NGons next?

[LucentDreams]

man its been less than 24 hours and the feature requests are flying in, on Postforums its celshading, here its nogons, can't you let those guys have a single day off?

No Ngons. Part of the reason why, Well They sure could use some extra funding, but some people won't' take the leap and buy the software to support the programmers so they can add the difficult without restructuring the application kinds of features ;)

But seriously as I have said before, Ngons is a difficult thing, I mean look At LW, they dont' have full ngon support, you can't do any subdivision without cleaning up every ngon, max has a fake ngon system, I mean ngons are not a true standard, and for apps like LW, Max, C4D part of the reason for not getting full true ngons, is because of the difficulty in doing it, its not a few simple lines of code, all tools have to be re writtten to use the new architecture, Its a heavy teask, your basically change how edges and polygons are drawn, thats a heavy feat. Don't count on these anytime soon. And seriously if ngons is the only feature hodling you back, you need to learn how to model more carefully. They are helpful but hardly essential in a modeling workflow.

[CosmicBear]

don't mean to sound rude, paul, but i can only agree with kaiskai. why are ngons so important? sure, i'd like to have them sometimes, but up till now i've always found a solution for my models without them. and even working in LW (okay, absolute beginner in that prog) i barely use them as working with cinema has trained me to 'only quads' http://www.cosmicbear.de/icons/tilt.gif

[kiwi]

I have also learnt to model in quads now,but C4D seems to be measured by n gons against other apps.What if we had fake ones?,then more people buy C4D,programmers have more funding,buy more expensive software and make some extra cool additions to C4D :)


Stu.

[Phasmatis]

What's the difference between fake N-gons and ture N-gons? In max, when you subdivide a poly with 6 sides it becomes 4 polys instead of 8 what happens with true N-gons?

Fake N-gons are useful because the hidden edges aren't subdivided so they won't cause creasing, which I would find very useful when making heads.

[kiwi]

Where on the head would you want to place an n gon Phas?,do you mean the ear?.


Personally I think lack of n gons and some other poly tools are actually making us better modelers because we have to be more inventive :)


Stu.

[ThirdEye]

There are a lot of places where ngons could be put in a head, expecially the forehead. The bicubic smoothing method will subdivide them into quads for you.

[Phasmatis]

Yep, there abouts. :) If I edge cut to make lines on the forehead I will get some creasing near the ear, because I've not got a load more polys there. With N-gons I can hide those extra edges near the ear and it should look ok.

But you're right, it probably is making us better modellers without N-gons. :)

[NWoolridge]

Originally posted by Phasmatis
Yep, there abouts. :) If I edge cut to make lines on the forehead I will get some creasing near the ear, because I've not got a load more polys there. With N-gons I can hide those extra edges near the ear and it should look ok.

But you're right, it probably is making us better modellers without N-gons. :)

I agree about the necessity for quads making us better modelers. Here is a mesh for an expressive animated head, where I have modeled in the detail necessary for forehead wrinkles, naso-labial fold etc.:

http://www.bmc.med.utoronto.ca/c4d/meshsample.jpg

I put up a page about going from areas of high to low detail while maintaining a quad mesh:

adding resolution to a quad mesh (http://www.bmc.med.utoronto.ca/c4d/Addingres.html)

Not that this is any news to you guys...

Nick

[Paul L. Ming]

Holy cat's and madoodleitis guys! You can put the pitchforks and torches down now. ;) I was just asking a simple question for a method/feature that I find indespensable in modeling.

NWoolridge: Nice example. That a clear and precise method of creating a "quad only" meshing.

I tested how many steps (mouse clicks + key presses) it takes me to do that in MAX, using MJPolytools. It takes 12, 14 if I want all quads (the extra 2 were hitting th Delete key for the 'end parts'. Total time to do that was 20 seconds (I had my wife time me, :) ).

Please don't flame me here, but (serious question here)...how long does it take to do that in C4D? I honestly would like to know what "speed" an experienced C4D user can get modeling with C4D's "insta-triangulation" when using the knife tool. As I said, it's my workflow coupled with C4D's lack of 5-sided poly's that's keeping me from using it. Is it compareable to 20 seconds? Or is that wishfull thinking on my part?

