I’ve been having trouble using Insert Point in my models, because it immediately switches to Flat mode, where there polygons are so chaotic that it’s impossible to reach the points desired. Is this the actual workflow as it now stands, or some function of my lousy video card? I hate to invoke Tsplines, ahem, but this didn’t happen there, the surface remained smooth…
After clicking Insert Point, this is what I’m confronted with. I can’t get into those regions where the edges are obscured.
Thank you for your reply Pascal. Well, here we are in Ghosted, and I can’t tell what the hell is going on. My workaround was to place two regular points on the edges that I wanted to Insert Points, while in Smooth, and then look for what I ‘think’ the corresponding edges are when I’m switched to flat. I’m really curious as to whether anyone else finds this irksome? This is not a problem if your shapes are mostly convex, but as you introduce concavities, the control polygons get buried.
The arrows point to where I positioned my desired points in Smooth, and the edge which almost joins them is the one created by Insert Points.
Hi Ethan, so you’d prefer to stay in smooth mode and have the point ‘insertion preview’ appear on the smooth edge, correct? And the point would go where ever it goes on the control polygon?
Correct! I think I see where you’re going with this, because there’s no guarantee it’s going to end up where I think it will, so maybe a midpoint snap??? It seems to end up near the midpoint anyway unless the geometry is really skewed.
Seconding this request. In TS you could toggle back & forth between flat shade vs smooth. It does seem strange that InsertEdge allows you to stay in smooth mode, but not Insert Point…
the bigger issue here is your box mode and how out of control it is.
You would be very well served to simplify this model rather mercilessly. IMO you have about 70% more data here than you need and it’s fighting you, and will continue to fight you with the rest of your build.
If you have not, please check out this video-
you can double click edges and delete them in your model, and I’d do so aggressively in this model.
remember…you wouldn’t draw a curve with 50 points to make a corner… don’t make a subd that does.
The reason this feature flips to box mode is that it’s much easier to place the points you add accurately in a way that is useful in box mode.
In smooth mode, it’s way too easy to make a mess with additional edges and then just makes you have to go back to box mode to fix them later.
remember… in SubD, model in box mode, evaluate and refine in smooth mode.
and hoping someone from mcneel / @theoutside (?) is reading it:
(A)
what is really a big pity is that
_collapseEdge
(and allow multiple edges)
is not working for SubD
this would be a great tool to “retopo” / simplify SubD
(also smooth mode please)
(B)
I would love to see some clean-up regarding the naming and the power of
join, weld, stitch, alignvertices, collapse, …
would love to have a new magicGlue command - that might offer some options depending on selected object-Type (nurbs, mesh, subD - or sub-object (vertex, edge, …)) … and just fall back to the according command from above in the background.
sorry i was typing fast and meant both: insertPoint (mainly) and insertEdge.
use case:
I use InsertPoint a lot to “retopo” SubD s.
My workflow is to insert to much edges with insert points. Sometimes do some kind of triangulation, … and then delete “old” edges to get a new - for example star-point position.
did you read my ideas / question about collapseEdge and the “magic-Glue” - command
right, I get that…but seeing as the topology is important, why would you do this in smooth mode? You cannot place the points or edges accurately in smooth mode as the smooth mode edges are interpolated from the box mode?
Not trying to argue, simply trying to understand your workflow…
I totally agree with you that working on the topology is best to be done in box-mode.
But maybe it s more a general attitude - I somehow don’t like the general idea of having SubD commands that only work in box mode, others work in both, (and maybe some future commands (_matchSubD ?) only work in smooth mode)
(… and nothing that is really very high on my priority list - just came across this topic and wanted to say that stich is working in smooth…) - thanks for your attention anyhow. kind regards -tom
