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[aps]gnat

Model boolean subtraction

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I have an existing model and I want to add more detail. As part of the process I want to do boolean subtraction of one model primative from another.

Example in other 3d programs is where you can stick a bar through a sphere and "make" a sphere gain a hole.

Any way to do similar in o2 ?

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As i was told here 3 years ago, sadly there is no such option in o2. But you can use alternative 3d modelling software as it was suggested and try to import back your work in O2

edit : oops i have not noticed it was the arma section of o2

Disregard my reply as it was refering to the OFP version of o2 and only 100% valid for it.

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Gnat, did you learn anything new about this?

I'm curious if the answer is actually 'no'.

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See your msg. box for details....

how about sharing that info with the rest of us............ please.

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Booleans are a bad idea anyways. If the program you use doesn't crash, it will make a mess of your geo. If you want to take a sphere and put a cylindrical hole in it, try taking a sphere, and creating a cylinder with the same number of sides. Invert the normals on the cylinder, place it as close as you can to where you want the hole to be, size it up and align its vertices to the edges of the sphere. Then, modify the sphere, cutting holes where appropriate, join the objects, and then weld the vertices. You should now have a sphere with a hole in it and very clean geo.

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Ok, I did a boolean subtraction on a KAC SR25 RIS I modeled to add 20 holes total. This will be used as the high poly reference for generating normal/AO maps. I made sure to triangulate after the subtraction.

After adding the xform modifier (you only need to add it, right?) and exporting to 3ds, upon import to O2, it looks like an explosion went off inside the RIS and knocked the verts all over the place.

Exporting as an OBJ and importing to O2 yields an "integrity error"

Any idea what went wrong?

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Show us the mesh. Make sure that you welded and cleaned the boolean cuts. Make sure that you converted into editable poly or mesh after converting it to xform, just converting it to xform won't be enough.

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Booleans are a bad idea anyways.  If the program you use doesn't crash, it will make a mess of your geo.

I will have to disagree with you about the "bad idea anyways". Boolean operations are extremely useful to have in 3D modelling.

And I never had any 3D modelling program crash when doing boolean operations. Could you perhaps provide examples of which programs tend to crash when doing boolean operations?

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Show us the mesh. Make sure that you welded and cleaned the boolean cuts.

I definitely didn't do this. I'm actually not sure what it is smile_o.gif

Whats involved? Can you give me an idea?

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I agree with baddo, can't see you logic with plaintiff1 dis'ing booleans...

I don't have a problem creating booleans in Modo. And, since I created my o2->modo and modo->o2 converters it's takes me minutes to take existing o2 geom. and export to modo, boolean it and bring it back... if necessary.

You don't even have to use modo... the .lwo format should load up well in one of the free modelling tools that can deal with lightwave model format.

The O2 features of bringing in .3ds or .obj is painful... use my .lwo converters and you'll save yourself a lot of grief.

anyway, enough of a plug...

@scubaman3D... you'll probably find in the .obj there'll be some poly's detailed with <3 verts or >4 verts I'd say... probably, but only a guess...

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I just graduated from one of the top 3d schools in the world.. I've had the big three xsi, maya, and max crash on me during boolean operations. They make shitacular geo and they are a pain in the ass. You can get better results by doing it by hand. If you do it properly, you don't have to clean up afterwards. If you don't agree, that's fine. Go ahead and do whatever way you want.

I think that you want to reset the xform, not just apply the modifier. I believe 'reset xform' is under the utilities tab (the hammer looking tab). You'll then have an 'reset xform' modifier on each object. You can then collapse the stack. If that doesn't work, and I will not be surprised if it doesn't, what can I say? Booleans are shit.

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I just graduated from one of the top 3d schools in the world...

well... that's us told... it's seems that booleans really are 'shit' then...

@scubaman3D... I recommend you take his advice and do it by hand in Max if you must as obviously the 'big 3' don't really do 'it' very well...

But also, once the onerous task finished... I'd see if there is some way you can get your mesh out of max into .lwo format in good order. And, then use my lwo2p3dm.exe tool...

Whatever prog. you do get your geom finally done in... I recommend that you do not use .3ds & .obj formats to get geom. into O2PE... I know the p3dm mlod file format pretty much inside and out... and .lwo format is much closer in comparitive features to p3dm's... that's why I chose it as the medium to get my stuff in and out of O2PE.

There are a few tools around the net for going from .3ds to .lwo I'm sure you can track down... good luck.

@plaintiff1... obviously congratulations are in order... congrats. I'm sure you'll be an asset to the world of 3d artistry.

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Hmm, what advantages does lwo offer?

Also, booleans work perfectly fine for low poly clean meshes. However, using them in large numbers with a complex mesh is not good. Booleans can work well on flat surfaces, on curves they create a big mess.

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@ Synide: thanks for the tips I'll try importing from .lwo. I found the p3d to lwo converter but where is the lwo to p3d?

@mehman: this might be my problem...the boolean is on a curvy surface before the cut.

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Hmm, what advantages does lwo offer?

It's not so much the advantages... I'm certainly not extolling the virtues of .lwo... but, as I said... the features set that is supported in O2PE by the p3dm mlod format... imo, more closely resembles the feature set in .lwo than both .3ds and .obj... just an opinion though, although this opinion is based on having to study both p3dm & lwo quite thoroughly.

