Thanks Bobo!!:beer: :beer: :beer:

[xynaria]

Looks mighty neat indeed. :) :bounce: :beer:

[Irfan]

:)

[Bobo]

Originally posted by Irfan
:)

Good thing you found the thread, I intended to send you a private message as it should be something you could find useful! ;)

I am open for suggestions - not only the implementation, the complete design is just 24 hours old... I am sure it can be made better. For example, adding separate UI elements for resetting height and outline to 0 separately.

[dvornik]

Bobo, you're incredible. It has the potential to become the most useful tool in polymodeling. Thanks.

In some ways your tool has more functionality (apply button, groop function, normals). In other ways maya tool works better. For instance it lets you non-uniform scale, move and rotate the polys that are being extruded.

With your manipulator I could use the standard max transformation tools (which is very good), but they affect not just the selected polys but also the previous section. Like if you rotate, it rotates the entire block, rather then polys.

Another thing I've noticed is that at least on my machine (max 5) the first iteration doesn't work. I have to cancel it and then it works just like in the video.

Great job, really original approach to interface design.

I put up a screenshot of the maya gizmo so you can get more ideas.


Maya gizmo (http://home.earthlink.net/~dvornik/cgt/maya_gizmos.png)

[visualboo]

Nice one bobo :beer:

[Bobo]

Originally posted by dvornik

With your manipulator I could use the standard max transformation tools (which is very good), but they affect not just the selected polys but also the previous section. Like if you rotate, it rotates the entire block, rather then polys.


There is a technical reason for it - BevelMan uses the new Max 5 Preview mode through MAXScript - what you see is not the extrusion, but the preview of the future extrusion. The selected polygons do not actually exist in the mesh database, they are just being previewed on the fly. This means I cannot rotate or scale them before pressing Apply or New.
Rotating (as shown in the video) actually rotates only the previous iteration which is physically existing in the mesh.

A hack would be to play with the Undo context and actually bevel everything immediately, but this would remove the nice functionality to select faces on the fly and see the potential results interactively and non-destructively...

Another way:

*Select a Polygon
*Press New (this duplicates its vertices and previews a zero extrusion)
*Rotate the polygon - both old and future vertices rotate
*When you are happy with the rotation, drag the sphere to extrude.
*Repeat by pressing New and so on...

*Or just rotate the polygons without using BevelMan (press Cancel to disable interactive Bevel). When you are happy with the rotation, start the next extrusion.
*Same with NU Scale.

I have some ideas for NU scaling with freely adjustable axes, will see if it works in the next update...


Another thing I've noticed is that at least on my machine (max 5) the first iteration doesn't work. I have to cancel it and then it works just like in the video.


Not A Bug.

I haven't described the workflow completely yet.
Before you do anything, you have to START the operation. By default, the first iteration does not do anything unless you press NEW or APPLY so this is expected.
The main reason is that you can use any other standard modeling operation - you don't want to be in Bevel mode all the time and right from the start!

Note that MAX 5 has a default non-zero height value and outline of 0 for the Bevel command. If you launch a fresh session, BevelMan will show the gizmo floating above the selected polygon since it accesses (reads and writes) all current values for Bevel, Extrude, Inset and Outline. To confirm the operation with max defaults, press APPLY - this will start a Bevel Preview and show you the extrusion.
If you press NEW, the default values will be set back to 0, and at the same time a new Bevel Preview will be started.
If you press CANCEL, all values will be reset to 0, but no operation will be started, so you have to press NEW or APPLY anyway to get started...

Hope this helps...

[dvornik]

Also, once after hitting apply I got the following result, kind of reversed:

this result (http://home.earthlink.net/~dvornik/cgt/bevel_artifact.png)

[edit] Oh, yes, sure, your explanation helps. I am very impressed, I'll be using it even the way it is now. Just trying to beta-test.

[Bobo]

Originally posted by dvornik
Also, once after hitting apply I got the following result, kind of reversed:

this result (http://home.earthlink.net/~dvornik/cgt/bevel_artifact.png)


Let's say you have a polygon with edge length of about 10 units and you bevel it in with an outline of 4 units. This will give you a new poly with about 2 units edge, BUT it will also REPEAT the last extrusion as preview (just like max 5 does), which will scale the 2 units polygon negatively beyond 0. Just press CANCEL to go back from this undesired result, or use NEW instead of APPLY to confirm the last extrusion without repeating with the same parameters! APPLY is realy only meant as a tool for repeated extrusions where you just slightly tweak the last settings. 90% of the time, you should be using NEW instead...

[dvornik]

Cool. I got it. Sorry for being too pushy.

The main idea for bevel gizmo is to shape the volume as you go, that's why I was concerned with the transformation tools. But your workaround with New is perfectly acceptable. I'm sure many modellers will incorporate this tool into their workflow.

It's good that you explain the logic of how the tool works. It really helps.

