Hi Burr,

> Well, there is the limitation of working on "curves" and not surfaces..

Yes, but that's one reason why what you are showing is pretty different from "box modeling"...

You're showing something I'd describe more like "freeform tube drawing" - box modeling is a different technique than what you've shown in either of those videos.


> I could cut little eyes and lips and things, then grab those
> edges and box model some little detail there....

If you would like to work in that way you might want to use a polygon modeler for doing that, they've got a bunch of tools in them that are more specifically oriented around that stuff.

The other part that goes along with that is sub-d smoothing which is a part of box modeling, the box modeling creates the sort of outer hull and then sub-d smoothing is applied to it to make a kind of smooth melted down shape out of it.

- Michael

Hi Michael.

I added the little video to show why I called it "box modeling"..

""""""""""If you would like to work in that way you might want to use a polygon modeler for doing that, they've got a bunch of tools in them that are more specifically oriented around that stuff."""""""""""""

The dicing it up was just in response to you pointing out that i couldnt "pull little bit's around to make detail.." I do have some poly modelers to use.. It works with any little bits of curves and edges.. Not just circles or tubes..

Hi Burr,

> The dicing it up was just in response to you pointing
> out that i couldnt "pull little bit's around to make detail.."

Well I kind of meant more while you were still within that dynamic extrude tool, you had to add in some other tools to the mix like drawing in some other curves and projecting or trimming stuff with them.

But you're still not quite getting the same effect as box modeling with your latest example there because you've constructed something made up of separate surfaces and there's a hard creased edge where the surfaces touch.

One of the parts of box modeling is that when sub-d smoothing is applied all the protruded pieces all smoothly melt together.

In your hexagon example (where you were doing actual box modeling), if you switched to pull out just one top face after having pulled the front out, you'd get a kind of non-tubular shape with a lump just on one side but that was still all smooth which would be hard to replicate with your other method of just building several NURBS surfaces from curves projected on to a main body piece.

- Michael

Hi Burr,

> It works with any little bits of curves and edges..
> Not just circles or tubes..

Right, real box modeling works like that, but not the "dynamic NURBS extrude" that you've been showing, that builds a kind of individual tubular surface for each separate time you use it.

That's kind of "bunch of little tube surfaces next to each other" is not really quite the same thing as poly box modeling - the real box modeling ends up with an all melted smooth sub-d surface across the whole shape.

- Michael

Yeah, for the NURBS I would have to follow up with fillets and blends and things... I didnt think it would be a replacement for a SubD program..

Hi Burr,

> Yeah, for the NURBS I would have to follow up with
> fillets and blends and things...

Yup, but depending on the situation it can be hard to put blends in on things that are branching in multiple directions nearby each other or also on areas where the protrusion is more of a broad wide area making it more of a shaping to the base object rather than a little tube coming out of it.

The other thing is that drawing a curve and using it to trim or project a hole is a much different kind of a step than box modeling, but one which is a big advantage to NURBS modeling for mechanical shapes since you can cut a precise hole anywhere you want in a NURBS model but in box modeling you have to try and manually arrange a bunch of vertices from the base shape into the shape of your hole.

- Michael

Well, we wont be making the 3 tools, Extrude/Sweep/Revolve, Dynamic! :o

Hi Burr,

> Well, we wont be making the 3 tools, Extrude/Sweep/Revolve, Dynamic! :o

Maybe in the future as some completely separate plug-in command, but it's hard to see how to make it work by modifying the existing command.

Among other things mentioned above, it would probably be pretty awkward to try and fit in a checkbox in the UI that totally changed a command's behavior.

Like with Revolve for example the normal way that it works is that you pick the revolve profile before you even start the Revolve command. Adding in a checkbox that would then ignore the selected profile and let you pick some points would be pretty weird, like what would happen if you then unchecked the checkbox, would your picked points disappear or something like that?

Just the sequence of actions that you are talking about doesn't really fit in with the existing commands, for the kind of "dynamic revolve" like you are talking about you want to have the points picked to define the profile _after_ the revolve axis is set up, it's opposite of the current revolve workflow. It's hard to reconcile such opposite sequences as checkbox options within just a single command - with a totally separate command then it's more feasible.

- Michael

And other thing ;)
appeling creation function in Nurbs mode is some bad
that avoid to think about the generator curves ;)

I understand that you want to see the form as you make the rail but you can always just edit the curve points in MOI after you have made your sweep or revolve and it updates the surface fairly quickly.

Amapi and Hexagon spoiled a lot of people by using their Nurbs and dynamic approach to poly modeling. I use both and have Amapi 8 and I am sure it would have been received very well if it had been released. No other poly modeler really was as versatile in how you can create forms using Nurbs techniques (sweep, extrudes, lofts)

Grendel is one of these happy few with the mythic amapi V8!
I am very jealous :)

As a beta, is Grendel prohibited from passing it to us??? :o (some betas weren't tied to any kind of licensing)

@Burmann : you are a soft dreamer :)

Hahahahaha! Yeah, I just reasearched the old polyloop thread where Thomas talks about the demise, and pretty much got that it is not going to happen... lol

Sorry Burr...I can't share it with anyone...I think that everyone who had Amapi 7.5 should have got it as a parting gift though but there was a lot of flux at the end of Eovia.

Thanks Grendel,
Yeah, I wasnt around in the forum at the time and missed out on grabbing it up, although, my 7.5 works ok for me also... I dont think I'm missing out on a whole bunch..Thanks. :)