At the end of it I had gained a new appreciation of the p3dm format... it's straight forward, does what should, is clean and simple and looks like it's been designed with the future in mind... ie. multiple UV sets... which should sit quite nicely into the texture array'ing techniques and a few other techniques that BIS seem to be lining themselves up for in the next 18/24 months as more and more people are dx10 enabled...

Also, I gained an appreciation of Lux's implementation of .lwo, that being .lxo... very impressed... but I digress...

The above coupled with lxo2p3dm.exe will get you better results into O2PE than O2PE>Import>3DS/OBJ will...

Still use Max or whatever you like, not saying don't... I'm just saying you might wanna try instead of going Max>.3ds/.obj>O2PE... try Max>lwo>O2PE... via the converter.

Dunno if there are any good wholesome Max->lwo conversion methods... gave up on Max yonks ago so I don't keep abreast of it's usage etc. I might revisit Autodesk in a couple of years whenever the love child of max/maya/mudbox is born...

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I just graduated from one of the top 3d schools in the world...

well... that's us told... it's seems that booleans really are 'shit' then...

@scubaman3D... I recommend you take his advice and do it by hand in Max if you must as obviously the 'big 3' don't really do 'it' very well...

But also, once the onerous task finished... I'd see if there is some way you can get your mesh out of max into .lwo format in good order. And, then use my lwo2p3dm.exe tool...

Whatever prog. you do get your geom finally done in... I recommend that you do not use .3ds & .obj formats to get geom. into O2PE... I know the p3dm mlod file format pretty much inside and out... and .lwo format is much closer in comparitive features to p3dm's... that's why I chose it as the medium to get my stuff in and out of O2PE.

There are a few tools around the net for going from .3ds to .lwo I'm sure you can track down... good luck.

@plaintiff1... obviously congratulations are in order... congrats. I'm sure you'll be an asset to the world of 3d artistry.

You asked by what logic I say that booleans are crap. I say that I have high quality professional training. This is logical, I don't see what you're objecting to.

Also, are you attempting to debunk my premise that Max, Maya, and XSI are the three most popular 3d apps? There are some studios out there that use other ones but these would be the three that you're likely to see at this moment in time. AFAIK no software application does booleans that great. Sometimes the extent to which they screw up your model is not evident until later, when the whole model disappears on you or you are unable to export it.

Perhaps you would like to actually put up an argument or a discussion instead of being a sarcastic troll?

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Well thanks to Synide's lwo/p3d converters here's what I've got now:

srrisxn2.jpg

Thanks everyone for the help.

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Quote[/b] ]Perhaps you would like to actually put up an argument or a discussion instead of being a sarcastic troll?

I'm sorry, I won't bite that hook plaintiff1. Not, that I can't, it's just your not worth the effort... and, i'd say it's probably you that's trolling sunshine, not I...

I provide solutions... instead of rhetoric.

@scubaman3D... cool... you could get a nice new muzzleflash anim. happening with that one!

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Hi Synide,

Does yout lwo/p3d tools allow any texture mapping (from O2) to survive going to Modo and back ?

(Not enough experience with Modo to prove the Textures are there, still in place)

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Gnat @ June 08 2008,14:57)]Hi Synide,

Does yout lwo/p3d tools allow any texture mapping (from O2) to survive going to Modo and back ?

(Not enough experience with Modo to prove the Textures are there, still in place)

Yes.

But, you probably don't need to use Modo... I haven't fully tried .lwo file formats created by other 3D tools or applications(Eg. Deep Exploration by RightHemishpere or Blender.).

But, I'd imagine they come into O2PE handily.

If they don't I can always modify the lxo2p3dm.exe tool to accomodate.

I'm sure you can still use Max all the time and find something that will get it from there into .lwo format.

I do know that the Point Oven .lwo import/export for XSI is not fully featured... that's why I've been slooowwwwly writing a plugin for XSI to deal with those issues... but, that project has been dropping down the list.

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Quote[/b] ]Perhaps you would like to actually put up an argument or a discussion instead of being a sarcastic troll?

I'm sorry, I won't bite that hook plaintiff1. Not, that I can't, it's just your not worth the effort... and, i'd say it's probably you that's trolling sunshine, not I...

I provide solutions... instead of rhetoric.

@scubaman3D... cool... you could get a nice new muzzleflash anim. happening with that one!

I provided an alternative to using booleans in my first answer. I don't see how you can consider that I'm the one who's trolling. I'm not the one attacking your education, calling you names. This seems to be your tact in this situation. Also, I think I explained my point of view quite clearly. It's quite obvious that you're trying to wind me up, and I'm wondering what your problem is.

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Synide, plaintiff1

Take your stuff to private and don't clutter the topic with your personal differences, ok?

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..... Then, modify the sphere, cutting holes where appropriate, join the objects, and then weld the vertices.  You should now have a sphere with a hole in it and very clean geo.

OK, thanks, but OK if I was using (hence experienced) another 3D program. But with O2 that method is WAY too fiddly and trying to do that on curved surfaces usually always results in faces that don't *quite* follow the curve.

Flat surfaces, no problemo

@Synide

Thanks. BTW, nice video tuts.

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