michalis - The tool being used in that video is the remesh modifier (dual contouring), which is mostly quads. Adaptive sculpt is different (but there are no builds or videos up yet.) It uses all triangles. Does that clarify?
Regarding triangle subdivision to quads, you could just apply the subsurf modifier (set to one level of subdivision.) Maybe not the nicest workflow to have to switch out of editmode, but that at least gives you the tessellation you’re looking for.
FreeMind - Yep, finding neighboring vertices (and faces) is indeed important for this tool. I’m using a format similar to that suggested in the original paper, where each face (triangle actually) knows its neighbors, and each vertex knows precisely one of the faces that uses it. Since the mesh is guaranteed to be manifold, finding all faces (and equivalently, all vertices) that neighbor a vertex can be done quite quickly with a constant amount of extra storage space per mesh element. Originally I’d attempted to store neighbor information as indices into the mesh-element arrays, but this proved to tricky to get right, particularly when elements might move into new nodes in the BVH, so I recently switched it all over to using pointers and linked lists.
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so that makes UC very very slow, which is why Farsthary is waiting for bmesh… Well actually, he said he might port his work right to bmesh and continue from there…
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ok are these equivalent or complementary
and are we gone get the 2 methods in blender ?
RickyBlender - UC and adaptive sculpt have similar intent, but completely different implementations. UC was implemented on top of EditMesh (which will eventually be supplanted by Bmesh.) As to what ends up in Blender – I intend to get adaptive sculpt usable and stable. That’s all I know for sure
Nicholasbishop,what kind of details(polycount) will be possible with adaptive sculpt?
How adaptive sculpt handles thin surfaces,for example a bat wings?
From an user point of view,it could be really interesting having a system than allows to sculpt everything but surface detailing(for example if you sculpt a demon the system should allow to do wings and horns,but if you want to give high frequency details you should use other/standard sculpting tool)
renderdemon - At this point, I’m honestly not sure how high of a polycount you’ll be able to get to with adaptive sculpt. I’ll figure that out better once it’s not crashing constantly. As for thin surfaces, that’s a somewhat settable parameter (although it’s also a constrained parameter, related to the detail-size parameter.) I’m not sure yet how it will work in a situation like wings; again it’ll be easier to tell once it’s not crashing
I was referring to this video from your Vimeo account.
When you released it the community was very happy and warm, but in real world modeling it didn’t perform very well.
Are there any further improvements from that time or is that still the state of the art?
Cheers!
Carrozza - I wouldn’t say it’s state-of-the-art – there are better remeshing algorithms out there – but in terms of the remesh modifier as implemented in Blender, it has not gotten further improvements, no.
Here is the video showing how I use it in my workflow, it’s not the best example and definitely not my only one, however this is one of the few finished models I made using the skin modifier (and my favourite one ).
I also use the skin modifier to create quick models for concept work (it’s like 3d sketching), I have used it to create references for more detailed models and even for quick animatic models (which I can’t show, I don’t want to reveal anything of that project just yet).
Nicholas, thank you for your hard work. Adaptive sculpt looks very extremly promising. Along with other guys I would like to help you with beta testing, but I use linux. When and where linux users can find first builds for linux (if it’s possible)? Please let us know when availabe, thanks
michalis - The tool being used in that video is the remesh modifier (dual contouring), which is mostly quads. Adaptive sculpt is different (but there are no builds or videos up yet.) It uses all triangles. Does that clarify?
Of course, thank you Nicholas.
I was just asking… this dual contouring reminded me the “new” zbrush dynamesh. Which, actually, works surprisingly good on thin meshes.
I have been watching farsthary’s blog and he has done an impressive work, also it looks like he has somehow managed to keep the dynamic subdivision working with with the topology altering algorithm. Maybe some work on his unlimited clay patch would be good but sculpt code in general is in a disarray right now with bmesh/GSOC stuff on hold. We really need to sit down and give some direction to the tools.
The Remesh modifier is especially handy for making filled splines usable for displacement/sculpting. What I’ve taken to doing is drawing out site plans/designs with filled Curves, converting them to mesh, applying the Remesh modifier to get an even grid across the surface, and then they’re much easier to work with (although quite a bit heavier). It becomes much easier to mesh-model with them, extrude parts, cut away at them, subdivide them, and in general manipulate them.
Could something like Remesh be added as an option for filled Curves? For example, it could be a new option in the Curve panel to fill with the old method or fill with a grid (Remesh). Would be very handy, because right now filled curves are impossible to distort nicely since they’re all long and very thin triangles. Having this setting in the Curve panel would also allow you to perhaps tweak the detail or resolution to the exact curves you need or something without having to convert to Mesh.
Anyway, very useful modifier and great set of tools that you’re developing!
Psy-Fi - I wouldn’t say the sculpt code is in disarray. BMesh should not have a very big effect on sculpt, and while it will be good to get code from the various sculpt-related GSOCs in, they’re mostly adding new features rather than cleaning up code. Suggestions of course welcome for ways to clean up the code though
StompinTom - Interesting, I hadn’t thought about that application. I’ll look into that further.
Yep, input is required to be all triangles. (Eventually will make the Dynamic Topology operator convert the mesh to triangles automatically, just haven’t gotten to it yet.)
