Snap to Surface tool in v17

[livewiresrus]

I have heard alot about it,but never really knew what it was for ,surfing on youtube ive seen alot of programs exporting from one program to another and back,and I saw John Bigboote had just posted something about it for v17 ,and is it new in v17? ( Most videos were just timelapsed and did'nt explain anything)

[Fuchur]

I have heard alot about it,but never really knew what it was for ,surfing on youtube ive seen alot of programs exporting from one program to another and back,and I saw John Bigboote had just posted something about it for v17 ,and is it new in v17? ( Most videos were just timelapsed and did'nt explain anything)

 

In the end it is about having a very detailed (and in most cases very hard to animate, texture and render) model and decreasing its resolution to a more useable one.

This is what retopology is used for in polygon-models.

 

For A:M it is a very nice pipeline to get polygon-models into A:M (with manual work, but still much easier than anything else).

Another possibility is, that you can create new models on base of old once, create cloth for existing models, use primitives to define a shape very fast and model your real model afterwards over it and so on...

many different usages which can be very useful for A:M!

 

Have a look at the tutorial Matt created here:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=40992

 

And here is a video-tutorial I created about the subject:

Link to Video-Tutorial: Retopology

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[livewiresrus]

From what little I know about polygon modeling you change the topology to lower the poly count like in Mudbox and Z brush,modeling in those programs you end up with a gazillion polys in a very detailed model-export it into another program like 3D coat or somethng similar,(I been checking it out ,retopology seems very easy it that program,somewhat like it appears to be in the retopology in the new A:M,altho different methods both easy in there own way as compared to other programs Ive cheched out.)Then you add your color maps and bump maps and such so you can use in games or animation as to not bog down the computer with tons of geometry to calculate.

 

In A:M is the retopology so you can use low poly models as templates for models and clothes and the like?Im sorry Im know just enough to be dangerous and confuse myself LOL.

 

And if and when someone explains it to me keep in mind a newbie ,half of the time i may sound like i know what im talking about but i assure you I dont.

 

Scott

[livewiresrus]

I have heard alot about it,but never really knew what it was for ,surfing on youtube ive seen alot of programs exporting from one program to another and back,and I saw John Bigboote had just posted something about it for v17 ,and is it new in v17? ( Most videos were just timelapsed and did'nt explain anything)

 

In the end it is about having a very detailed (and in most cases very hard to animate, texture and render) model and decreasing its resolution to a more useable one.

This is what retopology is used for in polygon-models.

 

For A:M it is a very nice pipeline to get polygon-models into A:M (with manual work, but still much easier than anything else).

Another possibility is, that you can create new models on base of old once, create cloth for existing models, use primitives to define a shape very fast and model your real model afterwards over it and so on...

many different usages which can be very useful for A:M!

 

Have a look at the video-tutorial I posted in this thread, it illustrates quite well what can be done with it:

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=40992

 

See you

*Fuchur*

 

I see you answered me as i was typing this left the room came back and posted then saw you had answered me

[Fuchur]

From what little I know about polygon modeling you change the topology to lower the poly count like in Mudbox and Z brush,modeling in those programs you end up with a gazillion polys in a very detailed model-export it into another program like 3D paint or somethng similar,(I been checking it out ,retopology seems very easy it that program,somewhat like it appears to be in the retopology in the new A:M,altho different methods both easy in there own way as compared to other programs Ive cheched out.)Then you add your color maps and bump maps and such so you can use in games or animation as to not bog down the computer with tons of geometry to calculate.

 

In A:M is the retopology so you can use low poly models as templates for models and clothes and the like?Im sorry Im know just enough to be dangerous and confuse myself LOL.

 

And if and when someone explains it to me keep in mind a newbie ,half of the time i may sound like i know what im talking about but i assure you I dont.

 

Scott

 

You are not limited to use only low polygonal models. A:M can handle quite high polygon-counts there... (tested with 200.000 Polygones till now).

And you can retopologize a patch-model too and so on... many uses possible. Have a look at the video tutorial (later in the thread) and I'm explaining a little more there.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[pixelplucker]

I think retopo in AM will be far more powerful than other programs because AM's patches behave like nurbs giving users fewer points to create smooth curves. Typical retopo use polygons over high density poly meshes which make following details clunky and tedious.

