Quad Draw Help

gene098

Hey guys,

First time using Quad Draw and had some questions...
1)i know Ctrl+Shift +Click = Delete a quad point, face, or single edge

However after quads are connected, I can no longer delete a single edge

IT becomes like this...

Anyone have any idea how I could delete only a single edge even after the quads are connected?





2)
For creating an edge loop, its Hold Ctrl + CLick

In the beginning I used to use the ctrl + Clickto make single edges within a quad

However now that the quads are connected I can only make a huge edge loop..

How can I control the edge loop to only single edges within a quad?




3)
The most annoying is when there is a quad that auto merged and how I want it to seperate...
As you can see the moment i move my cursor over that automerged vertex itmoves the faces together...

Is there and way I can cut the vertex and seperate the quads?



4)
I have a mouth tunnel inside the character...

How do I go about retopologizing this?

throttlekitty

For 1,2,3, just delete the face(s) and pull edges back out the way you need them. The alternative is to exit the tool, make a split and go back into quad draw, but I feel it's quicker to stay in and delete. There is no way to detach a face from neighbors, sorry. Also, I find it best to turn off construction history while using this tool, it speeds up the processing during a heavy session, and the history nodes are largely useless in this case.

For the mouth bag, You don't really need fancy topology here, simple box cutting should be sufficient. But in Quad Draw, make sure it's separate geometry from your head while doing retop, and reverse the normals so you don't need to keep the camera inside since QD is view dependent.

gene098

throttlekitty said:

For 1,2,3, just delete the face(s) and pull edges back out the way you need them. The alternative is to exit the tool, make a split and go back into quad draw, but I feel it's quicker to stay in and delete. There is no way to detach a face from neighbors, sorry. Also, I find it best to turn off construction history while using this tool, it speeds up the processing during a heavy session, and the history nodes are largely useless in this case.

For the mouth bag, You don't really need fancy topology here, simple box cutting should be sufficient. But in Quad Draw, make sure it's separate geometry from your head while doing retop, and reverse the normals so you don't need to keep the camera inside since QD is view dependent.

Hi Im very new to the technicalities...

1) How do i "make a split"?

2) How do I turn off construction history?
(Does this make it so that if I want ot use Ctrl Z it wont work?)

3) How do I do this?
 "simple box cutting should be sufficient."

4) Or this?
"In Quad Draw, make sure it's separate geometry from your head while doing retop, and reverse the normals so you don't need to keep the camera inside since QD is view dependent."

throttlekitty

terribly sorry!

1) Multi-cut tool on a polygon object.
-laaate edit! I answered that poorly. You can select a vertex, shift-rmb and select Detach to split at just that vertex. This also works on faces and edges.
2)  It's the button with the clock; blue means it's enabled. Undo will still work, but actions like Bevel or Extrude are no longer editable. The way construction history works is a series of nodes that contain operators that work in a chain. The idea is that you can do something like a bevel, do a few other things, and still be able to come back and change the bevel attributes later. You can view the nodes on a model in the Channel Box window.

4) the menu Mesh Display>Reverse is under the normals header. If you try to use quad draw on an inverted model, you'll find it snaps to the opposite side. Imagine a sphere, but it's inside-out so the back is the front, so if you painted with a brush, you'd paint the back-front, not the front that's closer to you since it's facing the other way.

3) Box modeling is an old term now, come to think of it... It's essentially using the basic modeling tools like multi-cut, extrude, bevel, along with pushing polygons/vertices/edges around with the move/rotate/scale tools. I'd like to suggest a tutorial, but I really don't know where the good ones are.

gene098

throttlekitty said:

terribly sorry!

1) Multi-cut tool on a polygon object.
-laaate edit! I answered that poorly. You can select a vertex, shift-rmb and select Detach to split at just that vertex. This also works on faces and edges.
2)  It's the button with the clock; blue means it's enabled. Undo will still work, but actions like Bevel or Extrude are no longer editable. The way construction history works is a series of nodes that contain operators that work in a chain. The idea is that you can do something like a bevel, do a few other things, and still be able to come back and change the bevel attributes later. You can view the nodes on a model in the Channel Box window.

