ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

[claudevervoort]

Great work Chris! I'm still trying to get my tree to work. Hopefully i'll get a couple more hours tonight to 'burn' on this

As for slicing both sides of the mesh, I was thinking about that. I thought one possible way is to take each polygon normal and only slice a polygon if its normal is at an angle of less than 90 deg with the up vector (so that the plane does not slice polys on the other side). But I am not there yet

@Hirazi: sure i'll add a post in the compound section tonight

Claude

[Chris_TC]

Great work Chris! I'm still trying to get my tree to work. Hopefully i'll get a couple more hours tonight to 'burn' on this

Excellent, I look forward to seeing your tree. Many ways to skin a cat in ICE..

As for slicing both sides of the mesh, I was thinking about that. I thought one possible way is to take each polygon normal and only slice a polygon if its normal is at an angle of less than 90 deg with the up vector (so that the plane does not slice polys on the other side). But I am not there yet

That's a great idea, and it works in the case of a tube. But if you make the geometry "wavy" (e.g. push one side of the tube towards the tube's interior) it doesn't give the correct result.
I wonder whether Guillaume even thought of this. In his video he uses flat one-sided geometry, so the issue doesn't come up.

[claudevervoort]

It's been a while, but i've finally got a decent result. I've upload a video on vimeo to go through the ICE Tree:

.

You can download the scene from http://claudeonthe.net/scenes/cutting_edge.zip

I think the main differences would be around the use of a new basis and a matrix transform rather than dot and cross products to decide if an edge is to be split.

Claude

[Chris_TC]

Very nice! Judging by the video, your method for figuring out which vertices to connect is much better than mine. Your compound should perform way faster.

Guillaume has been pretty quiet so far. There is still time for others to chime in.... don't be afraid, start plugging nodes, people

[Chris_TC]

I just noticed that the compound I previously uploaded doesn't work because for some strange reason one node was not exported. Here's a functioning compound.

[guillaume]

Nice one Claude and Chris !

Sorry for being so quiet those days. I'm rather busy on some other stuff.

But I'm really happy to see that other ICE users are continuing the workshop without me .

I just watched Claude's video and the principles looks really close to my ICETree (if I remember correctly). But I don't think that I used any repeat nodes in my setup btw...

I will try to find the time to clean my version and will of course share it on the web too. So we will have at least three solutions to split between vertices in Softimage ;) .

Happy ICE Modeling,

Guillaume

[claudevervoort]

But I don't think that I used any repeat nodes in my setup btw...

LOL that sounds like a challenge, I had to revisit !!!

So I've found a way to get rid of the iteration, actually ends up simpler than the usual iteration.

Claude

[guillaume]

Here is finally my version of the Cut edges :

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5533643/Softima ... 2.xsiaddon
Once the addon installed, you must refresh the ICE preset manager (or just re-start Softimage).
If you installed the version 0.1 sent on the Softimage mailing list some weeks ago, first uninstal it.
And here is how to use it with the context menu : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5533643/Softima ... Demo02.swf

The addon also include the "Cap Borders" compound of the first workshop and a couple of other compounds (already published on some forums or list) to centralize the stuff a little bit.

So here is what you will find in the addon :

- Apply Slice Between Two Vertices
- Apply Thickness
- Cap Borders
- Create Bullet Shattered Primitive
- Create Copies from Polygon Mesh.2.0
- Create Extrusion Along Strands.2.0
- Deform Strand Extrusion

Cheers

Guillaume

[origin]

Thanks, already using 3 of those on my models

[gaboraa]

Thanks Guillaume!

[Memag]

Thanks!

[gaboraa]

Cap borders tool doesn't keep the UV when it is applied to the mesh. Is this a known limitation or a bug?

[guillaume]

Hello gaboraa,

It looks like it is a bug, but not on the Cap borders side.
When you apply this compound using the right click menu, it will call the "ApplyICEOp" command to add a new ICETree on your object with the Cap Borders compound.
Unfortunately, it looks like when using this command it doesn't update the UVs correctly. So for now, the workaround is to apply the compound manually using the ICETree view.

Thanks for your feedback,

Guillaume

[gaboraa]

Thanks! I could manage to do it with manual way as you said and it is good to hear that there will be an update on this issue. And of course I will post further bugs if there will be any.
BTW Apply thickness rules! There are wonderful options in there which make it extremely useful.