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View Full Version : LightWave v9 Video - Flatten Tool

Brian Arndt
03-08-2006, 03:41 PM
There is a new video showing features of LightWave v9 out!
Modeler: Flatten Tool
http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/lw9_demos.php
Stooch
03-08-2006, 08:00 PM
why cant i see this video? whats the codec?
Ah i see its the TSSC codec, it would probably be helpful to indicate that the flatten vid is encoded with that...
BazC
03-09-2006, 03:41 AM
Cool tool! What would be even cooler would be another option to flatten along the normal of a completely seperate selection. So in the vid you could flatten a section of the sphere to a polygon normal on a leg for instance! - Baz
bluerider
03-09-2006, 02:42 PM
why cant i see this video? whats the codec?
Ah i see its the TSSC codec, it would probably be helpful to indicate that the flatten vid is encoded with that...

Its a TechSmith codec.
bluerider
03-09-2006, 02:45 PM
Cool tool! What would be even cooler would be another option to flatten along the normal of a completely seperate selection. So in the vid you could flatten a section of the sphere to a polygon normal on a leg for instance! - Baz

Yep.....it can do that.

The XY and Z options are pretty straight forward and they average the middle point of the selection to flatten to.


>Normal Axis does the same thing as XYZ but in the averaged direction of the normals.

Clever tool, it's quicker than how I used to do it. It was always to set value with it's default at 0 it's was only along XYZ.

Then I'd have to rotate the group after if I didn't want them perpendicular, which could be a bit of a fidget.

It does make things quicker and I will be incorporating this tool immediatly as a hotKey......dam, theres far to many already!
Dodgy
03-09-2006, 03:49 PM
I think the hotkey and menu layouts will have to be entirely re done, seems like a lot of more uniformly useful tools are replacing older separated tools. This is definitely a hotkey candidate :)
BazC
03-09-2006, 04:18 PM
Yep.....it can do that.

>Normal Axis does the same thing as XYZ but in the averaged direction of the normals.

It does make things quicker and I will be incorporating this tool immediatly as a hotKey......dam, theres far to many already!

I think we may be a cross purposes. As I understand it Normal axis will flatten to the averaged normal axis of your original selection. What I am talking about is flattening to a selection that is completely different from the selction you are flattening.

So the workflow might be; select an area of polygons to flatten, activate the flatten tool, choose "Flatten to reference" (or whatever they want to call it!) and then make a new selection (on the same object or even a completely seperate object) to flatten the original selection to.

Does that make sense!? :D
Pavlov
03-09-2006, 04:38 PM
Bazc, you can pheraps do what you say with a plugin called "MovePointOnBG", which actually "snaps" a selection to a BG surface and let you move geometry on BG surface with a realtime conforming. Nice tool, kinda a realtime KO-Pointfit but a bit more limited.
So try to put in BG the surface you'de like to flatten to, select points you need to conform to this, and run the tool, it should work.

I like this little new Flatten tool, it looks useful.
I'd like if it could go from 0% to 100% interactively too.

Paolo
bluerider
03-09-2006, 05:08 PM
I think we may be a cross purposes. As I understand it Normal axis will flatten to the averaged normal axis of your original selection. What I am talking about is flattening to a selection that is completely different from the selction you are flattening.

So the workflow might be; select an area of polygons to flatten, activate the flatten tool, choose "Flatten to reference" (or whatever they want to call it!) and then make a new selection (on the same object or even a completely seperate object) to flatten the original selection to.

Does that make sense!? :D

Er.............I am flat out lost for a reply to that.

I've definatly got my vectors crossed.
:stumped:
Pavlov
03-09-2006, 05:53 PM
here are some shots of MovePointsOnBG.
Actually you can use it to flatten as second pic shows, but it works also on deformed shapes (third pic). the ubercool thing is you can drag geometry interactively and it will conform to BG shape as it moves.
If they implement what you're asking for, it would be nice if Flatten inherits some functionality from this.

Paolo
BazC
03-10-2006, 04:39 AM
Er.............I am flat out lost for a reply to that.

I've definatly got my vectors crossed.
:stumped:

:D It's a really useful tool, there are a few apps out there that use something similar!

Thanks Paolo that looks like a useful plug! I bet it's not available for Mac though!

Just checked, no it isn't :( I agree something like this plug built in to LW would be great!
fyffe
03-16-2006, 11:46 PM
here are some shots of MovePointsOnBG.
Actually you can use it to flatten as second pic shows, but it works also on deformed shapes (third pic). the ubercool thing is you can drag geometry interactively and it will conform to BG shape as it moves.
If they implement what you're asking for, it would be nice if Flatten inherits some functionality from this.

Paolo

D'oh! I wrote a plugin that does exactly that! Interactive background conforming. I bet my plugin is faster than LW! Works with millions of polys and all that. Oh well, there goes that cash cow ;)