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New Curves development feedback


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On 11/30/2020 at 8:38 AM, gbball said:

After testing, I've found using 4 curves as the most flexible way to make patches using the Swept N Gener tool.  I think a fast way to generate would be great. 

Thank you, we thought about it.
And we will necessarily make a new tool surface like a patch.

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4 hours ago, Gorbatovsky said:

Thank you, we thought about it.
And we will necessarily make a new tool surface like a patch.

Awesome news! 

If it's not too much trouble, will extrude, inset and bridge be doable?

Thanks!  Looking forward to the new release!

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On 11/7/2020 at 8:44 PM, gbball said:

More experiments.  I can't explain how exciting this is for me.  Still needs a lot of work, but the foundation for some really cool base sculpt blockout tools are here.
Is anyone else using curves?  I'd love to see what others are doing.

 

GIF 2020-11-07 8-42-50 PM.gif

uh...WOW.

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19 hours ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

uh...WOW.

Yeah, it's exciting stuff.  Right now, this isn't really a contiguous mesh...it's a series patches aligned to a sphere.  But I have found a way to use these patches as a kind of stamp or mold to create a solid voxel or surface sculpt object.

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  • 3 months later...

It would be nice if the tool could continue growing to mimic the work done with hardsurface models from high poly to low poly modeling (for baking) between Fusion360 (base creation) and ZBrush (for detailing). 

 

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  • Carlosan changed the title to New Curves development feedback

Here is a link that will give you the details on using MOI3D to import/export good mesh coming from Fusion.

You can use CAD software that you want

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mqv1QE

To keep all the workflow done into one app will be nice.

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On 11/30/2020 at 7:38 AM, gbball said:

 

@Gorbatovsky

After testing, I've found using 4 curves as the most flexible way to make patches using the Swept N Gener tool.  I think a fast way to generate would be great. 

Ideally being able to create new curves and patches the same way you create new polygons.  With tools like

  • Extrusion of individual Edges (the equivalent of edge extrusion in polygons) creates a Swept N Gener
  • Extrusion/Beveling of Swept N Gener patches (the equivalent of face extrusion/beveling when working with polygons)
  • Bridge Tool Select two curves and automatically Bridge with another Swept N Gener

This will be more powerful than polygon modeling...especially since your tool can convert to quad retopo patches.

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CurvesTool.png

CurvesIdea.png

 

 

 

 

 

Unbelievable also I have been thinking a lot of the things you say in this thread:)
In short, I would be to have pseudo subdivision surfaces, with vantages of voxels.

I'm trying to replicate the your above technique, but I don't understand how to extrude the curve with swept gen.

I'm trying to figure out how to use the curve tools that are already in 3dcoat.

This one looks great to me: free form patch, in primitives bar.

 

Scrshot_131.thumb.jpg.d3946851b7a311e78be2033b8eadd1bb.jpg


For me this tool is very nice to use, seeing how easy it is to model curved and smooth shapes (just don't overdo the subdivisions, which are very useful by the way, but get confusing during use)
I think I would be a matter of making some small changes to make this tool most powerful. For example if it was possible to have a ''patch tree'', that is to keep all the previews of the free form patches, so that you could put them side by side and create the shape you want. The skeleton/preview would always be editable for small adjustments or second thoughts, or additions and subtractions.
Obviously it would be even better to have the ability to extrude...and other features, like have the possibility of increase internal span.
But having the ability to put patches next to each other doesn't seem difficult to me to program.
Along with this it would be very useful to have snaps that allow you to snap one patch to another on edge you want.

Once you apply the entire mesh you can turn it into a surface and smooth it out to erase or smooth the down lines.

I've noticed some ''bugs'' in this tool: reset primitive and reset point, it works only random. And it's a very important feature the reset primitive, because patches get messed up easily and you need to get back to the original form quickly.
Then there are constant malfunctions when switching from transform to lattice. Again sorry for my english.

 

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You probably already know this, but there is an addon in Blender that uses curves and patches to model: ''curves to mesh''. I mention this so you can get more focus on these features and inspiration.
Unfortunately in my opinion it is still primitive and tiring to use. Also you have to pay attention to the order of the normals, which is really tedious.
However by combining curves with voxels you could get amazing results, in my opinion, if you are willing to give up CAD type precision.  

It seems to me that I see a lot of software and software addons that do ''planar hardsurface'' work well or very well.

They all do the same work.
Basically cubes and parallelepids, with a thousand details.

Almost none, among the generic 3d software (so I'm not talking about specialized software like Alias) offer tools to make curved surfaces, get out of traditional paradigm workflow.
But few focus on the problem of curved objects, that is, how to speed up normal polygonal/subd operations when it comes to curved surfaces. Maybe it's too hard to find something as effective visually beauty and ingenious as subdivision (but slow and very technical).

My idea/small suggestion would be to concentrate efforts in 3Dcoat to get a good patch system or whatever, which allows to simulate polygonal/subd modeling even for curved surfaces (as those of a real car, to mean) in a nice way...with an approach freer from topology constraints. I'm probably not saying anything that has already been said or thought about, but let me say it again.
Because looking at the current tools the goal is not very far and this feature would set it apart from the competitor, if this thing has any relevance.

In my previous post, I discovered how fluid and nice to use is to take a cubic primitive with minimum 3x3 patches and move it in space (I mean the preview). You create fluid and fast beautiful curved shapes on the fly.
With this tool you model not by extrude but by ''moving'' the vertices of the cube...The soldering problems between patches can be solved later.

The ''red ball curves'' are pleasant to use, although the hotkeys could be improved.
They are nice to use because you can see their preview good, while the other curves are too thin and both curves and points are hard to see. (I'd like to formalize a request on this, later)
These curves be used to build a structure to which patches can be attached, surely someone has already tried to use them this way, maybe for different purposes.
I haven't succeeded very good so far, but I imagine that using the swept gen tool idea you can get the patch swell where you want it.

Scredtyudty2.jpg.18600c62d89b42f17f9f0cbbabbdf1b0.jpg

 

Edited by rubeos
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