Extruding Polys along a spline?

[MJV]

I believe that Bhodinut's Jenna might do this. Try www.bhodinut.com

[mnu]

hi,

I'm doing this plug at the moment. As I have not too much spare time don't know when it will be finished. But I'll keep you informed.

cheers mnu

[neilyb]

Cool! Keep us informed!

Jeena may do it also, I will have to check it out.....but it costs!:shame: :shame:

[fxgogo]

A work around would be to use and alpha or transparency map, and move that up the already extruded shape you have.

[LucentDreams]

I think she's is looking for somethihng diferent FX. sorta like the one built in XSI. basically you draw a spline in the shape you want a certain poly on an object to extrude and then whammoe the polie extrude along it. Basicaly it works like the matrix extrude but is far more capable. I have been hoping for something like this since I got XSI's demo. Let me know if you need help or beta testing mnu.:bounce:

[neilyb]

Er....Kai......er......I'M A BLOKE! Sorry, rant over.....must be a typing error right? :applause:

YES....spline extrude just like that bloke did on the XSI CDROM!!!!! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE! Er, not sure what is meant by the alpha maps....? Yeh matrix extrude definately needs and update....maybe some sliders and real time preview......has to be worth a few dollars a download????

[fxgogo]

Sorry if that was a bit vague:

What I meant is this:

You make your object as it would appear in your scene. You then apply a basic animated map which is a simple black to white wipe. Apply this to the alpha or transparency channel. The result should be that the object apears to be growing, when in fact it is just appearing in the scene

Hope that helps

[neilyb]

Ahhhhhh....Okay.....:thumbsup:
Actually I didn't want to animate the extrusion, I am just simply looking for a way to extrude do some complex poly extrusions without having to use Matrix extrude!

Cool tip all the same!

Cheers!

[LucentDreams]

yes basically the feature allows you to decide how you want it to extrude the polys from the object in a closer to realtime way than matrix extrude. Even better would be the new tool for LW 7.5 wher you simply grap a node on the normal of a poly and pull. Many is that simple or what. I want I want I want. Kay I'm done.

Extrude along a spline would be a great step though.

Oh, and I can't spell

[fxgogo]

What about rail extrusions?

[LucentDreams]

Again this is different. We aren't refering to an object istelf, but extruding from an object along a spline. When you are doing poly modeling you can extrude individual or groups of polies. However when you want to axtrude a large number of polies you have to either A) extrude each segment one at a time, rotating and scaling as needed. or B) use the matrix extrude whichhas a pattern and takes a while to set up the way you even remotely want.

Don't think of it as actualy creating polys on a splies, but extruding them along the shape of the spline (the spline is then deleted)

[neilyb]

Think of it as animating a rail extrude along a spline from a single poly.....without the animation or the rail extrude.......YEH!:applause:

See you all soon...... I'm on hols for a month...!

[fxgogo]

Cool, I do understand, I was just trying to come up with different ideas.

[l_farley13_l]

Maybe an easier to program alternative: instead of drawing the spline out, and having to imput varous restictions on the density of the poly output (which would also be very useful) would be a plug that set an extrude, the user then moved the mouse to where they wanted the end poly, and clicked to create a segment, the plug would turn off when enter was pressed. The end poly would always be editable, scalible etc. and depending on the option, could be postioned so it's normal always faced the one behind it, for a smooth curve.

see you,

Farley13

[LucentDreams]

LW 7.5 has it. Check out the new videos showing off its new features. The link was on CG channel a while ago. Basically you activate the tool and it places a small handle where you would see the line stating the normal of each poly. you grab the handle and pull. Instant dreadlocks oh so sweet.:drool:

[fxgogo]

Just found this link over on the postforum C4D site. This is what you want. Apparently the developer is wanting to know if there is demand for this type of thing.

http://www.3dwerk.de/forum/index.cgi?read=126585


So you know what to do.

[l_farley13_l]

:) Thanks

[chikega]

Sorry for dredging up this old post - but I was going through Ken Brilliant's book "Modeling Digital Dinosaurs". The particular tutorial I'm working on calls for rail splines (guides) along which to extrude a set of polys in order to create a leg.

I know C48.5 has the new "spline rail" & "spline deformer" function - although very cool, these are not quite what I was looking for.

I know this is possible in LW, which I have, but I'm addicted to Mesh Surgery and would like to stay in one app if possible.

[pit]

Try this one:

http://home.arcor.de/m1.haller/plugin/EAS.htm

[chikega]

Thanks for heads up, Pit.

Well, I guess that's a start. It's limited to two splines - the tutorial calls for four guide splines. I wonder if the author is going to continue development on it.

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