Model fillets...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-ccEk3P5g0


Drool...would love these kind of advanced modelling tools.

That would take all the fun(a bit of a challenge) out of modeling for me.

I had a quick play in Nvil:-

ya modo has something like this too
http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/modo/plugins/meshfusion/

Meshfusion also has me excited.


Just need to save time where I can with some fast modeling techniques.  Clients often want short and fast...


Care to explain the process steve?  I still see ngons, so you didnt smooth it...and I would get bored of hand stitching every vertice.

Meshfusion also has me excited.


Just need to save time where I can with some fast modeling techniques.  Clients often want short and fast...

If I needed polygon mesh objects for work, and Meshfusion worked on all meshes, then I would probably get it. But as I only build polygon mesh objects for hobby stuff, then the $1600 (App+plugin) is a bit much considering the small amount of time I have for hobby.

Care to explain the process steve?  I still see ngons, so you didnt smooth it...and I would get bored of hand stitching every vertice.

That was just first attempt, better than watching the TV. I did leave the N-gons and tris.

The basic process was, Boolean > cuts (on the primitives) for the blend positions. Splines from the cut edges, retopo(splines) for creating blending fillet. Then bridging to join all parts(some holes to fill).

I had another attempt and made from all quads (I do not use sub-d (smoothing)).

Care to explain the process steve?  I still see ngons, so you didnt smooth it

You can still smoothing ngons, just can cause some shadeing errors if not on flat surfaces

I was brain storming last night as well, and I came to a similar conclusion.  With a boolean to create the splines, and work from there.

The point is speed though,  meshfusion and the example script are meant to automate the process.

I am tempted by Modo and messed around with it in the early stages of development. Especially now that it is a Foundry product and will probably get tighter integration with their other products.  But Nvil has me hooked now that I have it working the way I like.

It still has some quirks that could be smoothed out, but would require an additional programmer unfortunately.

If Nvil had some really unique and powerful modelling features for boolean modeling and remeshing it would draw a lot more people.  Autodesk products are stagnating and Modo is no longer focused on modeling toolsets.

What are the meshes you are creating for? I only ask, as you may be better to look at a nurbs package, such as Rhino or MoI

Yeah...nurbs is great for fillets.  I do stuff for games and film and also do texturing which is an entirely new can of worms when working with Nurbs.

I was not thinking of you using the nurbs surfaces, but the polymesh output that can be made from those surfaces, that is similar to the patches made by the (Maya) script.

What are the meshes you are creating for? I only ask, as you may be better to look at a nurbs package, such as Rhino or MoI

I think it's not about the fact that this kind of blends can at all get created. As you pointed out, one can do them with Nurbs too and in a tiny fraction of the time. Tools like MoI or Rhino have no history for such operations, so what you do creates a static result (as your Nvil example). Parametric CAD applications allow input parameters to be changed – one may update the blends.
But there's, hands down currently no process which can only remotely cope with Mesh Fusion / Groboto in speed and interactivety in volume blending operations. For some applications the ability to alter the outcome and the transition-areas do not matter that much, especially when reverse engineering an existing item by using blueprints. But this degree of associativity can matter greatly, when actually developing a complex shape from scratch. There's simply no point in spending considerable time in carefully crafting a beautiful all quads transition area when the next decision is to scrap that shape altogether and to try something entirely else. I really hope that the Groboto makers find the time to release a next version standalone version of Groboto which allows using imported meshes from all sorts of sources as external references.

Groboto creators coded Meshfusion...dont know how this will effect their own package though.

Tools like MoI or Rhino have no history for such operations, so what you do creates a static result (as your Nvil example). Parametric CAD applications allow input parameters to be changed – one may update the blends.

I do use various CAD packages at work (depends on which site I am working). Those 2 where ones I thought can be useful and not too expensive. One I did forget about for home use, (which does have history and uses the Acis kernel) is Viacad.

I really hope that the Groboto makers find the time to release a next version standalone version of Groboto which allows using imported meshes from all sorts of sources as external references.

Does Meshfusion allow custom meshes for booleans?(looking at the screenshots and description I think maybe not). I know groboto uses internal Nurbs(type) specific (limited number of) shaped solids, so mesh creation from booleans is more predictable, but of course that limits what can be made due to limited number of objects that can be used.

Groboto creators coded Meshfusion...dont know how this will effect their own package though.

They where developing a plugin for C4D, not sure what happened to that. Then they made a plugin for Modo, then the meshfusion. Groboto development appeared to come to a stop some time ago. I had been waiting for them to update the windows version of Groboto so it at least had the same options as the MAC version.

I do use various CAD packages at work (depends on which site I am working). Those 2 where ones I thought can be useful and not too expensive.

Always nice to meet other people who use both Nurbs and meshes!

Does Meshfusion allow custom meshes for booleans?

Yup. You can throw any subd-item into their solver and keep reshaping these. One can literally go on modelling, also add loops and extrude stuff and their solver does the rest. The transition areas quite obviously aren't precise to Nurbs standards and meshflow maniacs could stumble over some triangles. But the outcome shades nicely and blends are editable. The Foundry has some nice clips on their Website, this one is a comprehensive introduction too.

@ plugin for Cinema4D: In recent years the Groboto makers offered some custom loaders for meshes and custom masks created in Groboto. But this has nothing in common with the Mesh Fusion plugin.