4) the menu Mesh Display>Reverse is under the normals header. If you try to use quad draw on an inverted model, you'll find it snaps to the opposite side. Imagine a sphere, but it's inside-out so the back is the front, so if you painted with a brush, you'd paint the back-front, not the front that's closer to you since it's facing the other way.

3) Box modeling is an old term now, come to think of it... It's essentially using the basic modeling tools like multi-cut, extrude, bevel, along with pushing polygons/vertices/edges around with the move/rotate/scale tools. I'd like to suggest a tutorial, but I really don't know where the good ones are.

Thanks for the reply man!

I ve been spending the last couple days trying it all out and....

1)The shift rmb to get the detach function i dont have that?
heres what i get
[IMG]http://img.techpowerup.org/170115/2017-01-15-17h48-51.jpg[/IMG]

2) I can understand this...

"the menu Mesh Display>Reverse is under the normals header. If you try to use quad draw on an inverted model, you'll find it snaps to the opposite side. Imagine a sphere, but it's inside-out so the back is the front, so if you painted with a brush, you'd paint the back-front, not the front that's closer to you since it's facing the other way. "

But I dont get how I can even get to the inside of the mouth right now?
Its blocked off by the front of the mouth...

And if I do them as seperate geometries how do I combine them later on?

throttlekitty

Hey, I saw your other thread about the symmetry thing, I don't know the answer to that one, sorry.

The shift-rmb marking menu is context sensitive, you'd need to be in a component mode (vert/edge/face) on the mesh you want to edit and have something selected for it to appear. Same with separate, you can select some faces, shift-rmb >Separate to pull those off into a new object. Combine works similarly, select two or more objects, shift-rmb and Combine. I call out the marking menus since I use them constantly, these are all functions in the top menus, but I'm too lazy to look up which ones.

So, getting inside the mouth. I assume that you're working on someone elses model that you've imported. If the mouth parts are separate objects, you can find them in the Outliner. If they are, you can move them around, hide the other objects, or use the panel menu's Show>Isolate Selected. If the whole thing is one model, you'll have some fun times ahead with getting a selection, so here's some tips: Double-clicking a face will select everything that's welded to it, AKA Shell. If you find the mouthbag is welded to the head, you could select an edge loop along the inside of the mouth and Detach, leaving you with an easy selection of the mouth interior. Or, if the UVs are easy to get to, you can make a selection from that. Or the < and > keys will contract or expand a selection.

gene098

throttlekitty said:

Hey, I saw your other thread about the symmetry thing, I don't know the answer to that one, sorry.

The shift-rmb marking menu is context sensitive, you'd need to be in a component mode (vert/edge/face) on the mesh you want to edit and have something selected for it to appear. Same with separate, you can select some faces, shift-rmb >Separate to pull those off into a new object. Combine works similarly, select two or more objects, shift-rmb and Combine. I call out the marking menus since I use them constantly, these are all functions in the top menus, but I'm too lazy to look up which ones.

So, getting inside the mouth. I assume that you're working on someone elses model that you've imported. If the mouth parts are separate objects, you can find them in the Outliner. If they are, you can move them around, hide the other objects, or use the panel menu's Show>Isolate Selected. If the whole thing is one model, you'll have some fun times ahead with getting a selection, so here's some tips: Double-clicking a face will select everything that's welded to it, AKA Shell. If you find the mouthbag is welded to the head, you could select an edge loop along the inside of the mouth and Detach, leaving you with an easy selection of the mouth interior. Or, if the UVs are easy to get to, you can make a selection from that. Or the < and > keys will contract or expand a selection.

Hey man great idea!

So I ended up going back in ZBrush to isolate the mouth tunnel and export it as an obj and now in maya i reveresed the normals like you said and can work on it with quad draw...

Question...
After I finished working on it,
Do I need to re reverse the normals? Or can I leave it as it is?

And also how do I connect the seperate geometry of the mouth tunnel and the outside face?
(Would I reverse the normals and then combine the edges of each of the mouth tunnel and insde of head geometries?)

gene098

throttlekitty said:

Hey, I saw your other thread about the symmetry thing, I don't know the answer to that one, sorry.

