Maya Extend Tool??

[gmask]

What exactly does the extend tool do?

[greekdish]

The Lightwave Extend tool.....you select the vertices on a polygon object, then press Extend....and you can drag out the newly duplicated vertices that are connected by polygons to the original vertices. Am I missing something in Maya?

[gmask]

Isn't that basically the extrude edge command? Instead of selecting vertices you select edges.

[greekdish]

Yes, I guess you're right....but its much easier to select vertexes in Maya, as opposed to edges.....I keep selecting the edges perpendicular to the edges I only want, so it takes more time. Do you know of any plugin that does the same thing as what can be called a Vertex Extrude??

[gmask]

I can't imagine why you'd be having such a hard time selecting an edge? Maybe in shaded view you need to turn on display wireframe in the viewport shading menu.

Anyway there is the MJ Polytools avaaible for download from highend3d.com that happens to have an extrude vertex function and it's not a plugin so you'll be able to use in pretty much any version of Maya.

[greekdish]

Im not having a hard time selecting edges....just isnt as efficient as selecting just vertices, ya know??

Anyways, Ill check out the link for MJ Polytools..thanks for the help. :cool:

[gmask]

Originally posted by greekdish
Im not having a hard time selecting edges....just isnt as efficient as selecting just vertices, ya know??


Is it? Wouldn't you have to select two vertices as opposed to only one edge to make a new face?

[antweiler]

it is extremely helpful to have a button with the "convert edge selection to vertices" etc
so you get your vertex selection

antweiler

[greekdish]

For one face, that would be fine.....but if you have to select a whole ring of vertices, or a whole ring of edges....which is faster? With edges, you would be selecting the perpendicular edges as well, then having to go back and deselect them. Vertices are faster in this case, and in most complex selections. To me anyways, and Im sure many more Lightwave users out there.

[mental]

remember that you can also select an entire row of edges by first selecting one edge and expanding that selection with edit polygon > selection > select continuous edges. and as antweiler said you can also convert those edges into vertices

i have both these commands set as buttons on my shelf.

also selecting an entire row of anything on a complex model is tough not unless you use these commands.

-mental

[womanonfire]

may be of use for you:
Edit Polygons/Selection/Select Contiguous Edges
also
MJ Poly Tools has a Select Ring command (select one edge it selects the whole ring connected to it)

[gmask]

Originally posted by greekdish
For one face, that would be fine.....but if you have to select a whole ring of vertices, or a whole ring of edges....which is faster? With edges, you would be selecting the perpendicular edges as well, then having to go back and deselect them. Vertices are faster in this case, and in most complex selections.

Maybe it's how you are deselcting the edges that is giving you trouble.. Did you know that if you hold down the ctrl key that it will deselect any CV or EDGE that you draw a marque over without selecting additional ones like holding the shift key will that were not in the original selection?

There are selections tools that allow you to get rings or rows of either vertices or edges.. I don't see how deselecting either of these could be faster or slower than the other.. they seem to me to be apples and oranges.

I'm not sure if there is an easy way to select two vertex's or two edges and have all the vertex's and edges inbetween get selected..wouldn't that be even faster than having to select a whole row or ring and then deselect some in that ring or row? Is that the kind of selection you are talking about?


>>>anyways, and Im sure many more Lightwave users out there.

According to the somewhat biased POLL in the 3DSmax section there are more 3DS for modelling users out there who prefer 3DS over all the rest ;-)

I'm interested in helping users from any program get a better handle on modelling in Maya as well as improving my own skills. It has become clear to me that there are many tricks that would be nice to have and when possible I'd like to fill in the blanks with little scripts but there are some things that can't be done that way :-(

[gmask]

BTW.. I as just playing around witht he MJ PolyTools Vertex extrude and it doesn't really work like I expected..seeems a little weird to me??

[wgreenlee1]

Originally posted by gmask
BTW.. I as just playing around witht he MJ PolyTools Vertex extrude and it doesn't really work like I expected..seeems a little weird to me??

This is what he is talking about...

What I did in Lightwave was select those four vertices,hit the extend tool,hit the scale tool amd it creates 4 new polys that are connected...
I havent had success at doing this in maya either...

Whats the exact url to that MJ PolyTools Vertex extrude...I would like it if it can do a extrusion and maintain polys like in the gif...
If you have time gmask?I looked around over at Highend and I couldnt find it....

[gmask]

Here's MJ..
http://www.highend3d.com/files/dl.3d?group=melscripts&file_loc=MJPolyTools-v1.3-.txt&file_id=1759

Well maybe it's still not what you are asking for but to do what you show in the little animation there you could just extrude a face?