 

This will definitely be the best way to bring models into AM from other applications and give the user full control over the conversion to AM's proprietary patches rather than untangling splines from basic conversions of obj files. I think it will simply be just easier and ultimately faster than attempting to fix a converted file.

 

Can't wait!

[Rodney]

I think retopo in AM will be far more powerful than other programs

 

The indicators point to you being correct there.

It's important to understand however that this is a foundational release of the Topology tool in A:M.

While there are many things we can do with retopology there a are few are explicitly intended.

 

From my little knowledge of it's design the primary intention appear to be: to quickly create new forms from existing (polygon or spline) objects, templates and surfaces.

 

The real genius in this implementation is that it doesn't narrowly restrict usage merely a bridging A:M to polygons and that alone extends its usefulness considerably. As a for instance... one thing I've noted is that we can model with changing surfaces over time. I am still not exactly sure why we would want to do that (short of tracking/forming/reforming/conforming objects through space and time) but the fact that we can do this at all means that as modelers we can lean forward and create our own innovative new ways of splining. In short, blending further the conceptual framework of animation and modeling by means of drawing and animating with splines.

[ludo_si]

is possible to have a baking of texture of the imported object?

[Rodney]

is possible to have a baking of texture of the imported object?

 

I don't think that has anything to do with retopology as the texture itself is not used.

That'd be more for the Import plugin.

The Retopology feature just uses the existing Import AFAIK.

 

Have you added a report to A:M Reports?

[R Reynolds]

Since the term retopolgy seems to define a specific process to polygon users and thus brings with it a set of expectations and possibly disappointment, may I suggest it would be wiser to rename this tool to something like "rotoscope3D" or "3Droto" which are, in my opinion, far more accurate, descriptive and uses existing A:M terminology (which Hash borrowed from Max Fleischer).

[pixelplucker]

I think retopo in AM will be far more powerful than other programs

 

As a for instance... one thing I've noted is that we can model with changing surfaces over time.

 

 

Are you saying we can load morph targets too? Just simply swap out the target mesh with another and move the time slider over, re-snap the cp's to the new surface? Something like that?

 

That would be pretty cool.

[Fuchur]

Since the term retopolgy seems to define a specific process to polygon users and thus brings with it a set of expectations and possibly disappointment, may I suggest it would be wiser to rename this tool to something like "rotoscope3D" or "3Droto" which are, in my opinion, far more accurate, descriptive and uses existing A:M terminology (which Hash borrowed from Max Fleischer).

 

In reallity the new feature is called "Snap to Suface" (at least the button is called that way). It just doesnt sound that cool and people dont really know what it is about.

So I think it does exactly what Retopology in other packages does but is a little more flexible.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Fuchur]

I think retopo in AM will be far more powerful than other programs

 

As a for instance... one thing I've noted is that we can model with changing surfaces over time.

 

 

Are you saying we can load morph targets too? Just simply swap out the target mesh with another and move the time slider over, re-snap the cp's to the new surface? Something like that?

 

That would be pretty cool.

 

A:M can not import Morph targets as far as I know. But yes it really doesnt matter what you want to retopologize. It even does not have to be one object. You can draw over several objects at once if you wish too, or you can change the template-object in the process to another one or you can move / rotate / scale the template-object while doing your snap to surface work, etc.

You can although use Snapt to surface-option for animation... so for example if you created a model and want to animate the CPs you can use Snap To Surface in the Muscle-Mode in the Chor too to change its shape...

 

So you could recreated the morph-targets from other programs easily by recreating the model in A:M with resurface, export another prop from the other software which has the shape of another morph-target and use it to create another keyframe in A:M's chor which will have the same shape as the morph-target in the other program. That will enable you to copy the CP-movement to a pose and like that you have a translation of a morph-target to A:Ms poses...

 

The real feature is: Snap a point to an underlying surface, no matter if it is a prop, another patch-model, a combination of both or several of them...

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[John Bigboote]

Since the term retopolgy seems to define a specific process to polygon users and thus brings with it a set of expectations and possibly disappointment, may I suggest it would be wiser to rename this tool to something like "rotoscope3D" or "3Droto" which are, in my opinion, far more accurate, descriptive and uses existing A:M terminology (which Hash borrowed from Max Fleischer).