The shift-rmb marking menu is context sensitive, you'd need to be in a component mode (vert/edge/face) on the mesh you want to edit and have something selected for it to appear. Same with separate, you can select some faces, shift-rmb >Separate to pull those off into a new object. Combine works similarly, select two or more objects, shift-rmb and Combine. I call out the marking menus since I use them constantly, these are all functions in the top menus, but I'm too lazy to look up which ones.

Hey So it worked! Thanks so much man!

The only thing is the detach only works on the opposite faces of the face that I used detach on?
How can it be done to be symmetrical and applied to both?(In the picture....Left is detached, Right was the one I did...
Shift-rmb>Press Q to be in Selection mode>Select only one of the faces>Detach it>(In component mode=Face Mode for what I just did(But vertex face and Vertex mode are also component modes)))

UPDATE)
Actually I just discovered that both faces are detached.

HOWEVER when going back into quad draw mode to move the vertex,
Say i decide to move the one on the right, then the left faces are seperated
But if I now go and move the vertex on the left the Right side gets seperated

So both are detached!

HOwever...this not in synic movement of the vertexes causes loss in symmetry...
As I will post

gene098

And btw I could see a Detach Faces option
but no "Seperate" faces option like you mentioned?

throttlekitty

My bad, it's Extract, not Separate, the option box has a check to pull the extracted face into a new object. I actually use this script instead of extract, as it's less likely to fuxx0r per-face material assignment, but that's off topic.

Yes, you'll want to re-reverse the normals on the mouthbag. It's typical for a game engine to render meshes single-sided, so you'd see through to the world when the character opens their mouth. Combining it back with the head is up to you, or whatever needs the head animations need to have. It could easily exist as its own object or part of the head. If you do join them, then yes, you'd want to also weld the verts along the mouth and mouthbag.

I tend not to use Maya's symmetry because of things like that, as much as it's improved over the years and I can be pretty anal, but I don't do much character stuff these days. (I stick with the old-school method where you duplicate half the mesh as an instance with the scale inverted) Autodesk has this page up on re-symmetrizing, i've honestly never used that before. Symmetry has a few options for how it's applied, sometimes it's best to leave it to World or Object space, other times it's better to use Component.

gene098

throttlekitty said:

(I stick with the old-school method where you duplicate half the mesh as an instance with the scale inverted) Autodesk has this page up on re-symmetrizing, i've honestly never used that before. Symmetry has a few options for how it's applied, sometimes it's best to leave it to World or Object space, other times it's better to use Component.

For the old school method, how does that work with more realistic characters?
Because when sculpting realism, the sculptors purposely use asymmetry on the face to make it more realistic.

__________________________________

Actually now that I think about it...my model isnt perfectly symmetrical either...

Would a symmetrical retopology on live surface adapt itself to the asymmetries?
Update) Just found out, what the retopology does on live surface is it takes the average of both side and that becomes the retopo.
So if the left side is a peak and the right side if flat, the retopo becomes half a peak on both sides but the resulting topology is still symmetrical.

then would that mean that the asymmetry doesnt really affect the normal maps?
For this I guess its probably not true since a lot of Triple A studios have symmetrical retopos on high realistic char. Like Uncarted 4 and its still works fine.

_________________________________
I guess my real question would be,
how do I split the model perfectly along the half mark line to start retopo?

throttlekitty

I'm the wrong person to ask about that level of realism. I'd imagine it would be easier to lay out the geometry first, then work on asymmetry second, since you'd already have a finished sculpt to snap to at any point. Not much sense in trying to wrangle assymetry while laying out the retopologized geometry and fighting against the tools.

I'm not sure I understand your question exactly here, I think you're overthinking a step?

gene098

throttlekitty said:

I'm the wrong person to ask about that level of realism. I'd imagine it would be easier to lay out the geometry first, then work on asymmetry second, since you'd already have a finished sculpt to snap to at any point. Not much sense in trying to wrangle assymetry while laying out the retopologized geometry and fighting against the tools.

I'm not sure I understand your question exactly here, I think you're overthinking a step?

Yeah youre right, thanks for everything kitty.
You really explained everything really well, Im very grateful