
	Other Tools

Figure 164. Other Tools

HQS - High Quality Shade

Select HQS to shade all visible patches at a higher quality than you get with the normal patch shading.

Rename All Patches

Patch names in exported IGES files are limited to 8 characters. If you try and save a network into an IGES file, and one or more patches have names longer than 8 characters, you'll be warned (see Figure 165).

Figure 165. Name Truncation Warning

If you click on Rename All then all network patches will be renamed "pat001", "pat002", "pat003" etc, which should keep them within the 8 character limit.

If you click on aa-ZZ, patches will be renamed in an "aa", "ab", "ac" sequence. This makes patch names really short, which can help when rendering maps for SUBD surfaces with Show Names enabled.

Unstitch All

The Unstitch All button is a convenient way to remove all patch stitching from the current network.

Ordered Polymesh

To save the current NURBS network as an ordered polymesh, click on the Ordered Polymesh button and a file selection dialog will appear. Type in the name of an output PLY file, and click on the green Save button to save the fitted patches as polygons (see Figure 166).

Figure 166. Ordered Polymesh Example

Then using Mtool, the saved PLY file can be converted into an OBJ file of tris (three sided polygons) or quads (four sided polygons) to load into other applications.

New in v3 is the ability to fit polymesh surfaces directly. The new method, described in the Patches: Polymesh Surfaces chapter, also supports UV export and texture mapping.

SUBD Double/Half

The Double and Half buttons can be used to quickly double or halve the density of the fitted SUBD network.

RIB Export & Render

Note: In the current version of CySlice, the RIB export feature only works with SUBD networks. We anticipate adding support for NURBS in the near future.

Also Note: Before the render will work a couple of things need to be done:

(1)

The shaders supplied with the CySlice installation need to be compiled for your renderer. The SL files can be found in the CySlice installation headus/lib/shaders directory (usually /usr/local/headus/lib/shaders or C:/Program Files/headus/lib/shaders).

(2)

The script that CySlice calls to render the rib file needs to be edited to reflect your setup. This file is headus/lib/cyslice_rib.hsh and its interpreted by a very very simple form of Cshell (the headus shell). The first argument passed to the script is the name of the RIB file to render, and the second optional argument is the resulting TIFF file to display (see "Show After Render" below). The default script runs entropy in display-as-render mode.

OK, if you click on the RIB Export & Render button, the RIB Export & Render window will pop up (see Figure 167).

Figure 167. RIB Export & Render

From there you can enter in the base Name of the RIB file; select the output directory by clicking on the right arrow.

Change the Samp field to change the PixelSamples entry in the output RIB file. Change the Mult field to make the rendered image larger or smaller than the current CySlice graphics window, or directly edit the X and Y fields if you want some other aspect ratio.

Enable the Patch toggle if you want a map-of-the-world like colorful rendering of the subd surface. Each patch in the network is given a different color in the rendered image, and in theory no two adjacent patches should have the same color, though that bits not completely working yet.

Enable the UV Grid toggle if you want a dark line tracing out the subdivided face boundaries. A thicker dark line traces out the boundary of each network patch.

Enable the Disp and Color toggles if you want the surface rendered with the displacement and color maps applied. Note: the maps must already have been rendered for these options to work.

Enable the Interpolate Boundary toggle to interpolate the boundary of the subdivision surface when rendered. This is the default behavior when the surface is displayed in CySlice, but isn't the default for Renderman compliant renderers.

Enable Show After Render if you want the final rendered image displayed after the render completes.

Click on Save if you only want to write out the RIB file, and Save & Render if you want to render it as well. Any feedback or errors from the renderer will be displayed in the CySlice Console window.