 

 

 

Yeah, to reiterate Fuchur, the tool is simply called Snap-to-Surface- probably a wise move by our Yoda. WE are the ones who have monickered it as Retopology... we should probably thus start referring to it in it's proper context. OR, how about this... wait....... wait for it........... S2S !!!

[Fuchur]

Since the term retopolgy seems to define a specific process to polygon users and thus brings with it a set of expectations and possibly disappointment, may I suggest it would be wiser to rename this tool to something like "rotoscope3D" or "3Droto" which are, in my opinion, far more accurate, descriptive and uses existing A:M terminology (which Hash borrowed from Max Fleischer).

 

 

 

Yeah, to reiterate Fuchur, the tool is simply called Snap-to-Surface- probably a wise move by our Yoda. WE are the ones who have monickered it as Retopology... we should probably thus start referring to it in it's proper context. OR, how about this... wait....... wait for it........... S2S !!!

 

I have to say that it was me who called it "Retopology-Tool" for the first time. Sorry about that. The feature-request for it initiated the "Snap to Surface"-button so. Anyway to let people know what it is about more or less it is easy to say "Retopology". In the end it is retopology + X so. I don't think that it is too bad to call it retopology-tool so... what does it harm? But okay, lets call it "Snap-To-Surface"-Tool from now on.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Rodney]

I'm glad I read this because I was surely going to keep confusing everyone by calling it the Retopology tool.

 

Snap to Surface works for me.

[robcat2075]

"Retopology Helper"

 

(just add your own topology!)

[largento]

Just an advisory note: you'll want to make sure you turn off snap to surface when you are finished. It causes all-new kinds of unexpected behavior in the modeling window when it's left on. Inadvertently leaving snap to surface and mirror mode on might even tear a hole in the space-time continuum. :-)

[Xtaz]

Inadvertently leaving snap to surface and mirror mode on might even tear a hole in the space-time continuum. :-)

newton physics will be jealous

 

what is the release date (V17) for us mere mortals?

[Rodney]

I'm not aware of any release dates as of yet.

After squashing a few more bugs and some more thorough testing the Beta cycle should be heading for general release.

With cool stuff like this on the way, I say let Steffen have some more quality time under the hood to further perfect v17!

[mouseman]

Just an advisory note: you'll want to make sure you turn off snap to surface when you are finished. It causes all-new kinds of unexpected behavior in the modeling window when it's left on. Inadvertently leaving snap to surface and mirror mode on might even tear a hole in the space-time continuum. :-)

I'm envisioning a new color, similar to the new red for non-animate mode. Maybe green for Snap to Surface mode?

[robcat2075]

A modest proposal...

 

[Fuchur]

In the end it is not that bad as the mirror-mode. While the mirror-mode can really interrupt with other tools and make them unfunctional, I could not see that for the Snap-To-Surface Tool till now. Itjust does hat it does: It Snaps to (a) Surface. That can of course be something you don't want, but it is still much less annoying than the Mirror-mode can be.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[Rodney]

(RE: Robert's modest proposal)

 

Hehe, illustrated so much better than I would have ever been able to.

 

 

Although, now that I look again that 'really fake AO' has a nice color to it.

[HomeSlice]

The only two that seem really useful are "Wife's Birthday" and "Your Fly is Open".

[largento]

In the end it is not that bad as the mirror-mode. While the mirror-mode can really interrupt with other tools and make them unfunctional, I could not see that for the Snap-To-Surface Tool till now. Itjust does hat it does: It Snaps to (a) Surface. That can of course be something you don't want, but it is still much less annoying than the Mirror-mode can be.

 

See you

*Fuchur*

 

It was last week that I was messing with it, but I think the behavior I noticed was similar to what Matt described. Yes, it wasn't as severe as mirror mode, but it was also not nearly as noticeable as mirror mode. I'd worked for awhile before I started finding CPs in places I hadn't intended them to be. :-)

[serg2]

A modest proposal...

 

 

I vote for two color switch

- Animate Mode (Red)

- Mirror Mode (Green)

 

These modes often bring trouble for forgetting to switch

[John Bigboote]

FUNNY STUFF!

[mouseman]

- Animate Mode (Red)

- Mirror Mode (Green)

These modes often bring trouble for forgetting to switch

True that. That's pretty much my experience.