Hi Crusoe,

Re: mesher

Can you post an example file of something that is not meshing well for you? That will help me to understand your specific problem.


> There is a option called "Avoid Larger Than", but it seems to have no effect
> in subdividing large flat areas.

There actually isn't any "Avoid Larger Than", but there is a "Divide larger than", and "Avoid smaller than".

Divide larger than is the one that lets you put in a distance and will subdivide lengths larger than this value. So that's the one you want. However, it doesn't do anything to completely flat planar surfaces, it only affects surfaces that are curved in some manner. I suppose I can add in an option to include planes or not if this is causing a problem for you.

Right now you can try the Aspect ratio limit below that - try putting in a value of 4 or 3 in here and see if that helps you, this setting does work with planes.


> Also, could we have a mesher export option to export a model as a mesh that
> represents x-y-z slices of a object? So I could say "Export mesh a mesh using
> 10 slices per x unit, 10 per y unit, and 10 per z unit"? This would give a nice
> regular mesh of tris/quads suitable for zbrush detailing.

Unfortunately this would be extremely difficult for me to code except in a few special cases for stuff like boxes. Any kind of curved surfaces would involve a huge number of intersections of the surface which are slow to calculate.

- Michael

My little wish:

1) Like Cinema4D, expand the current view with Central Mouse button;
central again, to put into splitted mode! ;)

2) Great the Pen table movement view, but are great if have the possibility to use same mouse Movement like cinema4D! (into 3d View)

Tnx Michael for this great piece of software! ;)

add: arc 3pts method
  I think that Start,End,Point method is more useful.
  - I usually know end point or I can find it with a construction lines.
  - When I pick start and end point, the third point influences only an arc radius while with current method the arc radius and point location are still unknown.
  - When I have three explicit points, there is no problem with picking end point first

So if Crusoe begs for an alteration, I join him!

Petr

Hi Michael,

I'm also finding that the current settings for the 3 point arc difficult to use.
For me personally, Start>End>Point would be far easier to position correctly within a model.
But I'm only stating this as a complete novice??

regards Colin

I am not agree with you!)
Say you want draw a rosace
You have the circle
Start Arc from anyway on the circle
On = center of the circle
End = somewhere you want on the oposite side folowing on the circle and inspiration
due the design wished : can moving "end" on the circle is an help for the eyes!
So for me Arc 3 points by Start On End is a good thing :)

Maybe Michael can make 2 variantes: one for you, one for moi (me in french) :)

And can move these "3 points" a big help also! (before "validate" Arc function)
(idem for the "3 points" of a circle)

But you can still draw the rosace using the other method as well.

Pick start
Pick end
Pick "On" point to overlap other "ON" points.

Going in this order makes it easier to use for other things, not just rosace.

Ok, I have tuned up Arc with 3 points for the next beta.

There is now an option for Style: where you can choose either "Start, End, On" (the new method as requested), or "Start, On, End" (the old method).

The initial default is the new method.

Thanks for all the feedback!

- Michael

Cool!
That's avoid war between classics against the moderns :D
You say "Style" : it's applied to Circle also or just Arc?

> That's avoid war between classics against the moderns :D

Yes, now everyone can be happy! :)


> You say "Style" : it's applied to Circle also or just Arc?

Just Arc - this doesn't really apply to circle since 3 points define just one circle no matter which order they are picked in, there isn't really a start or end point for the circle.

- Michael

ok:) And about the move of the 3 "points" before validate function?

> And about the move of the 3 "points" before validate function?

This one is harder - I guess you mean that there would be a "done" button and the command would not exit until you pushed "Done"?

This would be a lot different than every other draw command - for instance should line add another step for "done" and let you move the 2 points for a line before you exit?

This would add an extra step to a lot of commands...

- Michael

re: move the 3 points before exiting the command.

I think that eventually this will be covered by history - eventually when there is an object tree available, you should be able to pick the 3pt arc and see that it has a history that it was created by 3 points, and have some way to turn on those points and edit them and have the arc update. That would then behave like you are describing. But it will be quite a while before that is ready.

Right now I don't want to do this since it would require an extra action - either right-click or "done" button, they are much the same. That would be quite a bit different than the other draw tools.


> With pen 3 points are "visible and movable" till you don't clic on another function

This is not easy to do without having a "done" button, since you may want to select the arc after you draw it. There is no button for going into selection mode, that's normally what the "Done" button is for, to exit the command and then go back into selection mode....

Thank you for the idea though!

- Michael

Aren't you glad alot of the interface is written in JScript? ;)

Anyways, I want to thank you for all the hard work. This is a great lil tool.

So I went in, and tried to set it to a rediculously high mesh level.



Note the large unsubdivided polygens on the guard/hilt. Ideally, it would be great if those large areas got cut up into more quads/tris/ngons. That way I could import into zbrush, and detail it further.

Yeah, maybe the slices idea is too slow, but 'gridding' a flat surface would be great. It should respond to "Avoid larger than", that way I can set the density of the grid.

> Aren't you glad alot of the interface is written in JScript? ;)

Yup! The flexible underpinnings of the UI really help me adapt things and make changes more rapidly than is normally possible.


> Anyways, I want to thank you for all the hard work. This is a great lil tool.

Thank you!

- Michael

I would like to see the star feature added to the polygon menu. I cant count how many times I've used it in rhino.
Drawing a curve on surface would be nice too! There may be a way to do it now, but I havent found it.
Regards,
Ken

Oops, forgot the project command would be real nice too.

One strange thing...

The thin strip down the center of the blade of the dagger is planar, and gets divided up into squares 1 unit in size, apparently because of "Avoid Larger Than" being sent to 1, and aspect limit set to 1 as well. So 'gridding' apparently works for relatively linear areas.

The hilt though never gets subdivided much.

> One strange thing...
>
> The thin strip down the center of the blade of the dagger is planar, and gets
> divided up into squares 1 unit in size, apparently because of "Avoid Larger
> Than" being sent to 1, and aspect limit set to 1 as well. So 'gridding'
> apparently works for relatively linear areas.
>
> The hilt though never gets subdivided much.

It's purely the result of the aspect ratio limit - setting that to one will make it try to subdivide to make things into squares if possible.

This will force subdivisions on rectangular surfaces, but if your surface (the underlying untrimmed surface, before trim curves are applied) is already nearly square, then aspect ratio limit won't really do anything to it. It won't cause a square to be subdivided, because dividing a square in half by any direction will result in a larger difference in width/height than before.

I'm working now on having a setting to apply the "Divide larger than" work on planes, that should do what you want.

- Michael