maya tool similar to max's "edge turn?"
Hello, title says it all...
So... in Maya, I know that you can spin edges (that are visible). And I know that you can view "face triangles" (to view otherwise "invisible" edges.)
But I cannot seem to select these "face triangle edges," or manipulate them. I can create a physical edge, yes, and place it where I want, but if I remove the edge, then maya seems to revert to its own random placement for the "invisible face edge." So, I feel like I have no control over the bend of non-planer quads. And, no, I do not want to model in tris
In max, when you are working with edges, there's a tool called "turn." When selected, it reveals all hidden edges, and allows you to spin them to the angle you want. Turn the tool off, and the selected edge position remains.
Can this be done in Maya? And even if you cannot do this, is there any way to control the position of "invisible edges" in maya? something like a "spin quad?"
Thank you
So... in Maya, I know that you can spin edges (that are visible). And I know that you can view "face triangles" (to view otherwise "invisible" edges.)
But I cannot seem to select these "face triangle edges," or manipulate them. I can create a physical edge, yes, and place it where I want, but if I remove the edge, then maya seems to revert to its own random placement for the "invisible face edge." So, I feel like I have no control over the bend of non-planer quads. And, no, I do not want to model in tris
In max, when you are working with edges, there's a tool called "turn." When selected, it reveals all hidden edges, and allows you to spin them to the angle you want. Turn the tool off, and the selected edge position remains.
Can this be done in Maya? And even if you cannot do this, is there any way to control the position of "invisible edges" in maya? something like a "spin quad?"
Thank you
Replies
You must be working pretty low poly to worry about triangle edges to that extent, unless you're trying to get them to all line up for optimization reasons. Generally if I need a quad to bend the proper direction, I draw in the triangle edge to force it. So basically I triangulate only the polygons I need to so I can still work in quads everywhere else.
If you insist on keeping target polygons quads until the end, you can always mark them with a separate material or assign them to a selection set so you can fix them later, though selection sets do tend to break down if the target polygons are split, extracted, separated, combined, etc.
And, yes, you nailed it, I am working very low poly
I found this script... looks pretty old, but I'll mess around with it later.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/spin-faces
Thanks again!
Or like Bartalon said, you can explicitly draw the edge to force the shape you want. If you're working that low-poly I assume you are going into a game engine, the model ends up completely triangulated anyway!
It's a long story, and not worth rehashing, but this came about as a want to clean up some geo that I exported from Max.
In the end, I prefer to keep clean, easy-on-the-artist's-eyes, quads, while on the author side of my models. Probably just an OCD thing... but other people will be working with these, so yeah, just tryin to keep it clean.
If I was ONLY working in maya, then this would be no problem, I would paint my textures inline with Maya's orientations of the "inviso-edges..." but yeah, texturing elsewhere... so I'll just slice up my quads as needed until I find a better way.
I tried that script, btw, and it's not what I'm looking for. It seems to me that this script has been replaced by Maya's own "spin edge" command.
Kinda funny to me if Maya did not have this feature until around 2007ish.
Oh well, thanks again!