General Category > Ongoing Anim8or Development
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Hypure:
I always use mirror after I complete one side of the model, but I notice it must be aligned on a particular plane.... Even as a broken tool it is still super valuable.
nemyax:
--- Quote from: Steve on January 31, 2016, 06:08:22 pm ---I have to admit that if I'd known how difficult it was going to be to add, I probably wouldn't have done it.
--- End quote ---
Break a mirror, get seven years of bad luck =)
If the current implementation is so much trouble, maybe a different approach would work? For example, the way Wings uses an existing face as the mirror plane.
Raxx:
Something I said a while ago...
--- Quote ---Symmetrical Editing: I know you put a lot of effort in the mirror functionality, and I don't want to be a buzzkill, but it feels inherently flawed. There are a lot of limitations with its use, such as if you want unique UVs, and then you need to make some tweaks to the geometry, you're kind of screwed because converting it to mirrored will kill the unique UVs. Mirrored editing is completely restricted to right-side editing and only on the X-axis. You haven't resolved the morph targets issue either. What I suggest is to instead implement symmetrical editing. Here's the low-down:
* You can have X-,Y-, or Z-axis symmetrical editing (toggle-able, perhaps enabled by middle-clicking on one of the axis buttons, and having each axis option in Options->Symmetry).
* Symmetrical editing is different in that it doesn't automatically change a mesh in any way or have the mesh in an "active mirrored" state. It only affects actions, and does not affect selections. Meaning if you select something on one side, it won't select anything on the other side. However, as soon as you move an element, it mirrors that movement. Highlighting will be mirrored, however, to indicate that an element is going to be edited symmetrically.
* The logic is simple. If there is an element of the same type located on the other side, within a few units' tolerance, it performs the same action, just inverted, as the element that's currently being edited. If there is no element on the other side, no biggie. Determining if it's the same type can probably be done by checking if the point structure is the same.
* Elements on the plane of symmetry (give or take one or two units) can only be moved along that plane. If the same element is selected on both sides and moved, it can only be moved along the plane and not side-to-side.
* You can edit on either side, and the other side will have the actions mirrored. It's not restricted to just one side of the axis.
* Other edits, like cuts, will be mirrored automatically if the elements being cut are identical on the other side.
* For point-editing, the plane of symmetry should automatically be based on the center of geometry, not the world coordinates. There could be a toggle-able option to force symmetry along the world coordinates in all cases. Options->Symmetry->Menu items would be a nice location.
* This doesn't have to only apply to P/E/F. Whole shapes can be moved symmetrically (in this case, the plane of symmetry would be the world coordinates). A symmetrical shape can be determined as such if its bounding box size and location is the same (give or take a tolerance of a few units), it's the same type of shape (mesh vs spline vs parametric vs etc) and it has the same number of points.
* The automatic mirrored replacement and wielding of mesh shapes is useful. I think it would be great if the Mirror Parameters dialog for Build->Mirror Image... had an option to do this.
* The benefits to this is obvious. No issues with morphs, or having to deal with special considerations for mirrored objects in the other editors. It retains unique geometry, no fear on the user's end of losing stuff. No extra stuff in the an8 file. This type of editing can be extended to the figure and sequence editors very naturally without any additional learning curve for the user.
--- End quote ---
Raxx:
Build 1215, when dissolving outer points, sometimes it does weird things. Try dissolving the outer points in the attached file, some dissolve edges of points adjacent to them.
nemyax:
--- Quote from: Raxx on February 01, 2016, 03:18:53 am ---Something I said a while ago...
--- End quote ---
This is a good writeup. I'd only like to point out that Metasequoia manages the things you describe well enough: it has both the toggle-able symmetrical editing functionality and an option to constrain vertices to the plane no matter what.
Incidentally, Metasequoia 4 is free to download and look into.
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