Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[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]

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.

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...

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.

[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]

Something I said a while ago...

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.

[Steve]

...  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.

This is fixed for the next build.

[kakachiex]

Animor is getting better in every release

[Raxx]

Topo tool doesn't work on subdivision cage meshes when Outline is disabled in Configure->UI for that view.

[Steve]

I accidentally disabled points and edges for the topo tool as well as the rest of the point-editing tools for subdivision control cages if they aren't shown for normal meshes. Since they are always shown for control cages you should be able to edit them.  I'll fix this.

#098-080 - Topo knife doesn't work on subdivision cage meshes when outline is disabled for that view.

[Steve]

Build 1227 cleans up many of the mirrored mesh issues.  It also changes color from yellow to orange when your mouse is over a valid target to make it easier to see.  This especially helps when you are over a vertex.

[Sluggs]

I'm getting crashes when trying the Topo tool on the attached .an8 file.

I'm not actually wanting to do anything with this mesh, I was just testing the tool and got all these crashes!

This happened in both 1227 and 1229

(The mesh was made via lathing a spline. Even after merging all the points, saving it and trying it on that version, it still did it)

[slex]

Sluggs-  see if Comodo antivirus is sandboxing Anim8or and if you have enough ram memory. On my comp it didn't make problems.

[Sluggs]

Well, the Auto-Sandbox thing in Comodo Firewall is disabled, and I just turned off the Netbook for a short while and tried it again, and it still crashed. (Anim8or was only using up 27mb at that moment)

When I tested the tool with a new mesh (a cylinder), it didn't crash, so I'm assuming that mesh is causing Anim8or to crash for some reason.

I thought it could have been it's size too, but when I reduced it, it still crashed Anim8or. O_o

[Steve]

Sluggs: Do you have a sequence of actions that reliably reproduces the crash?  I've done about a dozen different long edits of your model with the topo tool and haven't had a crash from 1127 or 1129. Also how big is you undo buffer?  And does it crash right away or do  you need to do a lot of editing first?

[Sluggs]

Steve, it was set at 100 so I set it to just 1mb and tried again, but it still crashed.

Once it crashed when I first cut only one face, but it usually crashes after cutting a few.

Since it's OK for you guys, it must be this Netbook then, and it's old drivers. (It's got Windows XP on it, as that OS uses less system resources)