ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Daniel Brassard · Post by **Daniel Brassard** » 16 May 2011, 04:57

Hi Chris, good work so far, looking good.

I made a small modification to your ice tree, the section that collect the old points and feed the new points. For consideration and testing.

Cheers!

Dan

Hirazi Blue · Post by **Hirazi Blue** » 16 May 2011, 09:08

@claudevervoort - Maybe its an idea to create a separate thread in the "ICE Compounds"
section to specifically highlight your nifty compound (so people can find it more easily)...
;)

edit & P.S. - Watching you all handling this "stuff" as if it were easy is awe-inspiring (and slightly frustrating)...

Chris_TC · Post by **Chris_TC** » 16 May 2011, 11:38

Daniel Brassard wrote:I made a small modification to your ice tree, the section that collect the old points and feed the new points. For consideration and testing.

This seems to work great, I've changed it. Excellent!

After a ton of trial and error, I've now been able to clamp the cutting plane between the nulls. I used a slight modification of the math described in the last paragraph here:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=18979

I've also optimized the array generation. Previously, all polygons were tested for new vertices. I've now added a custom attribute that contains all affected polygons. Arrays are now only created for those. On big meshes this results in A LOT less memory usage and also speeds up the compound.

The original idea was to slice the mesh between two vertices. However, the current compound slices through the entire mesh. We still need to fix that I suppose.

Chris_TC · Post by **Chris_TC** » 16 May 2011, 11:43

Hirazi Blue wrote:(and slightly frustrating)...[/size]

For me the only way to really grasp ICE is to practice over and over. Plug those nodes and see what happens. Initially, nothing may work. But as you practice more and more you'll start to figure things out.

For ICE modeling I've found that it's sometimes easier to work on really simple geometry (maybe even a single polygon) and display vertex, polygon and edge indices.

claudevervoort · Post by **claudevervoort** » 16 May 2011, 14:11

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 · Post by **Chris_TC** » 16 May 2011, 16:02

claudevervoort wrote: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 · Post by **claudevervoort** » 24 May 2011, 04:30

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 · Post by **Chris_TC** » 24 May 2011, 22:17

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 · Post by **Chris_TC** » 24 May 2011, 22:44

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 · Post by **guillaume** » 25 May 2011, 04:51

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 · Post by **claudevervoort** » 26 May 2011, 04:24

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 · Post by **guillaume** » 31 May 2011, 13:10

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 · Post by **origin** » 31 May 2011, 22:59

Thanks, already using 3 of those on my models

gaboraa · Post by **gaboraa** » 10 Jun 2011, 17:19

Thanks Guillaume!

Memag · Post by **Memag** » 10 Jun 2011, 17:27

Thanks!

gaboraa · Post by **gaboraa** » 10 Jun 2011, 18:54

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

ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

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Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

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Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

Re: ICE Modeling Workshop 2: Cut edges

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