Advanced Member L'Ancien Regime Posted September 9, 2013 Advanced Member Report Share Posted September 9, 2013 (edited) Currently when you work in Curve tool, you have these red balls that can be shrunk or expanded to set the thickness parameter of the elongated mass of voxels you're laying down. But what if you could change the shape profile parameter of the Curve tool and not just its diameter in Tool Options? What if it could be a cube? a pentagon, a hexagon, a heptagon, an octagon and so forth? Well that's a bit excessive perhaps but a cube curve tool marker laying down four sided elongated topology would be very useful. This could come in very handy in a lot of elongated shapes you're trying to model; They'd be pretty powerful in conjunction with the twist parameter set to the Q key in Curve tool. You could have a lot of control over elongated shapes this way.. http://www.cas.muohio.edu/~meicenrd/mudescd/Bot630DProjects/2003Botany630WProjects/Bones/RADIUS&ULNA.JPG I wonder how hard it would be to implement that particular piece of functionality into the Curve tool? Edited September 9, 2013 by L'Ancien Regime 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlosan Posted September 9, 2013 Report Share Posted September 9, 2013 +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted September 9, 2013 Contributor Report Share Posted September 9, 2013 (edited) +1 Even an oval would be useful. Edited September 9, 2013 by Tony Nemo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member L'Ancien Regime Posted September 9, 2013 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted September 9, 2013 (edited) +1 Even an oval would be useful. oooh yeah good one. AND imagine if the dimensions of the oval could be changed so that the oval was so elongated you were laying down broad ovoid pieces like a pectoral muscle for example?? Ditto for the cube...it could be adjustable to rectangular so you were laying down a broad band of rectilnear curves.. Edited September 9, 2013 by L'Ancien Regime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted September 9, 2013 Contributor Report Share Posted September 9, 2013 AND imagine if the dimensions of the oval could be changed so that the oval was so elongated you were laying down broad ovoid pieces like a pectoral muscle for example?? Appears to combine the Curve tool with the Muscle tool for greater control. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member L'Ancien Regime Posted September 9, 2013 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted September 9, 2013 Appears to combine the Curve tool with the Muscle tool for greater control. It would in effect make the rather clumsy muscle tool superfluous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor TimmyZDesign Posted September 10, 2013 Contributor Report Share Posted September 10, 2013 But isn't this already possible by placing your own custom models into the Splines panel, and then using them with the Curve tool? Those can be used in combination with the "Profile" choices in the Curve Tool Options panel as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member pagankmck Posted September 10, 2013 Member Report Share Posted September 10, 2013 Actually you can do that already. Just select the curve tool, click on a spline and it will use that profile for your "curve". You can create your splines and then use them with the curve tool. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted September 10, 2013 Contributor Report Share Posted September 10, 2013 You learn something new everyday! Thanks for that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member L'Ancien Regime Posted September 10, 2013 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted September 10, 2013 (edited) Amazing, Thanks guys What file format should that saved shape be in? Where should I store it when I create it? Is it the Tube button that does this? http://i.imgur.com/701kVIL.jpg Edited September 10, 2013 by L'Ancien Regime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member L'Ancien Regime Posted September 10, 2013 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted September 10, 2013 (edited) Unreal http://bit.ly/17WRfqG Edited September 10, 2013 by L'Ancien Regime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlosan Posted September 10, 2013 Report Share Posted September 10, 2013 will be nice to change the spline shape using freeform Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member pagankmck Posted September 11, 2013 Member Report Share Posted September 11, 2013 You can add new splines by going to the spline window and clicking on the plus sign. Follow the instructions. If you want to change folders you can click on the arrow button on the far right hand side of the spline button. You will find other spline folders and each folder has a plus sign to add more splines of your own creation. You can also create your own folder to place your new creations. I believe Splines can be imported as .obj or .lwo (not sure about that one). One word of warning about creating an object in anther program - 3dc tends to import objects from outside 3dc at a very small scale. So you may have to increase the size of the object be quite a bit before importing. If I import a primitive from Blender or poser I increase the scale by 1000% 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor TimmyZDesign Posted September 14, 2013 Contributor Report Share Posted September 14, 2013 If you want, you can also sculpt something within 3D-Coat, and then click and drag that vox layer into the splines panel to be used for your curves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member lord_quas Posted September 20, 2013 Member Report Share Posted September 20, 2013 (edited) Great thread thanks to L'Ancien Regime for pointing me at it. I got a question for you guys, Find it tricky with the gizmo sometimes especially trying to rotate, is there any trick to using it, tapping the rotate option on the right panel doesnt do anything and im only stuck with scaling and rotating the whole curve? I just want to rotate that 1 particular node Edited September 20, 2013 by lord_quas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor TimmyZDesign Posted September 24, 2013 Contributor Report Share Posted September 24, 2013 @lord_quas: Look at the Tool Options panel. There is a checkbox there at the bottom which says "Apply to whole curve". If that is checked, then transform/scale/rotation changes you make will affect the whole curve. If you uncheck that box, then it will only affect the selected point. Additionally it is helpful to remember that tapping the Esc key once will get you out of the transform gizmo (so you can select a different point in the curve). You can also switch your working mode from Extrude to Move, Scale, or Rotate (found at the top of the Tool Options panel). That way you can bypass the transform gizmo altogether. Unfortunately I have discovered that the transform gizmo still activates sometimes in those modes even though I don't want it to. I believe that this functionality could be improved slightly for a better user experience. At some point I will put in a Mantis request for that improvement... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member L'Ancien Regime Posted September 24, 2013 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted September 24, 2013 (edited) I've got a question on this too. I've made a shape tailored exactly to my need; a flattened slab, and it works perfectly when I lay it in a straight line. However when I put it on a curved line it flips 90degrees and I can only lay it down on edge. I can't flip it back to lie flat. http://i.imgur.com/5k4U6Gq.jpg http://i.imgur.com/OkGWBw1.jpg Which sort of ties into another problem I'm having with this tool; twisting the spline...ROTATE pivots the entire spline, but it doesn't twist the flow of the line on its longtitudinal axis at individual points. Rather it turns points into hinges that bend the line. Is there a way to twist the spline on its longtitudinal axis. Also one other problem...the tips of the curves I'm laying down are tapered. I don't want them tapered. http://i.imgur.com/cmOvXhl.jpg I can make the ends not tapered by clicking FILLED INSIDE http://i.imgur.com/MPA1n8w.jpg but then I get the interstices between teh points filled with the next point I click if it's a curve and not a perfectly straight line. http://i.imgur.com/69QSlXo.jpg Edited September 24, 2013 by L'Ancien Regime Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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