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Progressive Morphing
Progressive morphing has been added to the morpher modifier, giving the ability to use more than one morph target per channel and therefore a non-linear morphing approach can be achieved. Any intermediate morph target is stored in a list for each morph channel. You can set the percentage of each in-between target and the tension to define the curve of the morphing.
In earlier versions of max, morphing always happened linearly and workarounds had to be found to avoid interpenetration when morphing eyelids, for example, where the eyelid morphed through the eyeball. Different channels with intermediate targets had to be set up to achieve one morph. The problem with that was that every channel had to be animated, and tools like progressive morphing help keep the number of keyframes to a manageable amount.
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Modeling
Poly Modeling
Poly modeling in 3ds max 5 has been greatly enhanced with the integration of many tools that were previously available in the Meshtools script collection written by Laszlo Sebo. By integrating them into the polyobject, they became faster and more reliable while adding more flexibility. Most of these tools. like edgeloop selection, grow and shrink selection, connect, hinge from edge and repeat last are based on the toolset of Izwares' famous 3D packages Mirai and Nendo. It seems that nowadays it's become a trend to copy toolsets from other programs. Some of Mirai's modeling tools can also be found in Maya and XSI, and it’s good to see that discreet is going the same way because for most organic modelers today, polymodeling is the preferred modeling technique, and these tools are just as essential for modeling as bones are for character animation.
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| Dope Sheet (Click to expand) |
Tools like the new hinge from edge or extrude along a spline benefit a lot from the settings dialog, as you can interactively change the number of segments or pick another spline or hinge from a different edge, etc.
Unfortunately, due to these dialog boxes, there are no spinners anymore for tools like extrude or chamfer in the main editable poly interface. One of the functions I used a lot was the so-called ‘zero extrude’ where you right click on the extrude spinner and it extrudes the new polygon on the same position as the original one and then just move the new poly wherever you want. Now you have to click on the dialog box button, set the spinner to zero and hit apply or OK. This changed from one click to two to three clicks. On a normal modeling session I use this way of extruding polys many times so each click you have to do is quite important.
The ability to quickly choose between global, local normal and by polygon extrusion has changed in the same way, as they are now only available in the dialog box.
But through a very simple script (thanks to Bobo for this www.scriptspot.com/bobo) which simply does a zero extrude on the selected polygons, I was able to use it as a keyboard shortcut which is even better than what I used before.
Although you might still miss a couple of features like edge turn or relax as a function inside the editable poly, scripts like Meshtools or CSPolytools from Christoph Subagio have proven how much can be done through scripting. And the possibilities in 3ds max 5 have now grown even bigger.
Constraints are also a powerful new enhancement to the poly modeling toolset in 3ds max 5.
You can constrain any sub object to the edges or faces of the current selection. This means that, for example, a vertex can be moved along the edges that it is connected to. The new enhanced cut tool is now able to cut everything from any sub object, so you can cut from a vertex through an edge to a face all in one action.
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| Symmetry modifier (Click image for larger view) |
Another great new tool is the Symmetry modifier. It basically takes any object and mirrors it along the defined axis, slices it along the mirror plane and welds the points along the seam.
Soft Selections can now be displayed as shaded faces, finally making soft selections of faces and edges ‘visible.’
As good and useful as these tools are, another important factor during modeling with NURMS (3ds max's version of polygon-based subdivision surfaces) is speed -- and unfortunately that hasn’t changed from the previous release. Meshsmooth still needs a fair amount of time to calculate the subdivisions on regular detailed models. As subdivision surfaces are already the industry standard for organic modeling, this part of the modeling process definitely cries for an update.
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| Unwrap UVW modifier (Click image for larger view) |
The Unwrap UVW modifier has undergone an extensive overhaul.
Enabling automatic flattening of UVs is probably the most significant feature for editing complex mappings, and is great when used with Peter Watjes' painter plugin. Three different methods have been implemented to choose from, depending on the shape and complexity of the mesh.
After applying one of the three methods, the model is cut into little pieces depending on the defined angle, and tools like Stitch Selected, Soft Selections or Sketch vertices help to rearrange the UVs the way you want.
The floating options window is also accessible through maxscript and there are already free scripts available to complete the feature set -- such as Relax UVs, a great tool to get rid of overlapping UVs by smoothing the UV points.
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