3ds Max "Make Planar" tool.

Jabberwockxeno

Is there a way to get this to work so that it makes every face it is used on to be on it's own plane?

If I go and apply it manually to each face, the adjacent ones get distrubed. If I select more than one face and use it, all of the selected faces become aloigned in one plane.

SlyRipper

I guess there was something like unflatten all. You can setup an specific degree and max will seperate each tile with this degree. Maybe this helps you a bit. Another way would be a script that performs the planar mapping for you. I would also think about unwraping it normally and then just break appart several polys so you get the results you like. (btw pelt mapping works also for such stuff, if you relax it afterwards you should get the shapes u want to)

spacefrog

Sly:
I think you missread "Make planar" with "Map Planar"

To the original poster:
What you request sounds pretty impossible to me: to make a face planar, the method has to change the vertex positions involved in that face. So in case those specific vertices happen to be used in other faces will be repositioned, which breaks the planarity of those other faces... I guess it would be a nice mathematical research project, to find the optimal solution with the least ammount of non-planar faces achiveable by an algorithm. For closed organic geometries i doubt that such a solution would exist

SlyRipper

spacefrog wrote: »

Sly:
I think you missread "Make planar" with "Map Planar"

Ups, just re-read the post.. makes more sense now ^^ Wasn't fully awaken I guess :P my fault.

Jabberwockxeno

spacefrog wrote: »

Sly:
I think you missread "Make planar" with "Map Planar"

To the original poster:
What you request sounds pretty impossible to me: to make a face planar, the method has to change the vertex positions involved in that face. So in case those specific vertices happen to be used in other faces will be repositioned, which breaks the planarity of those other faces... I guess it would be a nice mathematical research project, to find the optimal solution with the least ammount of non-planar faces achiveable by an algorithm. For closed organic geometries i doubt that such a solution would exist

How does everybody have clean, planar polys, then?

Do I just suck at topology?

spacefrog

Jabberwockxeno wrote: »

How does everybody have clean, planar polys, then?

Do I just suck at topology?

Don't know - but i would like to see wether z-brush base models are really planar quads or it'S only the display/shading algorithm giving the illusion of them all being planar. If i think mathematically i tend to believe (or my guts do that) that it's not really trivial to make it all planar there in those quads ;-)
Of course when the model-parts are symmetric on some axis it'S possible ( like- z spheres etc...) but later on this seems pretty hard to maintain...

arshlevon

You could always just scale along z locally to make a flat poly.

nnq2603

Sounds unable to do perfectly/automatically in default Max, IMO. Usually, when want make amount of given vertices planar, there's 2 way to go.

1. Simply use Make Planar in editpoly command panel. (Only for world axis - x, y, z)
   
   
2. Use scale to 0% by object axis (usually is) Z.
   • This's more useful than the Make Planar command, because it allows you select different mode(s) to apply the scaling (also useful for moving/rotating). If scaling in Z axis, in Local mode or parent mode, it'll repect the face orientation.
     
   • But not anytime local mode is what exactly you want. And that is limitation that you hit, IMO. (Because depending on how object model from the 1st place, maybe the part you want to planar happens to not suitable any mode, then this method can't help anymore).
     
   • And as I know, there isn't anything can make each selected set of vertices being planared according normal vector of each selected plane individually, at least with default toolset. (Which if exist, it'd solve your problem for usual situaltions -- in a very similar manner that command extrude by normal acts). But if it involved vertices on other face around, then it wouldn't be automatically fix. Still required user manual task.