Forum: Vue


Subject: The Vue 5 Wish List!

MikeJ opened this issue on Aug 14, 2001 ยท 143 posts


Varian posted Mon, 15 October 2001 at 10:55 AM

That reminds me of my "primitive desires"! :) Primitive polyhedrons would be at the top of my list. I think the most ideal manner of adding them would be to permit an Editing of primitives (the way we can currently Edit the torus) for selecting how many sides to give an object, say from 3 to 60. ("Sixty" may be higher than the top-end Vue currently uses, but I'll refer to it for convenience.) Primitives that could get this treatment: sphere -- 8 (octahedron) to 60 (full sphere) cylinder -- 3 (triangle) to 60 (full circle) pyramid -- 3 (tetrahedron) to 60 (cone) A cone could be created by using a pyramid at the top-end setting, so the cone object itself could be removed, or it could be retained as a shortcut. A cube would remain a cube, and a plane would remain a plane...but maybe a torus could be Edited for number of sides on a cross-section. In other words, the torus would still be a circular object (the doughnut), but in the other direction it could be polygonal, with a selection of how many sides to give it. If you consider shapes as basic as a typical pencil shaft or a tool nut, it's easy to see where polyhedrons would come in very handy. To create a nut now at minimum would require a cylinder -- with six cubes and a cylinder subtracted from it -- to achieve the nut's hexagonal slab shape with a hole in the center. Total: eight objects. With the Editing factor suggested here, building a nut would take one cylinder Edited to be 6-sided, plus a cylinder subtracted from the center. Total: two objects. Less objects means less polygons means less "bulk" in a scene; faster rendering time or more room for adding other objects. I'd also like to see a couple other features added to primitive Editing, if it would be possible. 1 - to be able to Taper an object (shrink or enlarge one end while the other end remains stable) 2 - to be able to Twist an object (rotate one end while the other end remains stationary) 3 - to be able to add some degree of roundness/beveling to the edges of an object, perhaps with a variable selection of how much "roundness" to apply to it.