selection layers

selection layers

Postby ikam » Sunday, 13.May 2012, 07:22

hi

does anyone know how use selection with layers/slots or if this feature exist in wz4 (like wz1 or wz3) ?
i didn't found how to do it.

thks :)
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Re: selection layers

Postby Skinnytorus » Sunday, 13.May 2012, 09:19

hi, ikam
do you mean the selection marks? I don't think so. For me in wz4 selection seems to have a consecutive flow i.e. selection after selection with no storage...
You can try placing a Store op after selection and then Load it somewhere else, but it will then include the mesh also :( Maybe I'm mistaken, but selection doesn't seem to be the strongest point of wz4 so far...
Any other thoughts?
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Re: selection layers

Postby ikam » Sunday, 13.May 2012, 09:48

yes, it seems to be only a consecutive selection storage, with logic clear/set/assign

other question with select ops : I didn't understand yet what is "cluster" in input types...
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Re: selection layers

Postby Skinnytorus » Sunday, 13.May 2012, 10:25

I suspect, the cluster is a part of a mesh associated with a bone. Try skinnig a mesh with Deform and then select something by cluster.
I have not tried it myself and it may prove or ruin my theory :))
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Re: selection layers

Postby Skinnytorus » Sunday, 13.May 2012, 22:59

hey,
i figured that. my theory is broken. ;)
cluster is in fact a piece (or a group of pieces?) of a mesh sliced using BSP.
to select a slice, try the following structure:
cube
from mesh (purple)
Slice and Dice (purple)
BSPToMesh
select (input: cluster)
Changing the number of cluster will then select a different piece or a group of pieces of the sliced cube.
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Re: selection layers

Postby ikam » Monday, 14.May 2012, 16:11

well done ;)

However, selection by mark/mask missing me, I think it will be necessary to implement it, without it's a bit limiting.
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Re: selection layers

Postby Skinnytorus » Monday, 14.May 2012, 16:54

Yeah. Selection marks is a brilliant idea that well deserves one more life :)
Do you feel the strength to implement that?
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Re: selection layers

Postby ikam » Monday, 14.May 2012, 17:48

i'll see what i can do...
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Re: selection layers

Postby Skinnytorus » Monday, 14.May 2012, 18:06

Great challenge though. Respect.
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Re: selection layers

Postby Skinnytorus » Monday, 14.May 2012, 18:21

Just a side alternative idea:
It might be great to treat geometric selection figures (i.e. select cube and sphere) as ordinary meshes i.e. add and multiply them to form a new selection accoding to logic (add, sub, set, clear, etc.).
Lets say, you want to select every other polygon in the grid. You just multiply the select cube with fixed translate value and you are done! Same goes for selecting every other face along the belt of a sphere - just multiply and rotate the selection around its (or the sphere's) pivot! How do you feel about that?
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Re: selection layers

Postby ikam » Tuesday, 15.May 2012, 06:05

I'm not sure to well understand.
Your suggestion is to give an other shape than cube or sphere for a selection, isn't ?
if that it, select by texture is a good alternative (shape from a texture). selectgrow from wz3 will be great too (maybe one day :-"" )

My main idea is more to store specific faces or vertices of mesh (by marking them with the select op and a mark, or why not as you said a store/load system which will not copy the mesh at load but just retrieve its selection, maybe more compatible with old wz4 files, I don't know if it's possible yet) at a specific stage in the ops tree, so you can, more far in the tree retrieve these faces/vertex to apply a modification.
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Re: selection layers

Postby Skinnytorus » Tuesday, 15.May 2012, 07:44

1. My suggestion
No, not exactly ;) My idea is to multiply the existing selection shapes (cube, sphere). I'll explain better:
Structure:
Cube Op (Tesselated like 8x8x8)
Select (selects some faces of the cube with a cube or sphere)
'Multiply Select Shape' - (an option in Select Op or a new Op) - this operation implies multiplication of select shape (cube or aphere) over the Cube
in order to achieve pattern selection (like 2 faces selected then 2 faces unselected and so on). Is it any clearer now?
As for the 'select by texture' trick, it falls out of control quickly because UVs are involved (which have always been tricky). Besides, I have not managed to make it select just one face at a time (I suspect it is based on vertex selection). Anyway, I'll try to learn better how to use it.

2. Your idea
I'm all for Grow/Shrink selection option or op. It has huge potential!
Storing selection under some index number seems OK (just like old times, uh?), but imho WZ3 had a bit better selection system in terms of productivity (tabs vs numbers).
Yeah, and maybe Store/Load Selection ops may come in more handy for compartibility. But it'll require to populate 2 more ops (in case you separate Store and Load selection in 2 differnet ops) across the structure...
So, you are the code guru, and the choice is all yours. ;)
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Re: selection layers

Postby ikam » Tuesday, 15.May 2012, 08:46

1. mmm... ok, it's an idea for a new selection type, for but I don't see clearly the relationship with storage selection, is there ? :-k

2. lol, I'am not, by far, a guru, it's why I prefer easy solutions. But yes, load/store require 2 more ops or 1 which combine two, and I'm agree with you, it's less productive than wz3 selection system, but integrate wz3 selection mask style is a big modification (most of mesh ops, code+param and also faces and vertex stucture to add a mask param). a load/store selection doesn't modfify anything, just store/restore faces/vertices in array, its seems more easy for me
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Re: selection layers

Postby ikam » Tuesday, 15.May 2012, 16:26

well, I wrote some code to add a load/store selection system as we discuss.

It's works almost fine and it's a pretty lightweight modification...
I'm agree that is not as productive as wz3 mask, but at least it works.

I've released a beta to show you how it could work : wz4_With_SelectSlot

and here a wz4 example with new op "SelectSlot".

- logic doesn't work it's just for style :P
- and there's is an index slot bug with several "selectslot"...
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Re: selection layers

Postby ikam » Tuesday, 15.May 2012, 17:58

In fact, this operations could be move directly into Select op... maybe easier
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