3ds max, Select only non occluded faces

Jonas Ronnegard

I have searched quite a bit on how to do this, but I haven't been able to find a good way
this would save me a couple of days work if someone could help me find a solution.

I came across this script, but i can't seem to get it to work.

http://www.illusioncatalyst.com/mxs_files/getFrontFaces.html#getFrontFaces

For those who might not understand what my problem is, it's that i only want to select faces that are not occluded by other faces.

Blubberblase

there is a checkbox in your polygon modelling tools thats called ignore backfacing, not quite sure if that's what you are looking for

Jonas Ronnegard

Yeah sadly it's not that simple, It will still select faces facing the same direction regardless if occluded or not.

cptSwing

Yeah, Max does that and I'm afraid it's nothing that can be "fixed" (debate whether it's useful and intentional is still on-going ;-))

Sometimes I really wish I still used XSI with its solid raycast selection.

Mark Dygert

There is a raycast selection in max, well technically it was in polyboost which they stuffed in the ribbon that everyone tries to ignore.

In the Ribbon modeling tools, go to selection, by view, and turn up "grow from perspective view".

Jonas Ronnegard

Thanks for trying to help guys,

As for the Ribbon, I actually use it quite a lot,
And Sadly I can't seem to get the grow from perspective view to work like you say, or
maybe you just misunderstood my problem.

It seems to work the same as ignore back facing just that you grow it instead of selecting.
It doesn't ignore Occluded faces.

Mark Dygert

I guess I don't understand what you mean by "Occluded faces".

If you flip a few faces on the back of a sphere then select with "ignore backfacing" turned on it will grab those faces that are technically not in the view of the camera but are facing it.

With grow from perspective it will ignore them.

Is the problem that it grows the selection from the closest point to the camera/view and doesn't take into account if it's visible or not?

I'm having a hard time visualizing what it is that you're trying to do...

monster

I think he wants to ignore faces inside of the model. Imagine you have a sphere, and you also have a cylinder sticking out of the sphere on both sides. He only wants to select the faces not inside there sphere.

The reason SyncViews script doesn't work is because it's missing a fucntion called getPolyFromMeshFace(), and it doesn't seem to be available on his webpage. SyncViews checks in here on occasion, maybe he can supply it.

Jonas Ronnegard

Sorry if I was being a bit unclear
I thought occluded was the right word to use in this situation.

Monster is spot on about what i wanted to do, And I solved it
by exporting my meshes to maya and use the camera based selection tool,
worked exactly how i wanted, happy ending.