5-point-patching.

[AMkyle]

ok so i have a big problem. im making a face with using a guide, and im making the nostril. to the side of the nostril there is a area thats opened and isnt patched up. it is 5 points in the area, but i dont understand what the 5-point patch is and where it is. i used th patch group mode because i thought that was it, but i guess not.

[robcat2075]

select the five points. hit the period key twice. then hit the button with the five sided icon on it.

[phatso]

Hmm. Hadn't tried that. Sometimes I have to select the 5 points, hide everything else, then reselect the group. RC's way sounds easier.

 

AMK - when you say you don't know where it is, do you mean you can't find the 5-point patch button? If you haven't moved your toolbars around, it's the bottom button on the right side of the screen, the one that looks like a pentagon (natch). It's greyed out. When you select the 5 points you want to make into a patch, it will turn to full glorious color to tell you it's ready to make the patch.

 

Assuming you've tried that and it didn't work:

 

A:M makes a 5-point patch by turning it into five 4-point patches you can't see. If there's anything funny - a flipped normal, two CPs in one spot (which happens a lot when people copy and paste), whatever - A:M doesn't know what to do. Computers don't think outside the box.

 

When even RC's suggestion doesn't work, that's a giveaway that you need to save the model, then start taking it apart. Move CPs around and you'll find splines on top of each other and stuff. Clean that up and the 5-point patch button will work. As you get better at modelling, this will happen less often.

[Fuchur]

I would say, you were just assuming that the five-point-patch would be there automaticly. In SPatch or something like that, this option is available.

 

It is however not very useful if you ask me. A five-point-hole can be useful in many situations if you just need a hole and not a patch.

So it is nice to control that by yourself on each individual patch.

 

If you have the typical "five-point-button-doesnt-work"-problem, you can try one of the following:

- Select all the points (including the first one) with "shift" pressed then try to use the button.

- Select all the points and hide everything else, then use the rectangle-selection (which is the defaultselection-mode) and try it again.

 

In most situations, it is not one of these problems.

It is most often a continuity-problem. A spline which isnt continute even if it should, a point which isnt connected, etc.

 

Another possibility would be, that you try to use a hook next to a 5-point-patch which doesnt work in most circumstances too.

Here you would have to rearange that area.

 

*Fuchur*

[AMkyle]

alright, thanks a lot. i fund the button and got it to work thanks to you guys.

[John Bigboote]

select the five points. hit the period key twice. then hit the button with the five sided icon on it.

 

Wow...never heard of the 'hit the period key twice' -trick...what does that accomplish?

[largento]

It looks like typing a period deselects the points you have selected and selects all of the other points in the object. So when you type a period the second time, it deselects all the other points and reselects the points you originally selected.

 

I didn't know this trick, either. Very useful!

[Rodney]

Wow...never heard of the 'hit the period key twice' -trick...what does that accomplish?

 

I'm not sure what exactly the process does behind the scenes but it works!

 

The move basically selects the complementary CPs and then reselects the original CPs, most likely reordering them in the process.

This seems to be enough to get A:M to recognize that the selection is a legal 5 point patch.

 

Bottom line: It works.