Booleans In Hash A:M =^.^=

[nyahkitty]

And now, from the people who brought you, "Design Critique's Please =^.^=" comes an exciting new thread that's sure to please the entire family....

 

A tutorial video on doing something in Hash A:M similar to booleans in other 3D softwares:

 

Booleans in Hash A:M

 

Ok... the nitty gritty:

 

It's long, winding, grievously compressed......... and it's mine.

 

So here's your chance to take a pot shot at it and see if you're on target. No really, I want you to tear this thing apart. I want it to turn out well in final production. I've already got a boatload of notes on changes to make, but I need to hear your impressions and observations.

 

Remember, I asked for it. ..... ....

[Rodney]

Remember, I asked for it.

 

Oh oh.

 

K.... here goes.

 

Tutorial Rule #1: Edit

 

Tutorial Rule #2: Never blame the software for something you don't know how to do yourself.

 

Tutorial Rule #542: Don't 'learn' while demonstrating unless you explicity state that you are 'experimenting' or something to that effect. (See also rule #2)

 

Tutorial Rule #894: Practice the tutorial first... Then have fun while you are doing your tutorial.

 

*I like Rule 894 the most personally.

 

Quite seriously.

You cover a lot of material but... 1 hour?

With some good editing I think you could get it down to 15 minutes or less easy.

 

One good way to do this is to record your video and then dub the voice over the finished/edited footage.

 

How's that for a start?

One of the reasons I haven't done voice tutorials (or many tutorials for that matter) is that it's not as easy as it looks.

 

I look forward to your next tutorial.

 

Best,

Rodney

 

*Oh... one more! Truth in advertisement is best: "Modeling without Booleans" might be a better title.

** And warn people about the size.

*** And Seven will suggest you try Wink. I think he's right in this case.

[nyahkitty]

Thank you Mr. Rodney sir.

 

*scribbles some notes and then looks up*

 

Next!

[Newbert_Zero]

i know you warned us that it was long and all but dang that was REALy long. maybe you could make 2 versions. 1 that explains it to people who arnt really faimilier to AM. and the second one that is short and to the point. I noticed that the first 1/3 of the video was just modeling the sphere. You also explained a bunch of stuff about am that wasent about making a whole in the sphere. i havent seen all of it yet though..... i mean its an hour long. but so far its good in a sense that its easy enough for my 9 year old sister to follow. But it is also very long.

[heyvern]

Doesn't play on Mac...

 

I have the Mac OSX WMV player v9 which works 99% of the time... this one uses strange codec.

 

Vernon "!" Zehr

[johnl3d]

Vern what ever became of your tutorial that inspired this project

 

http://johnl.inform.net/pages/boolmorph.htm

[nyahkitty]

Vern: Is your Mac WMV player current? I downloaded the wmv 9.0 just recently.

I wonder if it's the settings I have this video at, such as FPS or some compression setting. Hmmm... I suppose Wink or Camtasia are going to be the next step.

 

Looking good so far guys. Keep 'em coming. I think I see a pattern developing.

 

I'm pretty close to pushing a revision through.

 

*scribbles more notes and utters humming sounds in deep thought*

[Rodney]

John,

Don't look now but I think Paul Forwood snuck in a did a take on your Boolean Free ™ sphere creation.

 

Sphere with Hole (No Booleans) #2

 

*Definitely worth a looksee...

 

*Unless you and he are secretly the same person in which... disregard.

 

Edit: Should have linked to the Port Hole Tutorial as well.

Port Hole tutorials Note the first is without dialogue while the second has dialogue.

Edited May 7, 2005 by Rodney

[nyahkitty]

*returns from watching the three WINK tutorials*

 

AIEEEE!!!!

 

Well I guess I won't be needing these......

*tosses the notepad and pencil over his shoulder*

 

Seems like we're all on the same wave length... more or less. Guess I'll just have to see what other nifty techniques can be discovered for desimenation to the masses.