[wgreenlee1]

Yes...but what if you wanted to only extrude say...3 of those vertices?
Or if you if after extrudeing once then want to keep on extrudeing or extending as its called in Lightwave?
It kinda like extrudeing in reverse.....(I was just thinking that when I was making this one....)
It extending selected vertices to make new polys...
This can be done in Maya but you have to weld the vertices after...

All of this was made starting with that one poly in the middle....

[gmask]

Originally posted by wgreenlee1
Yes...but what if you wanted to only extrude say...3 of those vertices?
Or if you if after extrudeing once then want to keep on extrudeing or extending as its called in Lightwave?



Okay I understand.. I think if extrude edge would also keep the new faces it creates togther that it would be the same as extending in LW basically. If that were the case would it be an acceptable solution?

[augustus]

Originally posted by antweiler
it is extremely helpful to have a button with the "convert edge selection to vertices" etc
so you get your vertex selection

antweiler

There is, ctrl + right click

[wgreenlee1]

Originally posted by gmask
Okay I understand.. I think if extrude edge would also keep the new faces it creates togther that it would be the same as extending in LW basically. If that were the case would it be an acceptable solution?


Yes.....
When you multi~extrude edge it needs to keep those connected faces consistant with the selected vertice(s).ie all in one piece.

[Lyr]

In maya 5 faces stay connected when you extrude.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Lyr
In maya 5 faces stay connected when you extrude.

But not when you extrude edges and I have tried this in Maya 5:-(

[Lyr]

yes, I am talking about edges. When I extrude edges my faces stay together.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Lyr
yes, I am talking about edges. When I extrude edges my faces stay together.

Try extruding them on their normals.. you notice that the adjoining edge of the new faces are not actually sharing an edge. Or try moving one of the new faces and you'll see that it is not connected to the other new faces.

[Lyr]

Yup, they stay together no matter what, unless I uncheck keep new faces together then they don't stay together upon extrude. I remember modeling alot with extrude edge back in maya 2.5-3.0 and there is no way I would have been able to do it in a reasonably manner if the edges didn't stay together.

[Bliz]

Yes Lyr is right. It takes it's setting from the 'keep faces together' toggle which is a bit weird but I suppose you could class the new faces behind the extruded edges as the faces it's keeping together.

[Lyr]

each polyExtrudeEdge node has it's own keep faces together attribute as well that can be modified independently of the global poly tool settings.

[gmask]

Originally posted by Lyr
each polyExtrudeEdge node has it's own keep faces together attribute as well that can be modified independently of the global poly tool settings.

D'oH! I was thinking this option was in the extrude options but I was miffed that it wasn't there.. weird

okay so is this satisfactory for LW users who want an extend function in Maya?

[Bliz]

Should be. :shrug:

What the original poster neglected to mention is that with Lightwave's *native* [out of the box] extend tool you have to select your verts in a particular order [clockwise or anticlockwise depending on what direction you wish the new polys to face]. It's only 3rd-party scripts/plugins for LW like POZ_Extender and FI_Extender that don't need a particular vert selection order.

So in general, LW users that haven't downloaded a better extender plugin and Maya users who have trouble making efficient edge selections will be slower at extending/extruding edges than LW users who downloaded a better extender plugin and Maya users who can make efficient edge selections.

[wgreenlee1]

I think I'm finding out something similar to Lightwaves extender....

Ok,Do "Edge extrude."....Then...
In channel box "Keep Faces Tog" choose "On"....Divisions,twist and taper also definable....
I was looking the main panel for edge extrude keep faces together......

Very much like Lightwaves extend....:thumbsup:

[Lyr]

in the polygons menu at the very bottom there are some global options for the poly tools, among them keep faces together. Checking it in the tool options menu will keep you from having to set it each and every time.

[wgreenlee1]

Oh yeah!
Its all making sense now!:thumbsup:
Thanks for the menu tip there.


Well anyway I added this script to for making that tool selection easier.

// Together
polyExtrudeEdge -kft true;
// edges are extruded then scaled together
;


Along with this as a icon on my polywork shelf:


What do think bad idea or what?
Just makes it faster for me to find.:wavey:

[Bliz]

Definately! That's what the shelf is there for.

I have some really dumb simple things on my shelf but they save me time and are very helpful to me.

[ see this thread http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60785 ]

[Lyr]

Anything you can do to the interface to make working faster and more intuitive the better. Personally I like marking menus and in this thread here http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30917 a technique is shared that will bring up different sets of marking menus based on what you have selected. By setting up marking menus like that you can have the whole program at your finger tips and the tools sorted by what you have selected. Best of all it's all on one hot key.

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