Simviation Forum - Adding segments in Gmax

Mar 19^th, 2002 at 9:38pm

Psychophant1 Offline
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When you create a box, you set the number of segments for length, width, and height. After the box is created, I've been able to change the amount of segments per dimention.

My question is this: Can I increase the number of segments after I've started modifying the box, ie: curves and scaling?

Before I get the ubiquitous "RTFM", I've looked in the user reference, but only found an entry on adding verticies, not entire segments.

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Reply #1 - Mar 20^th, 2002 at 5:50am

Bonzonie Offline
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I do "Convert to editable Mesh"

Vertice-Slice

Then you have a yellow box around the place where ou "slice", giving oyu an extra segment.

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Reply #2 - Mar 20^th, 2002 at 10:24pm

Psychophant1 Offline
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Ahh, thank you!

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Reply #3 - Mar 21^st, 2002 at 12:26am

Psychophant1 Offline
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Now that I've started slicing and dicing, I've got some extra verticies that I'd like to remove. Any idea how? Couldn't seem to find it in the help.

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Reply #4 - Mar 21^st, 2002 at 1:29am

Bonzonie Offline
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Removing vertices can be done by "delete" after selecting the ones to delete. Keep in mine all polyogns that were using the vertice(s) you deleted will be deleted as well.

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Reply #5 - Mar 21^st, 2002 at 7:39pm

Psychophant1 Offline
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That's what I was sondering about. Can you remove a vertex without removing the associated polygons? I guess like a flatten or bypass kind of thing.

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Reply #6 - Mar 21^st, 2002 at 8:09pm

Felix/FFDS Offline
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If you remove a vertex/point, you remove all polygons/faces that connect at that vertex/point

Quote:

That's what I was sondering about. Can you remove a vertex without removing the associated polygons? I guess like a flatten or bypass kind of thing.

Felix/FFDS

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Reply #7 - Mar 23^rd, 2002 at 8:45pm

X_eidos2 Offline
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Slicing is a inefficent way of adding a segment because it adds too many additional polygons to the shape. The slice modifier will add verticies at every point that it intersects an edge of a polygon. The only time slicing makes sense is if you need to make a precise edit across a complex shape, or you aren't worried about the number of polygons in your shape.

There are other ways to add segments. Using your box example to illustrate.

If the box isn't an editable mesh already, make it one.
select the Face modifier. Select the face that's perpendicular to the part of the box where you want to add the segement. Then find the "extrude" button and extrude the face.

If you want to add more vertices to an edge, so that you can give it a smoother curve, select the "edge" editor and look for the "divide" button. Click on the edge you want to add a vertice to and a vertice will be added at the halfway point between the two vertices.

If you go to the help menu in Gmax and type in Face Extrude Modifier, you get a clear example of what I was talking about.

3dstudio max 2.5 had a real good tutorial on low-polygon modelling, which is what you're doing when you make a plane shape. That's where I picked up a lot of the tricks I used when making player shapes for the flight sims I made while working at Eidos Interactive.

If you have seen the P-38 Gmax tutorial put out by Discreet, don't study it too much as it has some pretty bad methods in it.

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Reply #8 - Mar 23^rd, 2002 at 10:09pm

Psychophant1 Offline
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Unfortunately, that's what I was basing my work on. After doing a few more tutorials, I'm getting more familiar with the methods and techniques available in Gmax. I have since started over from scratch making a much simpler model to be refined later. Thanks for the advice.

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Reply #9 - Mar 23^rd, 2002 at 10:46pm

Bonzonie Offline
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Quote:

Slicing is a inefficent way of adding a segment because it adds too many additional polygons to the shape. The slice modifier will add verticies at every point that it intersects an edge of a polygon. The only time slicing makes sense is if you need to make a precise edit across a complex shape, or you aren't worried about the number of polygons in your shape.

There are other ways to add segments. Using your box example to illustrate.

If the box isn't an editable mesh already, make it one.
select the Face modifier. Select the face that's perpendicular to the part of the box where you want to add the segement. Then find the "extrude" button and extrude the face.

If you want to add more vertices to an edge, so that you can give it a smoother curve, select the "edge" editor and look for the "divide" button. Click on the edge you want to add a vertice to and a vertice will be added at the halfway point between the two vertices.

If you go to the help menu in Gmax and type in Face Extrude Modifier, you get a clear example of what I was talking about.

3dstudio max 2.5 had a real good tutorial on low-polygon modelling, which is what you're doing when you make a plane shape. That's where I picked up a lot of the tricks I used when making player shapes for the flight sims I made while working at Eidos Interactive.

If you have seen the P-38 Gmax tutorial put out by Discreet, don't study it too much as it has some pretty bad methods in it.

I have got to try this! The Slice thingy ruins the wing by adding vertex points at wierd places Sad

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Reply #10 - Jan 18^th, 2004 at 6:22pm

anim8r Offline
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I wouldn't discount slice so quickly...just make sure you go through and snap extra verts to another point and weld down...slice can quickly allow you to put spans exactly where you need them...I am also a big fan of shape merge which will allow you to draw a spline and then cut it onto your polygonal model...learning to use shape merge is a bit of a trick but once you do you will love it.

All good lo polygon modeling requires vert welding, opening up tools like slice, boolean and shape merge to your toolkit, as well as allowing you to reduce your total polygon count where you need to. Knowing all aspects of the sub-object (vert, edge, poly, element) is essential in good modeling technique.

Also, I agree that the P-38 tutorial is not the best in terms of learning good modeling skills. Essentially the p-38 is a bunch of intersecting objects, not how I would build it as one uniform object.

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Reply #11 - Jan 18^th, 2004 at 6:37pm

Felix/FFDS Offline
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Quote:

Also, I agree that the P-38 tutorial is not the best in terms of learning good modeling skills. Essentially the p-38 is a bunch of intersecting objects, not how I would build it as one uniform object.

I view the gmax tutorials as "learning" the program, not neceessarily as "modelling" tutorials.

Felix/FFDS

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