Newly created geometry should follow flow of surface?

[Grolicus]

I don't know how you add loops, but the "slide" tool will move edges while adhering to the existing surface geometry.
The "edge slice" command will simply cut a new edge between two existing edges of a polygon on that same surface (freely or uniformly spaced).

[PacManiac]

Sorry - I forgot to mention I need the slice/new edge loop to follow the surface of a subdivided surface, not the surface of the polygons itself.

Create a sphere, press tab to subdivide, and run 'loop slice' (assuming that's what you meant with 'edge slice' as I haven't seen such a command?). Press tab again and you'll see the new loop isn't placed to follow the sphere's shape and will instead ever so slightly flatten that part of the sphere cause it is placed on the polygons' surface, not the subdivided polygons' surface.

[ezekiel66]

I'm inserting loops in my geometry and just want the new geo to follow the flow of the surface instead of getting placed in a linear fashion between the loops on each side.


To my knowledge this is not possible in Modo, and I have never seen such a thing in any 3d software I have used.

You'll have to move the edges/ vertices manually, scale the edge loop, use the "inset" parameter of the loop slice tool or use the push deformer to smooth out the subdivision surface.

[PacManiac]

Thanks, maybe I was dreaming then after all, or just saw a suggestion of this a long time ago. Would be nice to have though... :/

Cheers for clearing it up!

[Burritoh]

I really wish modo could do this, but so far it's not been done. Seems like the sort of thing that could be scripted too, but no scripts for this have been released.

If you're just needing to do this occasionally, you can add the new edge loop and run the push command on the edge loop to eyeball it into place.

[PacManiac]

Not a bad suggestion, thanks.

[3DToons]

3DStudio Max has this feature in it's Graphite Modeling tools. It's called "Flow Connect", and works rather well at maintaining the surface curvature.
I hope Modo 501 has something similar. For a workaround, you can just use "Push" on the newly created edge loop.

[Telemachus]

This particular issue would drive me crazy when sub-D modelling, due to the time wasted having to manually interpolate the correct positions of loops based on the surrounding geometry. After much research I found that PolyBoost (for 3DS users only I believe) has a tool to do this, allowing even users of old version of 3DS to save time when modelling. As mentioned above, PolyBoost was integrated into the most recent versions, although I find the interface implemented by Autodesk to be far more obtrusive than the original. It's not a perfect tool, either. I'd like a tool that can be pointed at a reference sub-divided mesh and adjust loops/vertex positions of the mesh being worked on in such a way that when sub-divided, would exactly match the surfaces together by pushing the vertices in or out along their normals. If something like this exists already, i'm all ears.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.