Some tool requests

guategeek · Nov 6, 2006

Some tool requests

Hey Martin

Nice modeler you got here. I hadn't realy played with it before, but now that I'm stuck on an Intel Mac and Maya won't run for me, I have been playing with any Universal Binary modeler I can get my hands on.

First of all, great work, Cheetah has great potential, and I could see it being one of the most used modelers in the Unity comunity, at least for the lower budget Indy crowd. So I would like to sugest some tools that would improve the power of Cheetah a lot (and I would asume shouldn't be hugely dificult to implement, but I'm not a programer so what would I know).

Modeling:
-the option of symetrical extruding when working on two sides of a model would be wonderful.

-the option to set a % value for the scalpel tool. So say I put 50% on both points that I'm creating with scalpel tool, this would alow me to perfectly split the poly in two. Even just displaying the % and alowing us to set "snap %es" would be sweet

-The ability to select polygones and select a subdevide option that breakes the poly up into more polys depending on the number of sub devisions we want.

-The ability to set a Vertex's XYZ position numericaly

UV Mapping

-The ability to set a UV's XYZ postion numericaly

-Snaping tools, that let you select multipul UVs and snap them to a numerical value. For exampel I have 3 UVs that all have different X values, I select them and click the snap "up to X" or "down to X" button and it takes the higest X or lowes X value respectivly and aplys it to all the UVs.

-A mirro UV option

-The option to weld UVs together, or break UVs apart

-The option to zoom in and out in the UV editor with the "option + mouse button 2"

------------

Well I'll shut up for now, I'm sure you have many other things to implement that are more important than these, so no hard feelings if you don't get around to them. Great app, and I'll definetly keep an eye on it. Also if you want more sugestions I would be happy to offer more

Have a great day martin. Jeff

P.S. Probably some of these features are there and I just didn't see them

fused · Nov 6, 2006

Welcome guategeek, like you said some of the request you made can be done already.

-the option of symetrical extruding when working on two sides of a model would be wonderful.

The symmetry creator/ modifier let you do this.

-the option to set a % value for the scalpel tool. So say I put 50% on both points that I'm creating with scalpel tool, this would alow me to perfectly split the poly in two. Even just displaying the % and alowing us to set "snap %es" would be sweet

The present scapel tool already snaps to points but it would be good to snap to centre of an edge.

-The ability to select polygones and select a subdevide option that breakes the poly up into more polys depending on the number of sub devisions we want.

To subdivide per polygon you can use the linear subdivide tool. Yer right thought, the linear subdivide doesn't allow you to specify an iteration.

-The ability to set a Vertex's XYZ position numericaly

The set value tool should let you do this.

-The ability to set a UV's XYZ postion numericaly

This would be a useful addition.

-Snaping tools, that let you select multipul UVs and snap them to a numerical value. For exampel I have 3 UVs that all have different X values, I select them and click the snap "up to X" or "down to X" button and it takes the higest X or lowes X value respectivly and aplys it to all the UVs.

-A mirro UV option

-The option to weld UVs together, or break UVs apart

I agreed.

-The option to zoom in and out in the UV editor with the "option + mouse button 2"

You can already zoom, pan and target. I think you can assign some of them to hot keys.

guategeek · Nov 6, 2006

First thanks for the help with some of the tools already having some features.

fused said:
You can already zoom, pan and target. I think you can assign some of them to hot keys.

Yah I know you can zoom, pan and target. In the 3D mode you can zoom using the standard "option MouseButton2" combination or you can use the scroll wheel. But in UV mode you can only use the scroll wheel, so I was asking for the ability to zoom with the "option MouseButton2" combination in the UV editor as well.

Now back to working on UVing a model

Jeff

fused · Nov 6, 2006

guategeek said:
First thanks for the help with some of the tools already having some features.

Yah I know you can zoom, pan and target. In the 3D mode you can zoom using the standard "option MouseButton2" combination or you can use the scroll wheel. But in UV mode you can only use the scroll wheel, so I was asking for the ability to zoom with the "option MouseButton2" combination in the UV editor as well.

Now back to working on UVing a model Jeff

Your right Jeff, I've had a check through the preps. How are the finding the UV editor? I'm using it alot more but would like to know any tips or tricks.

Andrew

guategeek · Nov 6, 2006

Well the UV editor is lacking tons of features over the only other UV editor I have used (which is Mayas). But it has the basics working pretty well, and with some work it could easily surpass Mayas UV editor.

If I find any tips or tricks I'll let you know. As for UVing in general, its a tricky thing to get a hang of (and I'm still a Noob). A good thing to do is create a checkerd texture and use it when UVing to help you get the model covered with a more or less equal dpi, it also helps with avoiding texture streching.

Since I mostly work on models that will be used in a Real Time Environment I also try and use as many of the pixels in my texture as posible, so that VRAM isn't being wasted when its being rendered. Well catch you around

Jeff

fused said:
Your right Jeff, I've had a check through the preps. How are the finding the UV editor? I'm using it alot more but would like to know any tips or tricks.

Andrew

fused · Nov 6, 2006

Thanks for the advise.

Andrew

Martin · Nov 6, 2006

Hi Jeff,
I know that there are still some features missing. And as Andrew already said some features are already available. It is always hard to decide how deep I go into implementing a certain tools group because I have to consider that some features are missing completely like joints or a particle system. So I'm already happy if I cover the basic tools which are needed to get 95% of the jobs done.

At the moment I mainly invest my time into the character animation features which are also highly requested by the Unity community.

Nevertheless I'm always interested to hear tips to enhance the UI or the workflow. If I also like the feature requests its just a matter of time until they appear in Cheetah3D.

Bye,
Martin

fused · Nov 7, 2006

Yah I know you can zoom, pan and target. In the 3D mode you can zoom using the standard "option MouseButton2" combination or you can use the scroll wheel. But in UV mode you can only use the scroll wheel, so I was asking for the ability to zoom with the "option MouseButton2" combination in the UV editor as well.

-command+alt+lmb, do'h I should read the manual more.

Andrew

guategeek · Nov 7, 2006

Your doing a great job too! Its realy impresive to see what you have done, and to think that your just one guy doing all that! I'm sure the character animation tools and FBX export is high on the list, and look forward to seeing them incorperated. Catch you all latter

Jeff

Martin said:
Hi Jeff,
I know that there are still some features missing. And as Andrew already said some features are already available. It is always hard to decide how deep I go into implementing a certain tools group because I have to consider that some features are missing completely like joints or a particle system. So I'm already happy if I cover the basic tools which are needed to get 95% of the jobs done.

At the moment I mainly invest my time into the character animation features which are also highly requested by the Unity community.

Nevertheless I'm always interested to hear tips to enhance the UI or the workflow. If I also like the feature requests its just a matter of time until they appear in Cheetah3D.

Bye,
Martin