Theoretical SUB-D

#121

:smiley:

-3DZ

#122

Didn’t the old master, Bay Raitt, model with quads only? I’m 99% he was able to do advanced characters all quad…

#123

Mr. Raitt was the first advocate of the all-quad method I ever heard… though I kinda attributed that to a Mirai thing.

#124

FatAssasin-- That corner method you’re showing, with three edges instead of 2 regular chamfered ones, is what I actually used initially on the revolver model I’m trying to make. It was nice in that I could move things around after making the chamfers, and still keep them lined up… but in complex angles and corners, it became a HUGE pain VERY quickly. (Urgaffel has seen the mess that resulted, he knows.) It was also messy. Very, very messy. 2-chamfered edges don’t make me string new edges all around and around my objects, but the 3-edge ones do. It was also very, very DIFFICULT, because I’d have to detach individual sides of my objects and chamfer the edges in one at a time in order to keep them consistent-- and that didn’t even work. Whereas, with the regular 2-edge method, you just wait until the end, select all the edges to be chamfered, hit the button, and they all do it to the same amount, and you clean them up.

Trying to decide between those two methods is a dilemma I’ve been having for a while. :annoyed:

#125

I think that you just have to feel what’s right :slight_smile:

On the other hand, the 3-edged bevel is probably better for larger, simpler surfaces. When you start to have intricate details, like the top of the hips on my robot girl or Gnarlys gun, the “traditional” chamfer might be a better solution. I’ll try and tear myself from GTA3 Vice City when I get back home from school and try some of those 3-edged bevels on my ladys hips.

There is a tool in meshtools that does a chamfer and keeps the original edge. Instant 3-edged bevel. Don’t remember the name though, read the helpfile :slight_smile:

#126

:scream: More of this release 5 talk!! I can’t stand it!!! It’s not fair!!

…Okay, guess we all know which chamfer method I’ll be having to use. :annoyed:

#127

I’m not 100% sure, but I think that the 3-edged chamfer thingymajig is in the meshtools scripts for max4 too. So you just toddle along and get them scripts from www.scriptspot.com :slight_smile:

#128

urg, you’re right, it’s a meshtools 2.5 thing [also available for 3dsmax 4.2 !]and it’s called solid chamfer :wink:

#129

:thumbsup: thanks Gnarly! (er, that’s from a few hundred pages back by now :)) I shall cast off the dark desire of flippin’ edges, hooray! Hallelujah!

On chamfering, I had a thought about a script plugin thing, whereby you could choose edges at the Edit Poly level, and then apply the script as a modifier on top that would chamfer the selection according to a slider. As you went along modeling, you could make a selectiongroup for the edges you wanted chamfered, then apply this modifier, and tweak away, then go back down to Edit Poly knowing you could always just go back up to the Chamfer modifier to tweak their size…
That’s based on the assumption that most chamferings you’d like to do on a model would be of the same size. I thought that could be helpful? … but then, I don’t have a fully-realised workflow when it comes to subD modeling yet, it could be nothing but annoying for the hardcore modelers :slight_smile:

Also, all that was before seeing The New Way Of Chamfering™, which looks quite neat indeed. A script to… ah… to “Quad Chamfer” if you will, sounds like a good idea for someone to invent :slight_smile: So we don’t have to make those cuts, but just select an edgeloop and, bam. I haven’t tried experimenting with the “quad chamfer” thing yet though, so maybe it’s not as difficult as I’m making it out to be.
[edit] áh… “solid chamfering” it’s called, and it’s already been scripted… replies poured in whilest I was busy writing mine :slight_smile: [/edit]

And now for something completly different:
On my attached image (go go amazing photoshop skillz :rolleyes: ), I’ve outlined an edgeloop in green, and what I thought was an edgeloop in red. But it’s not. And I don’t know why. It seems the rule is that all verticies in an edgeloop must have (at least?) four edges connected to them. Is it as simple as that? And is there an underlying reason for this? I have personally encountered problems before with me thinking something were a good clean edgeloop, only MAX didn’t agree.

Maybe it’s one of those things where knowing why the red loop is not a real edgeloop doesn’t really help, you just gotta accept it.

#130

gaggle said…
On chamfering, I had a thought about a script plugin thing, whereby you could choose edges at the Edit Poly level, and then apply the script as a modifier on top that would chamfer the selection according to a slider.

Whosoever acheiveth this script successfully will be lauded with praise and homage and offerings from this day until the end of time. So sayeth me. Make it so… somebody… please! :cry:

As for your not-really-an-edgeloop… well, it’s an outline of a single polygon, it doesn’t really go AROUND anything, I guess… maybe that’s the problem.

#131

The biggest challenge with that modifier would be to make it non-topology dependant. Meaning, if you edit the selections and the topology of the mesh beneath the modifier, it won’t be confused.

A good example of a topology dependent modifier feature is Crease in meshsmooth. It works really well as long as you don’t start editing the mesh beneath the modifier. Once you do, all your creases go out the window. I fear that a chamfer modifier would do the same since it depends on edge selections.

It would be nice though… I think this is a flaw in max itself though, so it’s very hard to work around. Only way I can think of avoiding the topology dependance would be by volume selections, but then you lose the advantage of edge loops etc.

#132

Gaggle, its not an edgeloop, it is edges of a polygon. Check my attachement. I highlighted the basic same “edgeloop” that you did in red. See now why it is not an edgeloop?:airguitar

#133

Because it’s only 3 -sided verts on the top?? :blush:

#134

It’s the end of the object so to speak. The loops are between the edges/end of the object.

The top and bottom polys are the ends, whatever is inbetween are loops :slight_smile: Er…

I’ll just shut up before I confuse matters even more

#135

Multicolored fun! :slight_smile:

Or “coloured”… ah nuts to British.