 

 

 

Right. For posterity, I shall submit my thinking on what I was trying to create:

 

Anyone familiar with the 3D Buzz VTM's know's they are a lot of fun to watch besides being useful. Thus the more broad coverage of subject matter and the length of the original video, besides discussing a bit more than just the steps for how to make something, but also why it works. Of course, what Jason Busby and Co. deal with is a bit more technical and complex than Hash A:M, so half an hour to an hour is nothing.

 

I think one advantage in favor of the 3D Buzz VTM's is that they usually include input from a room full of sleep-deprived students and a very experienced teacher to hold it all together. For the most part, all I have is me... so there might not be much there to hold the interest of the audience except, "Here's how to get it done."

 

I like talky tutorial video's because it just let's me work, whether I'm following a video or making one. I also like working at 10 FPS in real time as this seems to allow me to naturally gesture when indicating some part of a model or function.

 

However.....

 

-Hash A:M is relatively simple.

-Many users are hobbiests or professionals with limited time on their hands to devote to training materials.

-WINK is free and easy.

-Artists hopped up on a diet of oreo's and cola and hard at work at 2 am in the morning have a slightly reduced attention span.

 

 

Hmmm....

 

All things considered, most basic tutorials should therefore be short and sweet, while advanced tutorials of greater length should be broken into smaller bite-sized pieces. This seems to be what everyone is indicating.... I'll endeavor to learn something from the whole experience.

[nyahkitty]

I imagine that there are a few questions to be answered:

 

-Even though there are the Quick Start video's for sale, would there be a demand from beginning users and/or very young users for talkies in similar form to what I attempted here, but more refined, with less complex subjects to tackle, in a more focused manner? Really just thorough, easy to understand coverage of the basics.

 

-Talkies are traditional and I feel more comfortable with them, but what place do they occupy in the Hash A:M user base anymore? In what way are they still useful in view of WINK (and I hear audio annotations will be a new function in Wink 2.0)?

 

 

 

Talkies = standard combined video and audio file, reduced in size by using a codec.

 

WINK = heavily practiced, edited, and polished Flash format video. Sometimes with audio narration but commonly just text directions.

[nyahkitty]

Here's a little something I decided to do for fun:

[nyahkitty]

I wanted to see how far this can be pushed. It already seems there's a few things I can do differently to keep the surface smooth and to respect the geometry of the lathed cutter shape.

 

A fun tutorial would be to figure out as many techniques as possible for smoothing creases, pinches, and dimples. I like perfectly smooth geometry. Right now much tweaking and applying the porclein MAT is neccasary to achieve that.

 

And here is the MDL file:

complex_non_boolean_04.mdl

[nyahkitty]

And here is the original two shapes:

complex_non_boolean.mdl

[psyborg]

nyahkitty

how did you accomplished this boolean?

[MattWBradbury]

I think this is one of those dead threads. Well, if he does answer, he'll probably have to dig out the file, and try to remember how. By the way, that link doesn't seem to work, the original one... up there ^

[DrRIEGER]

As psyborg wrote,

I'm very interested in the ways to get these results with booleans !

Should it be possible to have a short step by step ?

By chance, do these features work in v11.1 ?

 

thanks a lot

 

regards,

 

alain

[nyahkitty]

Sorry for the dead thread.

I'd lost track of it.

 

Basically I drew a spline shape of the hole I wanted to "cut"

 

attached this to the sphere, rather than attach the sphere CP's to the shape.

 

Then I broke splines, deleted CP's.

 

Then I extruded new patches and closed up the inside of the hole so that it was similar to the shape that was supposed to "cut" a hole.

 

It took quite a bit of time to smooth out the surface of the sphere after doing all of this.

 

All of it was done manually.

This method is usefull if you need the hole to be permanent geometry, rather than just a hole made by a bone boolean.

Perhaps I'll do a tutorial with illustrations, if there's call for it.

Really, it's just a matter of putting together various modeling techniques.

[DrRIEGER]

All of it was done manually.

 

What a shame Booleans cannot automatically make such usefull geometry !

Thanks a lot for your quick reply

 

Alain

[psyborg]

Yeah. I really wish there was a way to merge, combine, subtract, exclude and intersect with in the modeling environment.