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by Paul L. Ming
Holy cat's and madoodleitis guys! You can put the pitchforks and torches down now. ;) I was just asking a simple question for a method/feature that I find indespensable in modeling.

NWoolridge: Nice example. That a clear and precise method of creating a "quad only" meshing.

I tested how many steps (mouse clicks + key presses) it takes me to do that in MAX, using MJPolytools. It takes 12, 14 if I want all quads (the extra 2 were hitting th Delete key for the 'end parts'. Total time to do that was 20 seconds (I had my wife time me, :) ).

Please don't flame me here, but (serious question here)...how long does it take to do that in C4D? I honestly would like to know what "speed" an experienced C4D user can get modeling with C4D's "insta-triangulation" when using the knife tool. As I said, it's my workflow coupled with C4D's lack of 5-sided poly's that's keeping me from using it. Is it compareable to 20 seconds? Or is that wishfull thinking on my part?


Well don't know if Nick has tried this yet, but if your smart with the edge extrude tool I can add thouse wrinkle in two steps in 8.1 select the line of edges, CTRL extrude, then select the two edges that are making quads tris and ede melt them, done.

[Phasmatis]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
Well don't know if Nick has tried this yet, but if your smart with the edge extrude tool I can add thouse wrinkle in two steps in 8.1 select the line of edges, CTRL extrude, then select the two edges that are making quads tris and ede melt them, done.

Hmmm... I think I'll give that ago when the new version of the updater is out.

[NWoolridge]

Originally posted by Kaiskai
Well don't know if Nick has tried this yet, but if your smart with the edge extrude tool I can add thouse wrinkle in two steps in 8.1 select the line of edges, CTRL extrude, then select the two edges that are making quads tris and ede melt them, done.

Woo Hoo! Gotta try that one...
Thanks Kai.

Nick

[NWoolridge]

Kai,

when I try what you suggested, I still end up with tris, and the toplogy isn't exactly the same; I need to weld two points and perform a second edge melt to "quadify" the mesh...

Am I missing something...?

Its still a real time saver...

Nick

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by NWoolridge
Kai,

when I try what you suggested, I still end up with tris, and the toplogy isn't exactly the same; I need to weld two points and perform a second edge melt to "quadify" the mesh...

Am I missing something...?

Its still a real time saver...

Nick


DOH your right when I did it I forgot that the points aren't connected, so yes you will have to weld on both sides then select six edges to melt :(

Not as much of a time saver now, but I recommend people get use to useing edge extrude and edge bevel like this using CTRL, both are eally handy

[ThirdEye]

Couldn't agree more, they're COMPLETELY AWESOME also when modeling cars Kai! :thumbsup:

[flingster]

Paul L. Ming: on this forum people rarely, if ever give each other s**t....its friendly on here...so don't read anything into it matey.

ngons...don't get me wrong guys but if i remember rightly ngons was a popular request for r9 that you guys are putting together.

its understandable maxon are reluctant to go down that route as its a FUNDAMENTAL change in the inner mechanics of cinema. is it purely ngons we want delivering or just easier modelling tools like the new methods kai explained fully using the featureset of r8? The world of 3d is one competitive marketplace in recent years what with high end products reducing prices etc. imho its only a matter of time (ngons support)....its our DUTY as product user to improve it if we can, and its up to developers to take this on board. However its very hard to compare feature for feature such products, and more to the point just see how far cinema has come in the last 5 years! Roll on the next 5 years cos they are gonna be fun. Surely in a creatives marketplace what we really want is creative solutions to issues users are having...how maxon go about it is up to maxon....whether users take them up on there software offer is up to users (imho)

kai: nice tip!
NWoolridge: woahhh what can i say...slick!:thumbsup:

[igotit]

Though not having ngon support makes for more thought, which is not such a bad thing, ngons are a part in play with some methods of modeling and is much liked by those who use them with those apps which do support them, and of course either way you still have to do some thinking inorder to come out with nice quads. For export everything must be cleaned up or another app used for final renders may have problems and you may end up with holes where there should be texture. ;) Leastways this has been my experience.

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