Screencapture of the VM

As you can see tesselations can be done to a whole mesh via the selection menu. You can also get rid of all those pesky triangles, with untriangulate.

Anyone else see anything that is interesting? ;)

The more you guy's show us the more I get sold on getting the upgrade. Funny that when it first got announce, it didn't seem very exciting, but the more I learn, the more I want it.

Nicholas: Is the convert button in the subdivision menu used to convert to a new mesh with the subdivision smoothing taken into account? The other interesting thing seems that you can select a shading domain directly in the properties tray...hmmm, or was this already available in C3? I don't recall.

Yes the convert button is used to convert the mesh with the subdivision smoothing taken into account. The domain was there in the properties tray. The nice thing is how domains now show up in the VM! Brian

what is the "Edit Mode" selection up at the top for?

Attached Link: http://www.vizualds.com/comment.php?comment.news.99

Check out this link for info on that brainmuffin http://www.vizualds.com/comment.php?comment.news.99 Brian

Nicolas86, I've asked this before but haven't seen an answer yet and, since your playing in the VM maybe you can tell me. I model for Poser in the vertex modellerand at native Poser sizes the handles are offset (see the image attached). Does the vertex modeller still offset the handles when working at very small scales?

I haven't really noticed this. Though I've heard the common reason for this is using the zoom tool I rarely use it in the directors cam. I'll check on it for you though. Brian

Actually it's not just the zoom tool. The attached photo I didn't use the zoom tool at all, just the position arrows, see the image is still set for 100%. I'm sure it's an artifact due to the small scale of Poser items, unfortunately that's what I'm working on and it just easier to do it in native scale, Rescaling creates errors no matter how careful you are. Version 1 and 2 don't have this problem. I'm not sure what was changed for version 3. I brounght it up then and was told it would be fixed with a service release but... I'd like to see it fixed in 4 but I'll buy it anyway. mike

Mike, Can you email me a poser file? Zip it please. I'll test it for you. I have Poser, but I'd like to test one that you know does this. brian@vizualds.com Brian

Hmph. Back when I was trying to use Amorphium for Poser morphs I gave up on trying to keep scale. Most of the time I work at a comfortable scale in Carrara, export, import to Poser at "percent figure size" and tweak it back into position in a wireframe ortho view. I've gotten very fast at this and it doesn't bother me anymore. Of course, if it's something like touching up a UV map or cleaning up one stray vert I'll put up with working at Poser scale.

Well, the other reason I like to stay in Poser native scale is for morph creation on the clothing object. I find that even the slightest mistake in the program when rescaling the objects (or my own mistakes for that matter) can wreck a morph. It's much easier to stay in Poser native scale, or rather much easier if you can grab the handles. Often I just use Carrara 2 for morphing, but I like the tools in C3 and the ones in C4 look even better, for creating the models. Mike

Regarding the "Decimate" function in the menu - does it now work better? Found the CS3 functionality of "Decimate" to be quite useless for polygon reduction. Cheers, Rune

Send me a complex model you were having trouble with, I'll check it out. It seems to work find for me. Do keep in mind that you get Amapi Designer, which has excellent polygon reductino tools. Email one to me though at brian@vizualds.com and I'll respond back to you. Brian

No need to get complex :) Just make a primitive sphere - convert to vertex model and try to decimate vertex count by 80%. The result speaks for itself. The functionality I would like, would be to decimate a high-poly model to a low poly model which with subdivision level 3 would approximate the original high-level 3D shape (with some inevitable smoothing of course). But that may be a tall order. Doing decimate by fidelity gives a bit better result, but needs several iterations and then funny yellow polys start appear etc. Cheers, Rune

I'd like to go the other way....to tesselate or subdivide with control of the kind of verts created AND the curve of the new surface. As far as I know applying SubD is the only way to create a smoothed surface and you only get the default curve for this. The other tesselate functions stay planar to the original faces.

Well, the other way around I think C3 also lacks some finesse & tools but that's another topic. Generally I don't think there's an easy way to do this - because it would require the software to read your mind for what you wished. So the practical way is to add contour lines which defines the details you want. Mainly would be pleased if it was possible to easily do the things described in this car modeling tutorial: http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=156460&page=1&pp=15 Better control/navigation/editing features in general are needed to make such tasks easier in C3 and even C4 (?) Also integrating the vertex modeling into the normal viewports would be nice. But again that's another topic. A good polygon reduction tool in itself is a premier feature. Cheers, Rune

Amapi 7 has the tools needed for that car tutorial.

Well, I tried Amapi (v5 I think) but found that it was not my "cup of tea". For sure it has advanced modeling etc, but the interface is something you either enjoy or not. At least that's my impression.

V5 and V7 are like comparing night and day rune.