How to slice a engine in two

[ned]

Is there an easy way to slice an engine block into two pieces with new faces where the slice occurs. Knife operations and booleans don't honor the cylinder holes or leave some points in the sides connected.

I have an engine block with 4 cylinder holes bored into the block and lots of nurnies on the outside of the block. I want the block to separate into two sides and pull apart, revealing the interior.

Where the block has been sliced should have a surface just as if it had been done for real with a super band saw. I can slice it with a knife but then I have to unweld lots of points and put surfaces on the cut pieces.

[Mylenium]

I'm afraid there is no easy solution to this. LW's booleans are just not good enough for such complex things. Using the knife and then manually building your polys would quite likely be the fastest and cleanest solution.

Mylenium

[shelby]

I've never done it myself, but you might try a clip map.

http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/tutorials/animation/clip-map/index.html

[Dodgy]

http://www.shift.gr.jp/html/staff/sp/sp000002.html

Shift boolean is just what you need. Apply the plugin to a block and your engine, in the clip map area of the object panel, and you can use the block to cut out an area of the engine.

[madrenderman]

or you can try with fi shader
http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~fis_junk/
which simulate animated boolean and work with transparent, reflection and more.