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Author Topic: Topo Tool  (Read 146233 times)

nemyax

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #60 on: January 28, 2016, 10:28:59 am »

Do you mean this one?



It's an actual before-and-after from Blender. The logic goes like this: remove the edge; out of the two vertices that are affected, one has valency 3—leave it be, the other has valency 2—nuke it; don't touch any other vertices or edges.

As for example 4.2, point cleanup in Anim8or should probably result in a single edge rather than nothing, because Anim8or supports floating edges.

Here's a topo knife demo I've recorded for another community:

In that session, cleanup was needed practically every single time I did an edge dissolve.
« Last Edit: January 28, 2016, 10:51:35 am by nemyax »
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Trevor

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #61 on: January 29, 2016, 01:37:28 pm »

Nice vid.

ok, I see what the problem is, it really is that perimiters need to be deleted.

I still dont get how an8 will know how to connect faces like you show, but Ill let steve deal with that hahaha.

I havnt really used the tool fully yet, Im still doing things the long individual way (knife, add edge, Shift+J etc)

If this tool is still subject to change, I will leave it untill its settled. I know what Im doing as I do it now.

Trev
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nemyax

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #62 on: January 29, 2016, 02:20:27 pm »

I still dont get how an8 will know how to connect faces like you show
If you want to understand the workings, try it in Blender (press Delete, use the Dissolve Edges command with the Dissolve Verts option) or Wings (RMB on the Dissolve command in the context menu).
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Trevor

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #63 on: January 30, 2016, 12:12:32 pm »

I dont have either of those, I only have an8.

Mostly because an8 still supports all my hardware configurations and OS's but the others dont and havnt for a long time.
Not to mention that I have absolutly no idea how to do anything in them except maybe place a primitive.

Since you seem good at making videos, perhaps you could make a comparison vid showing the same features in blender.

As you say, showing individual polygons is not good for examples sake, but that sword you made showed clearly some feature alteration requests.

Trev
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nemyax

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #64 on: January 30, 2016, 05:08:46 pm »

Raxx already posted a perfect demo video of the feature in reply #31 to this topic.
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Trevor

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #65 on: January 30, 2016, 06:25:32 pm »

Ah, cheers, ok, I think I see it now compared to your video.

Its almost the same princible as deleting them except that it auto fills and to avoid malformed faces, adds lines to non removed lines.

Although... he did have a malformed mesh at the end of the video.

Anyway, I think I will wait untill things are set before learning how to use this tool, although I really do like the face and UV preservation. It beats the hell out of Delete > fill holes > re UV.

Trev
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Steve

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #66 on: January 30, 2016, 07:49:58 pm »

I have cleanup working after dissolving edges, but now I have a question about dissolving points.  In nemyax's post showing how to do dissolves there is no mention of a cleanup after dissolve points. But they can also end up with similar 2-edge points.  Should they be cleaned as well?
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Raxx

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #67 on: January 30, 2016, 08:23:41 pm »

Yeah. In XSI it dissolves those points and it feels pretty natural. There aren't many cases where one would want to keep those floating points, and merging faces or (assuming it's implemented) using standalone dissolve will allow the user to keep them.
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Steve

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #68 on: January 30, 2016, 10:55:35 pm »

OK, that's what I thought.  It's almost ready.
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thecolclough

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #69 on: January 31, 2016, 11:04:39 am »

There aren't many cases where one would want to keep those floating points, and merging faces or (assuming it's implemented) using standalone dissolve will allow the user to keep them.
or there's always the standard knife tool to put them back again if the user really wanted them
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Steve

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #70 on: January 31, 2016, 12:33:05 pm »

There aren't many cases where one would want to keep those floating points, and merging faces or (assuming it's implemented) using standalone dissolve will allow the user to keep them.
or there's always the standard knife tool to put them back again if the user really wanted them
You can also put them back while still using the topo knife. The normal LMB adds points within existing lines and Ctrl-LMB connects to arbitrary points/edges and adds new points in mid-air.

Note: I just posted build 1215 with which does clesn-up after dissolve point/edge.
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nemyax

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #71 on: January 31, 2016, 01:40:48 pm »

Awesome!
Mirroring needs some more work: the cleanups don't propagate across the mirror plane. That's in addition to all the other problems with the mirror.
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Steve

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #72 on: January 31, 2016, 04:38:49 pm »

Working on mirroring issues now.  I've also found some case where the clean-up goes a little to far when it's at the edge of a mesh.  I'm fixing those, too.
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Trevor

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #73 on: January 31, 2016, 05:17:56 pm »

How do you get mirror mode to work, it always crashes for me or simply does nothing, oh wait, it makes my model dissapear, doesnt matter what I use as mirror source, it just dissapears.

I can undo to get my model back.


The only mirror I can use is "Mirror Image" which I do last for symetrical objects like an engine cowl.

Trev
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Steve

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Re: Topo Tool
« Reply #74 on: January 31, 2016, 06:08:22 pm »

Mirror mode has a lot of issues - I think it was neglected by it's mother when it was little.  I'm slowly cleaning them up.
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.
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