[TheDevil[DK]]

hehe.. so cool.... damm you are fast... LOL even the video is going damm fast... :applause:

well... a couple of things you might consider:

1. the buttons (or the dots) is very small. I think 3 x times as big is cool
2. I don't know if you remember the extrude history in maya... where you can go back and edit old extrudes... (its properbly hard to make)

wel once again.... Nice script there

(hehe... any hints on the eNLARGE release day??? I can't wait)

[KiboOst]

bababa !! Bobo you rox !! What we could do without you hey ??

Kib

[romi]

thanks Bobo!

[kary]

Another great tool Bobo =)

[Chris]

Cheers Bobo, you rule!! :) :thumbsup:

[Reality3D]

Cool ;)

[Irfan]

I just had the time to play around with it and whenever I move the little sphere into a negative direction max crashes... :o/

Am I the only one who gets this?

:o(

[TheDevil[DK]]

I don't have any problems with the negative !!!

[Irfan]

EEK! I think I know what it is... it actually doesn't only happen with the negative direction...
I get a stupid invalid normal array message before max goes down... fortunately I know how to deal with that....

[dvornik]

OK, two more complaints.

The planes of the max 5 move gizmo and also the rotate gizmo tend to be inside of that ball that controls extrusion. So when I try to move or rotate the polygon I actually start a new extrusion.

It would be convenient if text disappeared during transformations

And a question: That ball used to be green, now I only see wireframe. What did I do? And I think tha ball can be smaller.

[Bobo]

Originally posted by dvornik
OK, two more complaints.

The planes of the max 5 move gizmo and also the rotate gizmo tend to be inside of that ball that controls extrusion. So when I try to move or rotate the polygon I actually start a new extrusion.

It would be convenient if text disappeared during transformations

And a question: That ball used to be green, now I only see wireframe. What did I do? And I think tha ball can be smaller.


1. You can control the transform gizmo appearance under Customize>Preference>Gizmos. Make it as large as you want.

2. Cannot do that - I cannot know what mode you are using. When extruding, best use Select instead of Move mode. On the other hand, I just made the Normal mode text disappear when just a single poly is selected (since it does not matter much unless you have more than one poly selected). Will see if I can do some more smart optimizations...

3. When Edged display is active, max displays manipulators as wireframe. When only shaded display is active (no wireframe overlay), the manipulators are shaded, too. That's just the way it is.

3. The size of the ball is based on the longest diagonal in the polygon. (the distance from a vertex to the center of the polygon). I set it to 1/4 of that distance. If you want to change it, locate the line

size = base_length / 4.0

and change 4.0 to a larger number - this will give you a smaller ball gizmo.


Thanks for the suggestions! DOn't forget this is v0.1 :)

[kary]

In that vein then:

I would like to be able to leave my last transform up (heaven forbid I should have to do anything as strenuous as hitting the select hotkey ;) ) would it work if the ball were centered to one of the edges instead of the poly?

Can you have a constant defined size for the manipulator instead of one based on the poly? It is a bit disconcerting to be roughing out a hand from one perspective and going from huge (palm) to tiny (finger tip) in one set of extrudes ;)

Really neat tool, its a very fast way to block out rough geometry =)

[Bobo]

Originally posted by kary
In that vein then:

I would like to be able to leave my last transform up (heaven forbid I should have to do anything as strenuous as hitting the select hotkey ;) ) would it work if the ball were centered to one of the edges instead of the poly?

Can you have a constant defined size for the manipulator instead of one based on the poly? It is a bit disconcerting to be roughing out a hand from one perspective and going from huge (palm) to tiny (finger tip) in one set of extrudes ;)

Really neat tool, its a very fast way to block out rough geometry =)


Unfortunately, this would put the ball too close to the circle.
What I could do is optionally move the ball farther along the normal, outside of the gizmo's arrow. Just like with the arrows of the move gizmo, you would pick the ball from a distance relatively to the face...

I intend to write a separate setup utility to allow any configuration works on the BevelMan gizmo...

As for the size - how can I know what scale you are working at? If I made the gizmo 10 units big, but your model is 1000 units, you wouldn't see the ball. If the model was 1 unit, the ball would cover it completely...
In my first draft, the ball was scaled proportionally to the COMPLETE model. (just like my Magmapulators). I could add an option to switch between fixed size in units, relative to object size and relative to face size.

More power to the user!

[kary]

Glad I asked. I had no idea of the 'whys' it couldn't be done that way :).

I hadn't thought of different people working at different scales... or even the fact it's rather common to have a 6 story building sized object and a fingernail size object in the same scene ;(

I was thinking of the move/rotate/scale gizmos that seem scaled to screen size instead of to the world ;).


"More power to the user!" -- always love to hear that :D

[Bobo]

Originally posted by kary
Glad I asked. I had no idea of the 'whys' it couldn't be done that way :).
...
"More power to the user!" -- always love to hear that :D


Please see the new thread I started for BevelMan v0.2
Thanks for the feedback - it helped me alot!

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.