Modeling with a mirrored instance/reference

[digital god]

I think this feature is only avaliable in mirai and lightwave

[toast]

as long as you line up the two edges and ignore the seam line, this is pretty much the way to go. Unless that seam is completely distracting you, how it looks seperate is how it's gonna look welded together, minus seam, plus smoother detail. If there's a way in max to do it otherwise, I'd too love to see it.

[Codexus]

I think a wonderful idea for a nice little plugin would be a modifier that automatically mirrors a mesh/poly and welds the vertices on the symetry plane. That shouldn't be too hard to code.
I might even give it a try if I have the time. (Unless off course this plug-in already exists).

[luigi]

its more easy than this.

you can see good union with meshmooth.

you only hace to erase the faces that are in the mirowed plane.

bad example:

[luigi]

good union example:

[Codexus]

Luigi, yes you have to erase those faces but there is still a visible seam on the mirror plane that only disappear once you weld the vertices. Yes, it's possible to live with that but still that can be annoying as you don't see the final result while modelling.

Being at work I can't post an example image to show you what I mean. I guess the more experienced you are the more you can predict what your models will look like when the two half are welded. But wouldn't it be nice to see that while modelling?

[luigi]

and a nother suggestion for me :

use poly and meshtool plugin for work fine with poly.

and use this:

make the original.

make a clone reference of it

make a clone instance of the reference and mirror it.

apply meshmooth to the reference

freeze the reference and the instance of the reference.


work with the original.

in the properties of the original make transparent .

with this you can work and see the results at the same time.

[luigi]

it isnt a problem you only have to move a little the vertex of the join and the line will be disappear.

in this example the two part of everthing are not weld or conected.

Is only a little tangent problem that will be resolved moving a little the vertice.

http://www.pigmalion-haw.com/luigi/cuerpo.jpg

[Codexus]

True, you can build your model so that the seam won't be visible. But that's extra work too ;) Nice model, btw.

[xynaria]

There are a couple of scripts that do symmetry available from www.scriptspot.com and also Blur Beta. Myself I haven't found them to be as usable as I'd like though I'll be honest and admit that that might have been partially down to my lack of patience.
I find it really annoying that Max lacks this feature because without it, it means you have to model morph targets as whole rather than halves as you discover when you weld the halves together and all the vertex numbering has changed. :)

[windarr]

Thanks for all the responses guys, I guess this is of great interest to more than just me. Like Codexus I want my model to have no seam while I'm modeling it. And guess what! I figured out a way that it works. It works by using Connect from the Compound Objects rollout. I'm using Max 3.1, but I would imagine they kept this in 4. Connect, bridges the opening between two meshes, it won't weld the seam that we all dislike, instead it bridges it, you can go to the help index and look up Connect for more info, but here's how you go about setting it up.

Here goes: First make a reference copy of your mesh, instance that, but don't bother putting them right next to each other. Leave some space in the middle (you'll see why in a moment). Second select one of the copies you just made, go to the create tab on the side of the screen, find "compound objects" in the rollout, and click on "connect". Click on the button to "Pick Operand" and click on the other half of the copied mesh (not the original). Make sure that the smoothing check boxes for bridge and ends are checked. Then make sure that display is set to "result". Apply a meshsmooth if you want (you might want to apply optimize first, because connect spans the gap with triangles, not quads, and meshsmoothing on triangles instead of quads looks a little different, I think you'll be able to get the right settings for optimize easily). ****Note**** if nothing has happened yet, it's because you need to go to the original mesh, and enter the sub-poly mode, and delete any polys that face the second copy. As you delete them you should see the mesh connect together down the middle and be nice and seamless. :applause:

Cool huh!? Here's a pic showing a little test model I was messing with figuring this out.

[luigi]

xynaria:

do you have probe pacthsmooth tecnique of daniel martinez lara

for make morph target this tecnique is grate

show it here:

pepeland (http://www.3dluvr.com/pepeland/Misc/patchsmo.htm)

Why you make morph changes before weld ?

windarr:

the problem that you have is that you are modelling in 3.1 with mesh.

and the 4.2 that is the actually version have poly that allow you a lot of more control and the result of be smoothed is perfect.
poly combinated with another scripts like meshtools ....

I wish that you can actualize your version soon and resolve your problem.

the body want you are modelling looks grate.

are you going to post it in critique ?

[xynaria]

Luigi,
Thanks...no I hadn't seen that and I'll have a good look but patches wouldn't really suit for most of the modelling I do at the moment which relies heavily on polys and mesh tools, but it does look worth investigating. :)

"Why you make morph changes before weld ? "

Because in theory it's half the work. In a lot of cases, if it was a head, I wouldn't because I like the asymetry, but I only noticed this happened when I was trying to make a female torso go from normal to pregnant and wanted to do a lot of quick tests to see if it was looking credible and it just seemed extra work for a lot of it to have to keep selecting both sides of the figure. :)

[windarr]

Thanks Luigi, I was just playing around a little bit testing my discovery out, but I think that I will develop this model into a full-out character. I've figured out what I wanted to for the most part, it's not a perfect solution, but it does the job very very well.

[luigi]

xynaria I have got and idea:

make models with the mirrowed tecnique and when you finished the morph targets do this:

aplique multires to all object:

them put the same number of verices in all objects.

With this you have got the same verices in alll the objects

I hope it work fint to you.

;)

[luigi]

when i put verices I woant to put vertexs

in spanish are vertices and i put verices
but yesterday night I went party and Ionly sleep a few hours

:cool: :airguitar :cool:

to tired for write right in english.

[Iain McFadzen]

Luigi:

Morpher does not only require that the two models contain the same number of verts, it also requires that those verts are in the same order. If you go into Edit Mesh vert SO mode and select a vert you will see a little bit of text in the Selection rollout which says "Vertex [#???] Selected". If you edit the structure of a mesh in any way you change the vertex order, and so morpher won't work properly.

[xynaria]

Unfortunately Luigi,
Iain is right and if my memory is correct, this is not something that they point out in the help files though they do actually mention that in a similar fashion a good dose of mesh editing (i.e deleteing faces or vertices on a mesh) will screw up your selection sets , not that I would ever imply that Max's implementation or things would ever be limited to the point of almost defeating the object
Thanks very much for the thought though. :)

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