headus 3D tools

[rweston]

Hi, I've been using the 1.19.3 beta for a couple days and have found it to be an incredible tool.

There are a couple features that could help reduce multiple repeated steps and therefore speed up my workflow. If there is an existing way to do these operations, then please forgive me and let me know what they are!

1) Allow cuts to start inside an existing shell

Starting cuts from inside the perimeter of a UV shell (i.e. without beginning at a border edge and working in) would remove the need to trace edge loops back to the shell border to make the cuts. A workaround is to mark the areas, un-drop that portion of the mesh and then remove the marked areas and re-drop the resulting meshes, but it is a few extra steps to cut a section out of existing meshes.

2) Allow UVs to be marked/pinned and then translated/rotated/scaled independently of the mesh they are connected to (similar to the manner UVs are manipulated in Maya's UV Editor)

This would help when trying to minimize seams by welding numerous shells together that may introduce overlap and crowding of UVs. For instance welding the legs and torso together on a quadruped model to place the seam on the underside. If I could select the leg UVs, move them out slightly to accomodate the torso UVs and then pin most of those leg UVs and smooth out the distortion between there and the torso to something acceptable. A workaround I've found is cutting sections into separate shells and transforming/pinning those sections before re-welding and re-flattening. Again, just a feature that would remove a few extra steps in my workflow.

Cheers,
Ryan

[headus]

... mark the areas, un-drop that portion of the mesh and then remove the marked areas and re-drop the resulting meshes,
You're almost there! G mark the internal polys, aim the mouse pointer at one of the those green marked polys, then hit Enter to detach that piece. You don't need to un-drop and re-drop.

If I could select the leg UVs, move them out slightly to accomodate the torso
You can move UVs with Shift-MMB (use '-' and '=' to change the brush size), and then the 4, 5 and 6 key brushes can be used to pull-in, push-out and smooth (turn Brush Pin on under the Display panel to enable this mode). Does that help?

Phil

[rweston]

[headus]

Ahhh, OK, other people have also asked for something like a lasso select; its in the main wish list, so I wont forget it!

http://www.headus.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=47

"Vertex select and xform
More options for selecting vertexes (eg via edge loops etc), and then be able
to move, rotate those as a group."

Phil