CGTalk - Soft drag - consider neighborhood?

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ezekiel66

01-02-2010, 09:23 PM

I just recently bought my copy of modo and am experimenting with it. At work I am using XSI, and there is a very useful feature with the soft move tool that I was not yet able to reproduce using Modo (maybe it's simply not possible).

In XSIs move tool with activated falloff (similar to the 'Soft Drag'-Tool in Modo) there is a very useful option that can be activated called 'consider neighborhood'. Imagine you want to e.g. use the soft drag tool to open the closed mouth of a character. With the default behavior of the tool that would not be possible because you would simply move both the upper and lower lip together.

With the 'consider neighborhood' option activated in XSI the edge distance is taken into account. When you click on, lets say, the lower lip of the character the points of the upper lip would be very close to the lower lip, but when the edge distance of the connected vertices is taken into account - its a relatively long distance from the lower lip to the upper lip when you look at the edge loops - it is possible to move the vertices of the upper lip away from the lower lip without affecting the lower lip at all.

Is there an option for that in Modo that I have not yet come across, or maybe some plugin that implements that option?

ambient-whisper

01-03-2010, 03:30 AM

the only way to do this is a 2 step process.

first select a limb, or the area you want to work on. and then use the element move tool.. or use the falloffs.

its actually not too bad because you can define exactly what you want to be affected.

i usually just use the polygon mode to do this.

i will raycast some polygons first, and then press t to go into element move.

or.. i will mmb click over an area that i want to work on and then go into element move.

StephanePayette

01-04-2010, 05:23 PM

That XSI option is really a nice feature!

Here's some more options you might want to consider in Modo: you can lock the polygons you dont want to move ( Edit / lock selected).

If your topology allows it, you can temporairely split some edge to seperate some parts, and with the element move tool ( sortcut t ), activate "Use Connectovity" on Connected Elements.

Finally, You can select all polygons you want to edit ( leaving what you dont want unsellected ) and turn off selection visibility so it's not in your way. In your exemple of the mouth, you could have the bottom selected, and top unlected. In the visibility Options, uncheck "Show selections" . And use the element move tool. You can quickly switch to the upper mouth by inverting the selection with the left bracket ( [ ).

Burritoh

01-05-2010, 04:32 AM

I also enjoy XSI's "Consider Neighbor" option. And although I use the same trick ambient-whisper explained, I sometimes find the selection color getting in my way, and wish there was a handy XSI-like option to do it for me.

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01-05-2010, 04:32 AM

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