I think they make more of a plop noise. Actually I was just looking for a little help. I've familiarized myself with making boolean models and all that, but for some reason I've never been able to make a succesful negative metaball on another metaball. Is there something I'm missing?

Make a metaball in the normal fashion. Make a second metaball but hold down the shift key while clicking on the metaball icon in the create menu; this will be your negative metaball. Move the negative metaball so that it is close proximity to the normal one, but is not inside it. (use the top, side views). You should see something like this when you render (it doesn't show up in wireframe, only when rendering).

Yeah I don't know why they don't make things like this more obvious... Same goes for excluding certain materials from the anti-aliasing process.

Thanks tjohn,I live and learn! I'm going to try this right now.Can metaballs be booleaned with primatives and terrains?

Don't think meatballs boolean, no. But I could be wrong :)

No they can't... I wish they could; but they can't.

Maybe in a future version. Along with a metaball "make mesh" command, so a metaball construct can become a mesh. Shouldn't be that hard, "Imagine" did it years ago.

Message edited on: 09/04/2004 02:03

Grouping a Set of Metaballs will prevent them to interfere with other metaballs. Keep this in mind, too.

Yup, Bryce 6 Metaballs NEED to be able to be booleaned in the same fashion as regular primitives. AS

Has anyone informed DAZ of this yet..............AS 8)

Oh, yes, I gave them the metaball rundown.

More primitives.
All primitives must also be available as a MetaShape.
Metashapes must be booleaned in the same way as primitives.
MetaShapes need to be editable in their tension, attractability, etc.
Metashapes need to be able to be converted into normal mesh for faster rendering times, and for export.

etc, etc.

AgentSmith

Just out of curiousity, are there any plans to add simple modeling solutions? like lathing lofting box modeling or nurbs? Probably not all of those, or many,, but will there be simple polygon modeling?

IF there would be, that would be a 6.0 possibility. Otherwise, can't say. AS

It's still gets me all excited, the possibility of a Bryce 6.0. I really do hope DAZ can give us something that will add to it's usability and OH! faster render times, can't wait. 8)

so to make a negative metaball all I have to do is shift click the metaball icon? I am really going to have to dig up my Bryce User's Manual. These simple things are driving me crazy. I had a bunch of other questions and cannot remember any of them.

Absolutely. Hold down "Shift", and click the metaball icon to create a negative metaball. You can always duplicate an exsisting a negative metaball, to create more if ya want, whatever is faster/easier for you. ;oi AS

OMG!! I just realised you can use the CTRL and SHIFT key when creating other primitves to get the old Bryce-3D shapes (squashed, stretched etc). Can't think now why I need to, but it's still cool.

Metasequioa (free app) has great metaballs. They're extraordinarily easy to work with. Once you've made your blobby thing you can 'convert to mesh', then reduce the polycount to whatever suits you. It would be well worth Daz's programmers time to see how the Meta guy has done it!! If anyone wants to try Meta, you need to download both versions, free and pro. As far as I remember you can do your modelling in the pro version, save to the native meta format, then open in the free version and export as wav. I'll be away for the next few days, but I seem to remember that I forwarded the download addresses to Zhann a few months ago. Definitely worth having a play with (Meta, not Zhann.......;o))