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Topic: Poke Faces  (Read 6062 times)

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  • Posts: 496
  • Triangle
April 19, 2013, 11:57:55 pm
I've been missing this for quite some time now and couldn't find it in NVil, so I am asking here for a command that works like Maya's "Poke Face" tool. I found a demonstraton of what it does:
http://youtu.be/ko3FgK743fU

Each selected polygon is subdivided in a way, that from all of the vertices of a particular polygon, edges will be created that lead to a vertex in the middle of each polygon. Just like with the collapse command, the created vertices should be selected afterwards. Then I can imagine using the transformation tools, NVil already provides, so I don't see a need to incorporate translation into the tool.
Thanks!

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  • Polygon
April 20, 2013, 02:52:08 am
Do you really think a separate tool for this is necessary? You can inset the polygons then collapse. To achieve the result shown in the video, you can extrude then bevel.

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  • Triangle
April 20, 2013, 03:47:36 pm
That's the way I do it at the moment, inset and collapse. But lately there were some other tools added, that also could be accomplished otherwise, like the make ngon command. It's also just a matter of converting a selection and hitting delete to get to the same result. So I thought I'd ask.

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  • Polygon
April 20, 2013, 06:30:28 pm
might be complicated to implement, but maybe user macros.

that can be accomplished with making no new selections, simply just inset face, merge verts, than enable the translate tool.

if that could be shoved into one tool that would be great, or if maybe on the streamline tools, it was possible to set other tools and commands that get run right after the tool is deactivated.
so could make a custom streamline, with inset for the tool, and a post command of collapse.


Sometime in the future i would love to see a com interface or some kinda way to interact with nvil via something like python, with all the tools/commands available with some arguments.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2013, 06:33:50 pm by Passerby »

  • Posts: 496
  • Triangle
April 20, 2013, 09:45:16 pm
Just yesterday I again thought about the same thing. This would be definitely worth its own thread. I wanted to build tools that I use in Maya like "to edge ring and collapse" or "to loop and delete". I was even looking for a way to setup the hotkeys in a way where I can hit a key+LMB would do ring collapse and same key+RMB would do loop delete, but it wasn't possible. Or as mentioned, inset and collapse to simulate poke face, as well as the already implemented 'make Ngon' consisting of 'convert selection to inside edges' and delete. Some of this can be done with the 'on activated' and 'on delayed' slots, but it feels weird as well as they're not working well or at all in radial menus, which I use a lot.

Being able to create a chain/stack of operations and putting them into a tool/slot would be awesome. Some of the existing operations may well be substituted by this approach.

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  • Triangle
April 21, 2013, 11:47:20 am
But you're right, scripting would be even more beneficial, since one could even pass over some parameters to the operations.

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  • Polygon
April 21, 2013, 12:55:03 pm
scripting via python is my most wanted feature, but i do realize it is a massive undertaking, but it is the reason lately i have been spending so much time with maya, since i got thousands of lines of my own code bending it to my will, and speeding up my workflow, as well as some custom tools like exporters for the engines i work with.

But you're right, scripting would be even more beneficial, since one could even pass over some parameters to the operations.


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  • Polygon
April 22, 2013, 10:54:40 am
It is added.

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  • Edge
April 25, 2013, 04:38:59 pm
I thought this could be achieved in a streamline tool, with the inset tool on nmb and collapse on tapped (or delayed), but no such luck. Istonia, would the addition of a 'on release/exit' condition work for similar things? I'm all for empowering us to build tool variations ourselves, as long as it doesn't require scripting!

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  • Triangle
April 25, 2013, 05:15:12 pm
In my opinion, scripting would be the easiest: call a function, pass in the parameters. Call next function.

I suppose we would have to give a detailed description of what we think would be the best solution and what we would expect from such a solution. There are commands that get executed immediately and interactive tools. If I was going to compose my own tool, the stack needs to know when a tool should be interactive and when not.
For example: inset, extrude, chamfer, 2x grow selection, convert to polygon border edges, chamfer.
should polygon extrude be activated and then extrude by 0.2 automatically, or should this be interactive? A checkbox could help.
But how would each tool know which parameters to use for an operation if it were non-interactive?
If you'd want something without scripting, maybe you could double click on an item in the stack and the options show up, so you can set them up for this particular chain of commands. And just like with the streamline tools, the composed operation would show up in the tool customization for setting the hotkey?

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  • Edge
April 25, 2013, 05:57:29 pm
A foolproof visual interface would really be ideal. But yes, being able to pass parameters along to the tool would be lovely. with Streamline tools, to be able to decide per tool what gets controlled how... it would open up a lot of powerful customisation.