I see what you’re saying thedaemon, but I’m having a hard time understanding. I see you point out the polygon there and yeah, that’s a poly alright and thus the top isn’t an edgeloop. Can’t argue with that, because MAX does indeed claim the red part isn’t a loop.

But why?.. my attachment is colored the same as the previous one, the blue marks a polygon just the same. Except the edges of the blue-marked overlaps with nothing but edge-loops?.. I haven’t actually tried this, so consider this theory at it’s worst :), but even if my drawing is somehow wrong then that just goes to show how little I understand of the loops yet, so it’s a win-win situation :slight_smile:
Regardless, if someone can step up and explain these things as squarly as if it had been cut by a high-powered laser into inch-thick reinforced metalplatings… then… er… yeah, that’d be nice :slight_smile: I may be the only one suffering from this lack of understanding, but if not, rally on, brothers and sisters!, tell The Man you won’t stand not knowing all there is to know! :slight_smile:

Oh, imo it’s still acceptable if enough people just says “it doesn’t the fu… the hell matters, just accept how it is you dummy!!”.

On the chamfer-script, I think it could be kept pretty darn simple. I’m speaking of the straight ol’ ordinary chamfer here, not the solid-chamfer thing.
But yeah, I was actually thinking of something (seemingly) extremly simple: The edge-selection of the Edit Poly, is what the Chamfer modifier chamfers. And that’d be it. That means every time you want to see your chamfers properly, you’ll have to select the correct edges. If you’ve changed the mesh considerably since last time, you can’t just, say, pull down the Selection Set dropdown and go that route, because as urgaffel (what a disturbingly sick avatar :)) says, the edge-order would’ve changed, so that selection is no longer valid. In that case, you’d have to reselect the proper edges. Hopefully a job that wouldn’t be too hard. You still get chamfers you can change and tweak whenever you please…

That’s the simple suggestion. In my script-dreams that’d “just” be leeching the chamfer part from the Edit Poly list, making it obey a slider, and take it’s selection from the modifier-stack. And that’d be that.

If you want to get more advanced, I guess an interface that would allow to select mesh-objects that drives the selections, just like the Mesh Select modifier, could be fancy?
…well even with the Super Simple Script version without anything advanced, you could still use the Mesh Select modifier to ensure that you selection ends up being based not on what you select in the Edit Poly, but on geometry that’s been carefully placed to envelope the to-be-chamfered edges.

Ah, all just dreams until someone with sufficient code-monkey genes steps up and takes it further :slight_smile:

Ooh, and I am a bigeth faneth of oldeth speek, iteth delighteth me with joyous bells ineth mine heart. For behold!, greateth humor lieseth beneath the speakings of the gloooorius pasteth!
:bounce:

Regardseth
Jon Lauridsen
mail@jonlauridsen.com

#136

Ahhh i see, it acutally makes more sence now. :thumbsup:
this is why this thread is so great :applause:
keep posting this kinda stuff :smiley:

#137

whoa lotsa sutff goin on! i must be stoned to death for missing this thread!

Gaggle:
ahhh i might be seeeing something here… maybe the reason why the blue loop is not a edgeloop is because some of its member edges are parts of another loop… so the script cannot determine which loop to follow… now those bright green loops, their members all belong to one loop; all other loops the member edges belong to are illegal…(i.e. another blue loop)

i could be wrong though…it might not make any sense

read digitalcritter’s explanation of edgeloops here… its maya, though

Gnarly:
if you want the regular chamfer, but want the solidchamfer’s(or you’re just editing some old chamfers and too lazy to start again) sharpness, you’re REALLY just gonna have to add more definition; especially near the chamfered edge. i believe somehow the added definition pulls the tension more towards the edges.

here i did “micro” chamferes on the left and right, the only difference is the rightmost has less definition ( i highlighted the edges i chamfered)

#138

To determine a line’s exact direction on the mesh, it has to go through intersecting another line. This results in a cross, in our example a four sided vertex. Try to determine the same with N sided vertices. You can guess! -That’s why it’s not an edge-loop.

Bay Raitt isn’t a worshipper of the all quads method, but edge-loops. This is why I started to experiment with classic meshsmooth. I saw his wireframes and spotted out that the smoothed surface has triangles, pentagons. Here’s a pic from him:

#139

Levin: You’re right that when two edges are close together you get a sharper highlight when smoothed. Since every poly is divded into 4, having two (unsmoothed) polys close to each other will generate a higher density.

edit

The reason there is sharper definition on the box to the far left is because the faces between the beveled edges don’t have to stretch so far :slight_smile:

/edit

I rarely bevel/chamfer with values over 1, since that will be too smooth. Optimal is usually 0.1-0.3 to get that sharp highlight. Of course, there are times when large chamfers are nice, but for the sharp highlights on mechanical objects really low values are usually the best. On the other hand, we come back to the ease of editing… The more chamfers the harder it gets :argh:

3dzealot, where’s that sample scene?! :smiley:

edit

Xant, the problem with the old meshsmooth is the way it’s smoothing works. A “true” subdivision modifier would turn a simple box into a sphere. NURMS is the closest to that, while old-skool meshsmooth turns it into a slightly cubic sphere. See what I mean? Of course, if it works better for you, then by all means use it.

I think that there were some problems regarding smoothing with the old meshsmooth, but I won’t swear on it.

#140

urg:

The reason there is sharper definition on the box to the far left is because the faces between the beveled edges don’t have to stretch so far

that is exactly what i’m trying to point out… the extra edges lessens the pull of the resulting subd’ed edges towards the center; the chamfered edge resulting in a sharper look… so if you want it to get sharp… add edges near it

:beer: