Surface Tools

Discussion and updates on Curvy 3D Beta development.
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Simon
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Surface Tools

Post by Simon »

I've added a few more tools for sculpting...

Tubes - Drag away from the surface to create a worm like extrusion.

Soft Selection - Mask out parts of the mesh for editing using brushes, rectangle or lasso. Useful for controlled extrusions with the Move tool, or localised triangle count reduction.

Best Fit Surfaces - Select part of the surface then fit it to a plane, sphere or ellipsoid. Good for accurate rounding/flattening of parts of the mesh.

Curvature Rendering - As in the example image below, adds contrast to the corners of the model for an enhanced view of the details and surface smoothness.

Wireframe - Tap 'A' to toggle wireframes. Useful when working on meshes with varied resolutions and using triangle reduction.

Accurate Mirror
I have fixed some glitches in the mesh Mirror code. Now you can take an arbitrary mesh and make it symmetrical accurately. This is also handy for creating holes and loops eg: mirror a '3' to make an '8', or push a deep dip in a disk then mirror to make a torus.

Image
bigH
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Post by bigH »

it's good to see you are still adding stuff .
Simon
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Post by Simon »

Now added:

Mask by Surface Distance

Mask by Surface Angle

Mask by Angle & Distance

Change Mask Contrast (Spike,Bell,Dome shapes)

Mask Clipping (Needs a picture to explain! A bit like an "Equalise" operator)

Simple UV Unwrapping (Better result than the existing UV Front/Back)

Refine Mesh (by Edge Length, Angle or Mask Boundaries)
Simon
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Post by Simon »

Added "Polish"
While "Smooth" tends to shrink a mesh as it "tightens the surface", "Polish" tries to keep the volume of the model intact, and evens out the curvature of the surface. You really notice this on reflective, high specular surfaces which reveal every dink and imperfection.

Better Flatten Local
The new version lets you "flatten" curved surfaces while preserving the curve, enhancing the planes of a model. Again will need a picture to explain better.
Is good at making an organic curved shape look more mechanical and man-made, or stylised.
Simon
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Post by Simon »

Cut Holes & Join Holes
"Merge" is a quick way to lump lots of meshes together, but it destroys small details and over-tesselates the model.
Using "Cut" and "Join" you can connect models together with only a small loss of detail near the intersection, and no loss for the rest of the model.
Simon
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Post by Simon »

Flip Surface

If you copy a surface (eg: a loft, or uncapped lathe) then offset, flip and stitch the edges you can easily turn a thin sheet into a thick model.

This gives a cleaner result than the Voxel Merge techniques.
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