Nice, however it doesn’t seem to generate the same quality meshes as the bmeshes from the first link. Those are really clean. The topology from Nicolas’s meshes isn’t that clean yet. Look at how the torso area is generated.
Before I get flamed, I think it is really cool that he is playing with this. I hope he can get it to work like the examples in the first link, but even if it doesn’t get far, it is certainly cool that he is trying.
Judging from the pictures on Twitter, it looks very good. Only around the torso and head area there’s topology problems, i think it has more to do with how it does the transition between a large surface and narrow protrusions like the arms and horns. Doesn’t seem like anything major though.
Actually im VERY impressed at how fast this was implemented!
Pesho, it does look good. Super fast base mesh creation - right into sculpt. A very “zBrush” like experience. I use similar tools in 3D Coat, and this would really help rapid prototyping characters and ideas.
Again, too cool!
TheLorax
The man is lightning fast!!! Check out his twitter feed and the crazy model he created.
Here’s the post:
Another test: this thing is much fun to play with! 
plan now is to take a step back and think about integration
TheLorax
Tears of joy from my side.
Awesomeness CUBED! 
"Awesomeness CUBED! "
Bears repeating.
I only saw good screen captures with following objects.
I think using extrusions (with Ctrl left click) in edit mode can make this kind of low poly shapes, faster.
I hope that this tool could make more complex shape with juxtaposed objects like muscles on bones.
@ zeauro:
Yes but that method is not as interactive, the more you extrude, the more you start to fiddle with every vertex. Ctrl+extrude usually still requires a lot of repositioning adterwards.
Nobody force you to model in vertex select mode.
Why creating, extruding, scaling and repositioning and then converting a bsphere to mesh; when you can use default cube, extrude, scale and reposition a face selection really easily with existing tools ?
There is an automatic rotation with ctrl extrude, now, that can be disable with shift. You can drag a selection with one click and rotate it with R key.
If you use dedicated objet; you also have to do a selection, drag, scale it. I think you overestimate what you call interactivity.
I don’t see any interest to bspheres if it can’t do what is shown at the end of array sketch video.
I wil be very happy if this add-on was updated.
I can imagine this being awesome for sculpting, but for more humanoid-complex meshes, good old retopo tools update would be nicer I’d assume aye.
Cool new screen shots up on Nicholas’s Twitter page plus some info on the process, as well as, and a cool little character!
Neat stuff!
TheLorax
I need to go back and find a link to his page…I hope I don’t NEED to use twitter to see them…anyway, this is good stuff.
It reminds me Tree From Curves.
Let’s agree to disagree then.
I don’t just model in vertex mode, I use all three, but mostly vertex and edge mode, with loop, ring, ctrl+drag select mode in my opinion you can select and tweak very fast.
I didn’t know the auto rotation is included in ctrl extrude nowadays, but then again that suggests how little I use it. Maybe I should, right now I use normal extrude.
From what I’ve seen in the demo videos in the first post, bmesh would imo be a bit quicker, because it automatically interpolates and rotates not only the tip you just extruded, but also interpolates the other vertices/loop before the extrude.
Right now however, the mesh from Nicholas’ bmesh/bspheres appears to generate differently from the bmesh paper’s generated meshes.
The bmesh examples seem to have a cube at every bone tip/root, and a box with possibly a loop between the tip and root of each bone.
See this image from the bmesh video:
And this is how the mesh looks in Nicolas’ tests:
Blue is how it is generated, red is how I think bmesh does it, and I think this gives a better basemesh, less stretching, and a more predictable basemesh.
Another idea, it would be cool if you could choose which bones to generate from, for instance by using a prefix. For example, bones in my rig that deform use the DEF_ prefix. If you could use these bones to generate a basemesh, you wouldn’t have to build a new rig, or refit an old one. You just change proportions on one rig you build, and you have your new basemesh WITH a full blown, full featured rig. More icing on the cake would be if the generated basemesh is automatically weighted. That shouldn’t be too hard either, since the root and tip generally only have to be weighted to two bones. So if you have a spine1, spine2 and spine3 bone, the "cube generated at the tip of spine1/root of spine2 will be fully weighted to both the spine1 and spine2, and the tip of spine2/root of spine3 will be fully weighted to both spine2 and spine3. If there are segments between spine2 and spine3, these vertices get weighted to spine2.
This would be useful. I can see a lot of uses for that with my MTI_biped rig.
That’s not what the paper does There’s a link to it at the beginning of the thread; why not take a look? The relevant sections start at 4.2. Seriously, I’d love it if more people actually read the academic graphics papers that get thrown around so much. They are often not quite what the poster thinks they are from the headline/images.
Anyway, a quick word of explanation: none of the mesh evolution or mesh fairing code is complete yet, and it’s not enabled in any of the images I’ve posted. There’s also additional quad weighting based on symmetry that I haven’t implemented yet, which will further improve the output.
More soon,
-Nicholas
Thanks for working on this Nicholas! As always, incredible work. This should be a great time saving device and help a ton of us out!
Keep it coming!
TheLorax
For an early work, it looks really amazing.