Lattice deform

I use(d) the lattice quite regularly in Max, and would like to see it in Voidworld as well. It's great for dense meshes, and for manipulating shapes that don't lend themselves well to soft-selection adjustments like mechanical sub-d objects.
Here's a video of a Blender addon that does it roughtly how I'd want to see it:
http://vimeo.com/65410369

Make a selection, run the lattice tool and edit the created lattice points to deform the selection. After dropping the tool the lattice is gone, no fooling around with external objects for a lattice or anything like that.
Have a default lattice tool and one with options. The default should use the last used settings (number of lattice subdivisions for instance).
I suppose multiple orientations should be taken into account, so how about this:
-averaged orientation
-object/mesh pivot orientation (location doesn't make sense I don't think)

Any feedback from other users?

Also, it would be incredibly useful if you could set it to be (for lack of a better term) 1-dimensional. Meaning, it'd kind of be like temporary bones. You could have it so you can set certain subdivisions to 0 and it'll only create one control-point in the middle, like so:



The right one has 2 subdivisions for x, y and z, but the left one has 0 for x and y, 2 for z.
Ofcourse the size of the lattice would remain the same as it would otherwise be, but you'd just control it with less lattice-points. In this case, the top one one the left would control everything that the top 9 would otherwise control.

edit: those values are wrong, ofcourse. Add 1 to everything So you'd have 3x3x3 for the right one, and 1x1x3 for the left one. If you were to work with subdivisions, you'd only be able to have multiples of two!

Yes! lattice! please add this feature 

While i was modeling characters using silo, i often take my mesh into maya to adjust the proportion with lattice. Lattice will be great.

+1

Wanted to bump this now that we have 64 bit and can open dense meshes.

Also, Houdini allows for polygonal mesh to be used as the lattice base shape...with every vertex behaving like a soft selection.  This is an effective way to have custom lattice deformer  that can  follow the contours of the dense mesh.  The typical cube lattice can get  into issues when working with complex shapes like characters or tubing.

+1

As I understand it a lattice deformer is particularly useful when one may turn its effect on and off and further tweak it at any time. Just having a cage which destructively alters the mesh probably wasn't desirable to anyone.
Fulfilling this feature therefore required Nvil to go procedural, one needed  a concept and GUI for this, requests for further deformers (bend/twist/taper...) certainly wouldn't take long. I'm not at all against having deformers but their introduction certainly opened a big can of worms. Some would then like to animate them and ask for a renderer and for extension of the Bone-Toolset, yada, yada...

..........requests for further deformers (bend/twist/taper...) certainly wouldn't take long.

You can already bend/twist/taper in Nvil.

You can already bend/twist/taper in Nvil.

I guess this is somehow doable by using the Spline tools, right?
What I meant was "classic" modifiers which stayed life, can get turned on an off and also can get combined and re-ordered in the sequence of their application.

You can already bend/twist/taper in Nvil.

I guess this is somehow doable by using the Spline tools, right?

Yes.
I will put a post together to show simple example.

http://voidworld.cmcproductions.co.uk/index.php/topic,2260.0.html

I needed to taper something in only one axis, but the spline modify method is not sufficient for that! It tapers in all directions. So I tried in Maya and got quickly and intuitive to the result I wanted (either lattice or flare deformer). I really tried in NVil, but it was not possible to achieve the same result.
So now I think it's a good idea to implement intuitive deformers, like other apps have, too. Lattice would be great.

If this ever gets implimented,  I would suggest a user defined polygonal cage as the deformer and not the traditional voxel style cube cage.

In this way we can use Tubes, Spheres, low poly LODs to deform dense geo.

I needed to taper something in only one axis, but the spline modify method is not sufficient for that! It tapers in all directions.

It is similar to other applications that have a taper modifier. They usually only have option to change the main axis the taper is to made along, with the taper then made in the 2 remaining axis.
Blender does give options to Lock axis from taper, but limitation is that taper is always made along Z axis (lock possible on X or Y axis).

So I tried in Maya and got quickly and intuitive to the result I wanted (either lattice or flare deformer).

Those are not specifically taper modifier, just a case that tapers can be made.

So now I think it's a good idea to implement intuitive deformers, like other apps have, too. Lattice would be great

Maybe we will get a lattice deformer in Nvil version 2.

I think the Spline Modify tool can be used to do the taper deform by using the Scale/Radius modify curve. Make sure the Axis Line and the Path Curve are the same. I am not sure.

Spline Modify is not a specific taper modifier either, but a means to an end. I find the Spline modifier is powerful, but it is not intuitive. It's an advenced feature. But still, it's not powerful enough to restrict the scaling to specific dimensions. I made you guys a comparison:

Note how the mesh gets squashed in all directions in NVil because it's lacking control over that. So I can't get the result I'm after, which is not good.