Autosmooth and edges.

Hi IStonia, want to ask you about one very important thing.
I just work a lot with hard edges, and one thing really missing.

Now when you use Autosmoth sometimes Angle is not enough to make edge Hard, so you have to set it by hands using command Hard edge. But if you run Autosmooth after that all that edges will be replaced with new without to be Hard. So you have once again set it by hands and all things will repeat the next time you run Autosmooth.


Check this image, I set these hard edges by hands.



But after I run Autosmooth and all that hard edges was lost.


So my request is to make Autosmooth avoid edges that was set by hands.
Looks like command Harden/Soften Selected must add some Flag to edge and if Autosmooth meet this Flag it will not touch this edge.


And if you would want to remove this flag you have to select edges and if they are Harden run Harden again and it will remove this flag. The same thing with Smooth.

Why not set the autosmooth to correct angle needed?

You could instead create a composite tool to save/re-apply hard edge already on the model.
example:-
Select hard_edges
Save sub_object selection
Call autosmooth
restore sub_object selection
Set hard_edges.

Interesting solution but it has some serious disadvantages.

First it works only with hard edges but if I need to fix smooth edges I have to make another Composite tool for smoothed edges.

Also after tool was applied all hard edges are selected or selection is cleared. And there is no way to restore selection that was when you run tool.

About correct angle, there is no way to set angle to "correct" value. Because it will correct for one edge and not correct for another.

Check this pic, I increas angle to make that edges Hard but it also set a lot of other edges to hard and still one edge is soft... So as you can see there is no correct value and I can not find way to control it except set it manually.


a
And this is how it should be:

Interesting solution but it has some serious disadvantages.

I can see possible problems with implimenting what you mention, that is why I look for alternative.

First it works only with hard edges but if I need to fix smooth edges I have to make another Composite tool for smoothed edges.

I do not understand what the problem is with making 2 tools instead of just one.

Also after tool was applied all hard edges are selected or selection is cleared. And there is no way to restore selection that was when you run tool.

You can use edge group to store selection.

I can see possible problems with implimenting what you mention, that is why I look for alternative.

May be I do not know, but we defenetly need something like this because your suggestion is too complicated - 2 tools, edge groups, etc, so many stuff for so simple task.

May be I do not know, but we defenetly need something like this because your suggestion is too complicated - 2 tools, edge groups, etc, so many stuff for so simple task.

It was you who mentioned a needed second tool, I just asked what was complicated about that.

Hard_edges already have a flag, what you want is another flag to make the hard/soft flag not to be affected by autosmooth. What about the other tools that create/remove hard_edges / smooth_groups, should they also not change manually set hard_edges?
You put forward:-

And if you would want to remove this flag you have to select edges and if they are Harden run Harden again and it will remove this flag. The same thing with Smooth.

Would new users know about that, or would they think a problem/bug when autosmooth does not automatically create correct hard_edges if hard_edges have already been manually set. Autosmooth would no longer be autosmooth.


I know what ever I put forward you will still want this implementation. So I will leave the thread.

Try this
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/NVil-Apr-23-15.rar

  * "Harden Flag" attribute is added to edge. "Harden Selected" will turn it on. "Soften Selected" will turn it off.
  * "IgnoreEdgeHardenFlag" input is added to "P_AutoSmooth_Whole".

IStonia,
Wow!!! Really great feature! Looks like a lot of torment with smoothing are far away now! Many thanks! Now working with Hard edges is really pleasure!
I remember how it was when there was no Edge Autosmoothing, no - Show hard edges on viewport navigation and was imperfect boolean it was hard times! You did great job!

steve,
about new users, I hope they will use my config and I'll made tutorial about this. Now this feature is very intuitive. I had opposite fillings before this, I thought why command set Harden Edges is called so if after Autosmooth edges become smooth.
 

Istonia, just found little problem.
If I cut edge that was set to hard and then run Autosmooth it become soft, check this picture:


So can you make those edges to stay hard even after they was cutted?
So if one edge has Hard Flag and was divided into two edges those two edges will have the same hard flag.
Now creas edges work this way. Edges remain creased even after they was divided by cut.

Fixed.

Great! Thanx!
Istonia, I just continue to use all that new features and have some thoughts.
Now Creased edges is lay above hard edges, and you can not see hard edge color.
So I suggest this - we use crease only in SubD Mod, some crease streamline tool even does not work in unsubdevided objects, so it will be great to have option to show creased edges only in SubD. It will allow us to see hard edges and creased edges.

Try this
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/NVil-Apr-25-15.rar

Subd crease edges only show in subd mesh. I don't give option as I feel showing subd edges in base mesh makes little sense.

Great thank you!
I continue to work and experiment by the way
There are too many words in this post, but pleas read it to the end, to understand my Idea

First now command Soften edges drop Flag but we needed it to work like Harden edge, I mean it also have to set Flag, because for example I want to soften this edge, but after autosmooth it become hard:



So this command - Soften edges, have to smooth edge and set Soften Flag.
So we will need new command - Drop Harden/Soften Flag.

So it all started to remind me creases, but in Unsubdevided mod.
And I thought, it would be great to combine these hard edge commands with Crease commands .
So if we in UnSubdevided mode and press shortcut and move to the left it will Set Soften Flag if to the right it will set Harden flag (Like Creas subdivision streamline tool).

It also would be great to combine commands Select Creased edges and Select Hard edges. And Uncreas selected edges and Drop Harden/Soften Flag. They will work in a apropriate way depend on Subdive Mode. In subdivided mode it will run Creas Commands in UnSubdevided mode it will run Hard Edgess command.

It will be really great!


For example now I have shortcut B for creasing:
LMB - Creas Subdevision#
RMB - Uncrease (Drop crease)
MMB - Select creased edges

And I have shortcut for Harden/Soften edges - F.
LMB- Harden
RMB-Softem
MMB- Select Harden edges.

If you will make this modifications we will have only one shortcut - B!

And in Subdivided mode it will work like Creasing and in Unsubdevided mode it will work like Harden/Soften Edges. So I think about harden edges like they are Creases but in UnSubdevided mode.

In this situation we also need Smooth with Flag, because this edges have to be smooth, but after Autosmooth they become hard.
Angle is universal - 150, witch works very good in most situation but there are cases like this where Autosmooth do not make good job and we have to fix it by hands.

Try this
http://www.digitalfossils.com/Download/NVil-Apr-26-15.rar

  * "Soften Flag" attribute is added to edge. "Harden Selected" will turn it off. "Soften Selected" will turn it on.
  * Edge mode > Geometry > Clear Edge Harden/Soften Flags.
  * Some changes for these subd edge crease tools. If there is no subd mesh selected
    -"Crease Subdivision" will harden selected edges instead.
    -"Uncrease Selected Edges" will soften selected edges instead.
    -"Select Subd Crease Edges" will select hard edges instead.