MarcCG
08-25-2008, 07:32 PM
Having just finished a small project to get a feel for v10, I stumbled across an idea for a new deformer object, that would have saved alot of time when I screwed something up.
Where I screwed up was bevelling a series of edges all around my complex model to create a small surface to catch speculars - I was modelling my hi-fi, and all the little plastic parts, which have fillet rads on all edges about 0.5 - 1mm as plastic things often do. I was not using hypernurbs - I just wanted to create a medium res mesh using the modelling tools.
However, at some late point, I really wished I had left these edges till the very end, when I realised a major modelling correction needed to be done - And then I found myself in mesh-hell trying to sort out these little chamfered edges.
My idea, is that a deformer is created that allows these edges to be virtual....I imagine creating an egde selection and setting a tag on the mesh. The deformer is the 'settings' of the bevel tool - but applied as a child of the mesh (like a bend deformer etc), that looks to the selection tag for the edges to be bevelled.
Thus I can create the basic geometry of my mesh and apply the bevels non-destructively. So that when I screw up, I can disable the deformer, move my offending mesh, and reapply the deformer..It would also be invaluable, say if I wished I hadn't put such a large bevel along an edge - I would just edit the amount of offset in the deformer and hey-presto...
Hope that makes sense..
Of course, my imagination ran wild, and I foresaw the possibility of having a boat-load of modelling tools work this way - and be animatable - and then I got over excited and thought of this...
Imagine that every modelling tool was able to be used like this.
So here's how it works. A new 'superdeformer' is created that contains a history of actions. I'll try to detail this in its simplest form, it would be a list with the following headers.
SEQUENCE | Points/edges/Polys | Tool | Settings | Length
--------------------------------------------------------
1
2
3...
Sequence: The order in which the actions are performed
Points/edges/polys: A reference to the points/edges or polys to be effected
Tool: The modelling tool (as a deformer) to be effected on the selected points....
Settings: The settings of the above tool
Length: The amount of frames it takes to move the points from their initial starting position to the final end position of the settings in the tool. When it reaches the final position, the sequence moves down to the next item in the list and performs those actions.
Or something like that.
How cool would that be? I can think of a great use for tutorials, You can animate the processes needed to show something being modelled with super accuracy, and show the effect in motion of the desired tools....
Where I screwed up was bevelling a series of edges all around my complex model to create a small surface to catch speculars - I was modelling my hi-fi, and all the little plastic parts, which have fillet rads on all edges about 0.5 - 1mm as plastic things often do. I was not using hypernurbs - I just wanted to create a medium res mesh using the modelling tools.
However, at some late point, I really wished I had left these edges till the very end, when I realised a major modelling correction needed to be done - And then I found myself in mesh-hell trying to sort out these little chamfered edges.
My idea, is that a deformer is created that allows these edges to be virtual....I imagine creating an egde selection and setting a tag on the mesh. The deformer is the 'settings' of the bevel tool - but applied as a child of the mesh (like a bend deformer etc), that looks to the selection tag for the edges to be bevelled.
Thus I can create the basic geometry of my mesh and apply the bevels non-destructively. So that when I screw up, I can disable the deformer, move my offending mesh, and reapply the deformer..It would also be invaluable, say if I wished I hadn't put such a large bevel along an edge - I would just edit the amount of offset in the deformer and hey-presto...
Hope that makes sense..
Of course, my imagination ran wild, and I foresaw the possibility of having a boat-load of modelling tools work this way - and be animatable - and then I got over excited and thought of this...
Imagine that every modelling tool was able to be used like this.
So here's how it works. A new 'superdeformer' is created that contains a history of actions. I'll try to detail this in its simplest form, it would be a list with the following headers.
SEQUENCE | Points/edges/Polys | Tool | Settings | Length
--------------------------------------------------------
1
2
3...
Sequence: The order in which the actions are performed
Points/edges/polys: A reference to the points/edges or polys to be effected
Tool: The modelling tool (as a deformer) to be effected on the selected points....
Settings: The settings of the above tool
Length: The amount of frames it takes to move the points from their initial starting position to the final end position of the settings in the tool. When it reaches the final position, the sequence moves down to the next item in the list and performs those actions.
Or something like that.
How cool would that be? I can think of a great use for tutorials, You can animate the processes needed to show something being modelled with super accuracy, and show the effect in motion of the desired tools....